Taking life philosophically.
16 May 2010
More than a hundred years after Nietzsche, it is a commonplace to say that people have lost their faith in most systems of value. We are not complete nihilists, but it would perhaps be impossible to be much closer to nihilism than we already are. Our individualism and our economy of preferences seems to be the basic problem with all systems of value: true value cannot be expressed in systems because it depends on individual preferences. Value is always value for someone.
Yet we want more. Preferences are not enough, because we know we might have mistaken preferences. We do not care much if we do not always read the best books or listen to the best music, but we do care if we live well. It is possible to think of life plans as preferences, but at least they should be informed preferences. Nobody wants to waste his life.
Some guiding principles remain in addition to individual preferences. Perhaps the most important is our faith in the goodness of nature. I am not talking about nature as an all-knowing, nurturing Mother Earth. What I have in mind is the vague idea that the more natural something is, the better it is. This is not a whole system or ideology but a kind of fallback principle (or a rule of thumb): other things being equal, what is more natural is better. For example, if you have two kinds of yoghurt that taste more or less the same, the one with fewer artificial ingredients is better.
So far the principle seems moderate and perhaps quite useful. But its full significance only becomes apparent when you realize that we really do not think we know much about the good life. This means that in the absence of knowledge we apply the fallback principle not just in our choice of yoghurt but in more important choices as well. One of these choices is the choice of the kind of life we lead. In short, I think that deep down, we believe that the best kind of life is one that allows us to follow our natural impulses. Because we do not know a lot about life, biology seems able to teach us something at least.
I talk about natural impulses but I mean also those impulses that build on them. For example, it is not a natural impulse to want to have a big house and lots of money. But such things symbolize social status, and the urge to improve one’s position in a social hierarchy has a trivial evolutionary explanation. Everyone wants to be on top of the pecking order.
Most of the things we do can be explained in a similar fashion, and not just because we cannot escape the limitations biology sets us. I think that one reason we seem like animals is that we believe we are only animals and that because we believe so, we have made our lives reflect that belief.
This is sometimes considered to be a misconception, on the grounds that the belief in evolution does not have or entail any prescriptive, moral content. It is argued that the theory of evolution does not offer a rational justification for behaving like an animal. This argument is itself weak, as it makes the unsupported assumption that people are only persuaded by reason. The theory of evolution may not offer a rational justification for behaving like an animal, but in many people’s minds it does seem to offer a persuasive justification for doing so.
If what I have said until now is at least mostly right, how should we conclude? It seems to me that the faith in the goodness of nature is often relatively harmless and even useful. (However, this is not always the case.) At least it appears to be better than some of the alternatives that ignore the extent to which we really are animals.
One of the most serious problems in believing that what is natural is good is the error is that living in a natural way makes you happy. Even in this belief there is a grain of truth: it is true that when the most important biological impulses are systematically repressed, people will be unhappy. The history of totalitarianism is proof of this. But it does not follow that when those impulses are not repressed, people will be happy.
Jane Collingwood summarizes the situation nicely. To evolutionary mechanisms it makes no difference whether or not the beings that embody those mechanisms are happy or not. What matters is achievement, adaptation and survival, and ultimately the survival of the genes. A natural life may be a happy one, but it may just as well be an unhappy one. In nature, happiness is simply irrelevant.
The journal of Timo Laine (contact information). Cultural commentary from the perspective of a philosophy student in Helsinki.