Urvashie Pereira

IB Philosophy

A large percentage of the philosophical efforts of the past few millennia have been
directed towards coming up with theories that answer the question: what is the
purpose of life? The cartoon itself used as the stimulus features a representation of a
human, placed on top of a globe, questioning why they have been put on this planet;
the word put suggests that the cartoon favors a deliberate purpose stance, and is
suggesting that our purpose may lie behind the intent of a greater designer. Personally,
I would argue that this stance is flawed in the sense that it relies on the existence of a
higher power to have created our purpose, and if this designer does not exist, it
effectively would mean - under this view - that we have no purpose. In addition,
philosophical debate has highlighted the fact that even if a designer did exist, who did
indeed create us to have a purpose (as vacuum cleaners, for example, were created
by humans for the purpose of cleaning), once we complete that purpose, would that
mean we are rendered useless? A response to this is to say that we have an ongoing
purpose, otherwise known as a process type of purpose. Even then, our purpose is
ambiguous, and relies on the delicate and controversial philosophy of determining the
intent and nature of our creator. As such, the approaches to existential anxiety I am
going to be exploring in this essay are that of Albert Camus and Charles Darwin: the
latter of whom argues that our purpose is explained by empirical processes and the
former of whom argues that we have no purpose at all.
Camus, known as the existentialist in denial, infamously argued that God is dead,
life is absurd, and as a result of this, life is meaningless. Each of his statements are
intrinsically linked in the sense that through arguing that there is no God, Camus
maintains that humans are free from pandering to the whims of their creator: however,
if there is no creator, there is no explanation for the first cause, and so all preceding
causes after that lose their meaning. For example, many Christians ethical values
stem from the fact that the Bible states that there is a God, the creator and first cause,
who punishes people for wrongdoing; however, if as Camus argues there is no
God, then ethics, as Christians see them, cease to have meaning: hence Camus
argument that life is meaningless. In interesting simultaneous contrast and agreement
with Camus view, Sartre also argued that humans should not have to adhere to the
intentions and will of a creator, but he veers away from Camus approach in his
argument that humans have the power to create themselves, and should not consider
themselves as objects than subjects (to do so in Sartres eyes is to deny your freedom
and engage in bad faith.) An interesting problem with Sartres take can be seen in a
situation such as the one present in the media recently where a four-month-old baby
was arrested for having shot his mother with his fathers gun. Most child development
specialists would agree that the baby would have had absolutely no idea what he was
doing, let alone was able to form a serious intention behind it, and as such charges
were dropped. However, under this particular element of Sartres logic, the infant had
the means to create himself as whatever he wanted to be, and so should have been put
in jail. This is why I favor Camus approach, particularly with regards to his
arguments on the absurdity of life; just as the concept of a human baby knowingly
killing his mother with his fathers gun is absurd, life itself is absurd. The myth of
Sisyphus is Camus crowning point here: cursed by the Gods for an unknown reason,
Sisyphus was doomed in the underworld to push a boulder up a hill for no purpose at
all, other than to watch it roll back down again once he had reached the top. However,
had Sisyphus been completely oblivious to the fact that this was what was going on,
his punishment would not have been nearly as harrowing; the most horrific aspect of
it all was the fact that he could comprehend the absurdity and meaninglessness of his

Urvashie Pereira

IB Philosophy

situation. And this is perhaps the greatest facet to both simultaneously dislike and
champion about Camus view while it suggests that life has no meaning, it is rather
refreshing to think that perhaps the point is that there is none, and in any case as
with Sisyphus maybe we are all better off living our lives without stressing about
the meaningless of life, as that is arguably the only terrible thing about meaningless:
comprehending that there is in fact no meaning.
The second approach to the question of the purpose of life, in debatable opposition to
Camus approach, are the philosophical implications behind Charles Darwins theory
of evolution. Darwin states, through his notions of natural selection and survival of
the fittest, that humans have the natural purpose of fighting to survive and procreate,
to pass their genes on to future generations. A large advantage Darwins approach has
is that it is backed up by empirical evidence; we can see, for example, that most
animals including humans display mating instincts, and his theories of evolution
and natural selection are evident through scientific studies he carried out, such as
looking at birds in the Galapagos islands. One large issue with Darwins approach is
that you can still question the purpose of his suggested purpose, so as to speak: you
could ask why do we want to survive to reproduce and pass our genes on? Darwins
approach has the problem of an infinite regress, as what is the final outcome for the
survival of all the generations of mankind? Would Darwin have been able to suggest a
purpose for the many species that were banished from the evolutionary tree? I could
try to respond to this in the way I believe he would have, and say that these species
paved the evolutionary framework for other species to eventually evolve, but that still
does not answer the question of the ultimate destination of evolution. Overall,
Darwins scientific approach to the purpose of life simply cannot contain the same
level of insight that Camus can, as due to it following the nature of most scientific
theory, its philosophical implications fail to address the question of the true and
final human purpose.
In conclusion, it is my view that there is no purpose of life, with respect to Camus
idea of absurdity, and that absurdity itself is one of the beauties of living. While
Camus contemplated the idea of philosophical suicide as a viable answer to the fact
that life has no purpose (he highlighted the fact that if life has no purpose, then what
is the point of living?), I feel we should question whether life needs to have a purpose
to be fulfilling. For example, does art need to have a purpose for it to be considered
beautiful? Conversely, does it have to be beautiful for it to have a purpose? Many
people would argue that yes, art is defined as something that is beautiful, but an
equally impressive number would argue that it is defined as something that is not
beautiful: something that is bold and proud and bare in its ugliness. The relativeness
of terms such as beauty has us similarly questioning the relativeness of terms such as
purpose and meaning. The question is, could we ever be happy with our purpose
simply being undefined, or do we need our purpose to be defined in order to feel
fulfilled? I would argue the negative, that fulfillment is an entirely different idea to
purpose; this could be supported by Darwins ideas in the sense that many animals
happily live their lives without logically having any idea with regards to what their
purpose is. The question of whether what applies to animals applies to humans too is,
however, another controversial question, and is best left for another discussion and
another essay.