How is Life Justified?

[madnak]

[ QUOTE ]
I think everyone, at some point, must come up with a good reason to themselves to not commit suicide.

[/ QUOTE ]

Fear?

Really, it's just not that dramatic. You're speaking as though suicide is the "default" course of action. That doesn't make sense, particularly if life is a pleasurable experience. My life doesn't have to have some shattering meaning behind it. In fact, it probably doesn't. And life is rationally amoral, not immoral. Just like everything else. Reason can't generate a moral standard, it can only proceed from a moral premise to a moral conclusion.

[madnak]

[ QUOTE ]
I offer you a tautology:

1. The universe has ultimate meaning.
2. It doesn't.

Pick the second and even your question has no meaning.

[/ QUOTE ]

That's not even close to a tautology, unless by "tautology" you mean "fallacy."

First, the conclusion you're looking for is that the question has no ultimate meaning, not that it has no meaning. You can't just "hide" the ultimate part, especially not if you're claiming to be logical.

Second, just because the universe has no ultimate meaning doesn't mean that its constituents don't. "This apple has no meaning, but its seeds do" is not an inherently contradictory statement. If you want to exclude it you need to frame your argument more rigorously.

And third, you haven't justified your assumption that the question is a component of the universe in the first place. In fact many philosophies would say it isn't. The question may be directed toward transcending the universe, for example.

If you wanted to describe a tautology, you'd say...

Nothing in the universe has any meaning at all. Your question is something in the universe. Therefore, your question has no meaning at all.

[FortunaMaximus]

Did you have to justify yourself as you came screaming out of the womb?

Why do you have to, suddenly, as an adult? I mean, do the rules change? That's a system artifice anyway. Turned the age of majority? Good for you. Have some booze and smokes. Guess what? They're bad for you.

<groans>

[valenzuela]

I just do what nature tells me to do, if I dont obey my hypothalamus punishes me. However if I satisfy nature demands my hypothalamus gives me happiness.

[evolvedForm]

I think most people who replied ignored or side-stepped the crux of the issue here. The issue is that you ALL seek to justify life every day by the actions you make and thoughts you think. That you aren't always aware of it is not proof against it.

Some of you said things like, "it's just what a human does. Humans would rather live, or reproduce, or do this or that, because we are biologically wired to." This also misses the point. We are not simply like the rest of the animals: we desire to know the world and to understand WHY. We can look beyond the pleasures of the here and now, and look for distant pleasures. We can find an intellectual displeasure with the world and how unsatisfactory it is: I don't believe those who say it is all well and good. The world is not as it SHOULD be: our ability to say "SHOULD" is the crux of the problem. In a fundamental way, we do not allign with the world.

The answers so far given as to what justifies life have been negligible. The reason, as far as I can tell, is that life's worth has been taken for granted. But life does not have worth in itself. Worth is strictly a human valuation; something we assign to Life. How much worth to give it is THE question. Another question is: what makes it valuable?

[David Sklansky]

"Without aesthetics, life would be fundamentally immoral."

Is that true for platypi as well?

[evolvedForm]

I don't mean suicide is the default course of action, but that we all have moments where death seems better.

"life is rationally amoral, not immoral."

Moral and immoral are human terms. Life is often immoral to us (i.e. we condemn it as immoral).

[evolvedForm]

At the risk of seeming speciesist, platypi lack the necessary capacities for treating life in moral terms.

[vhawk01]

[ QUOTE ]
I don't mean suicide is the default course of action, but that we all have moments where death seems better.

"life is rationally amoral, not immoral."

Moral and immoral are human terms. Life is often immoral to us (i.e. we condemn it as immoral).

[/ QUOTE ]

Then I am confused. Are you asking why, when these times that death seems better than living, why few choose suicide? I don't exactly know, but I would guess fear and bioligical self-preservation instinct play a pretty big role. If you are asking me if I intellectually would condone suicide in those circumstances...absolutely.

[Zeno]

[ QUOTE ]
How is Life Justified?

[/ QUOTE ]

It isn't. Why would you think justification (just to yourself or to others also) is needed?

-Zeno