Can Only Human Lives Be Meaningful?

Abstract

Duncan Purves and Nicolas Delon have argued that one’s life will be meaningful to the extent that one contributes to valuable states of affairs and this contribution is a result of one’s intentional actions. They then argue, contrary to some theorists’ intuitions, that non-human animals are capable of fulfilling these requirements, and that this finding might entail important things for the animal ethics movement. In this paper, I also argue that things besides human beings can have meaningful existences, but I disagree with Purves and Delon’s theory of meaning, and some of the practical implications they suggest arise from their conclusion. Specifically, I argue that Purves and Delon are wrong to suggest that intentional agency is necessary for one’s life to be meaningful; contributing to valuable states of affairs can be sufficient by itself. Purves and Delon’s objection to such a claim is that it would allow even inanimate objects’ existences to count as meaningful. However, while I accept this consequence, I argue that it only seems counterintuitive because of two false beliefs they appear to hold: that some X cannot have a meaningful existence without that meaning (a) making X better off or (b) giving X reasons for pride.

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to the attendees of the University of Leeds’ 2016 ‘Animals and Death’ conference, several anonymous reviewers, and many members of the University of Sheffield’s Department of Philosophy, for their helpful feedback on earlier versions of this paper, Christopher Bennett in particular.

Notes

1 It is worth noting here that even the term ‘non-human animals’ is vague, encompassing creatures of very different capacities. Unfortunately, to work through this paper taking each animal individually would be an impossible task, so for now I will continue using Smoky and Laika as case studies and the umbrella term ‘animals’ to refer to all non-human creatures.

2 However, Purves and Delon (2017, p. 9) point out that, if fulfilment is seen as requiring some conscious evaluation using propositional attitudes, then this might risk ruling animals out.

3 For a thorough list of the examples of dull and occasionally revolting activities given in the literature, see Metz 2013, p. 175.

4 In fact, Smuts (2013, p. 558) himself is open to this eventuality, stating that he sees ‘no reason to be speciesist about meaning’.

5 In fact, I think there may be other kinds of meaningfulness that are invoked by discussions of life’s meaningfulness as well, but for simplicity here I will only talk about the kinds of meaningfulness constituted by significance and purposefulness.

6 Interestingly, as Purves and Delon (2017, p.1 4) themselves note, Fleming’s discovery of penicillin itself was actually ‘entirely unintended’, and so any informed description of this event as meaningful is likely to be referring specifically to the magnitude or value of its consequences, rather than its purposefulness (since it involved very little).

7 I am not arguing that any particular value condition should necessarily be included, however, since there are also some reasons for thinking that, at least in the case of S-Meaning, a life could be meaningful through producing substantial but objectively negative effects. For example, Bradford (2015, p. 5) points out that common suggestions of meaningful historical events include World War II and 9/11. These are clearly significant but for doing harm, indicating, perhaps, that meaningfulness of the S-Meaning variety does not necessarily require something’s impact to be objectively valuable. This question has little bearing on the remainder of my arguments, however, so I will put it aside.

8 In fact, Purves and Delon (2017, p. 8) would presumably agree here, though because they propose that such a seemingly wasted life would in fact constitute some value, even if it didn’t make any impact.

9 For more examples of this thought being expressed, see Blackburn, 2001, p. 79; Seachris, 2011, p. 151; Kolers, 2016, p. 12; Vohanka and Vohankova, 2011, p. 4.

10 Not all theorists do this, however; some, such as Timothy Mawson (2010), acknowledge that what we call ‘meaningfulness’ can actually be a host of different concepts bundled together under one name. Then there are others, such as Joshua Seachris (2009), who try to wrestle these different ideas back together, grounded by a single underlying concept of what meaning really is, deep down.

11 This first assumption is perhaps more salient in the case of Evers and van Smeden, since Purves and Delon (2017, p. 18) explicitly don’t commit themselves to it. Nevertheless, they do remark upon the plausibility of the claim that the meaningfulness of one’s life could be directly and positively related to their interests (p. 19) and, even if they do not explicitly support it, the assumption may still be influencing their intuitions behind the scenes.

12 For instance, they note that ‘The distinction between “internal” and “external” meaning helps to capture the sense in which a subject’s (externally) meaningful life need not be meaningful to her (i.e., internally)’ (p. 15).

13 Interestingly, these confusions can be seen as connected, as I noted above, if we assume that meaningfulness giving us reasons for pride is something that would ensure it benefited us. That way Purves and Delon’s purposefulness requirement would serve to both eliminate inanimate objects and ensure that meaningfulness was always good for us by ruling out all non-prideworthy sorts of meaningfulness, which may not be good for us, from counting as meaningfulness at all.

14 Or, alternatively, that it is simply objectively good for human beings to have lives filled with purposefulness and significance.