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AC asked:
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What is the basic element in all things that can be known by reason or learned from experience that
gives meaning in our life, leading us to right conduct?
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Let me put it this way. Suppose that you were a creature totally alone, floating in space, the only living
creature in the universe. Ok? Now: what gives meaning to your life? Where does your morality come
from, what would it be, and why?
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Well, how about this: suppose you were an animal living on a planet somewhere, and somehow you
achieved consciousness. There you are, surrounded by other animals who have notachieved
consciousness. Now, again, what gives meaning to your life? Why?
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Or, to take a more familiar example, suppose you were an animal living with other conscious animals,
on a planet somewhere. What gives meaning to your life? Why?
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Would the meaning of your life be different in each of these cases? In what way? What would justify
those differences? In other words, how would you know that whatever the meaning of your life was,
whatever you createdit to be, was what it shouldbe? Well in the first two cases you would only have
yourself to go on. In the last, you could either let another tellyou what your meaning should be, or
you could create one for yourself and ignore the others. Or you could create one then argue with
others about whether yours or theirs were best. Or you could try to compromise between them all; or
you could try to find what they all had in common. But what justifies any of thosealternatives? Where
do the standards come from for deciding how to choosebetween these alternatives?
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You could say, "well, I'm just going to pick one". That's usually called "having faith". You could try to
find the most logically consistent one. That's called "coherentism". You could try to reason out the
best basis for picking an alternative. That's called "foundationalism". And what I'm discussing, in
general, is called "metaethics". It's a very complex subject. You might look up some of the basic
literature there, if you're interested.
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Steven Ravett Brown
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