Humans comprise a naturally occurring species, so I would ask, "What purpose could any naturally occurring species serve?" We humans use some naturally occurring species, such as Oncorhynchus nerka (sockeye salmon), as food, but it doesn't follow that the purpose of that species is to be our food. Unless there is a god who created species for this or that purpose, naturally occurring species -- qua species -- have no purposes. Whatever has a purpose must be intentionally given that purpose, and I think that no being exists who could give humanity as a whole a purpose. So I agree with you that humanity as a whole has no purpose. But humans are hardly unique in that way. Moreover, even if there were a being who created all humans for a purpose, I doubt that any humans (much less all of humanity) would thereby acquire that purpose, as I suggested in my answer to Question 27543 . The only way I can see in which humanity as a whole could have a purpose would be if all humans collectively...

I belong firmly to the camp that advocates more thinking rather than less, especially when the issue is philosophical. Take your sample question: What is the meaning of life? I would answer it this way: In the sense in which the question is probably intended, there isn't and couldn't possibly be any such thing as the meaning of life. (See this link for details.) Should that answer make someone sad? I don't think so. When we come to see that the notion of the meaning (i.e., ultimate purpose) of life makes no sense, we can recognize that seeking the meaning of life is a logically misguided quest, like seeking the largest integer. I hope no one feels sad that there's no largest integer. Really it's an empirical question whether thinking about philosophical issues makes people, in general, happier or sadder than they would otherwise be. I don't know the answer to that question, but in my own case I believe that philosophical thinking has greatly contributed to my overall contentment. But even if it...

I hope I don't come across as pedantic, but I think that your questions may contain what philosophers call "false alternatives." First, there's a sense in which both A and B can be correct. It might be that B is well-advised to try a particular something before rejecting it because the risks associated with trying it are small compared to the possible benefits. Nevertheless, it could be true that B "shouldn't have to " try something before rejecting it: that is, B might well have the right to refuse to do X even if he would be well-advised to do X. Second, C can help convince B to try the thing even while C lets B make his own choice. As I see it, giving B convincing reasons to make a particular choice needn't mean depriving B of a choice -- including a free choice -- in the matter.

I hope others will chime in, but for starters I'd question step (4) of the argument. First, from our failure know whether earthly life is the only life we get, it doesn't follow that earthly life is the only life we get. That inference would commit the fallacy of appealing to ignorance. Second, even if earthly life is the only life we get, it doesn't follow that nothing is worse than death. Indeed, some of the kinds of suffering you listed (such as torture or locked-in syndrome) might be worse than death in some cases. Third, even if death were the worst evil of all, your argument would support death-prevention of any sort, not just suicide-prevention.

I don't think that the theory of evolution (which I accept) provides anything like the kind of meaning that existentialists such as Camus have in mind. What is the meaning of existence according to evolutionary theory? The only remotely plausible answer I can think of is this: "To pass on one's genes to posterity, since that's what counts as success from the perspective of natural selection." But, of course, natural selection has no perspective, point of view, intentions, or goals. It's a mindless process. So that answer depends on a false presupposition. Even if that weren't true, it's highly implausible anyway that passing on one's genes could really be the meaning (or purpose) of existence. If it were, then anyone would be missing the point of existence who didn't make it his/her top priority to reproduce as often as possible, to clone his/her genome again and again, etc. But, on the contrary, someone who tried to live such a life would be pathetic. Evolutionary theory explains how species arise...

If all that exists is matter, then what kind of property would 'value' be? If all that exists is matter, then what kind of property would any property be? I have trouble seeing how any property could itself be a material thing. A red apple is a material thing, but is its property of being red itself a material thing? Fortunately for me, not even the physicists say that literally everything is matter: there are also fields of force, states of matter, quantum vacuum states, etc. In any case, the claim that everything is matter seems to threaten not just the property of being valuable but every other property as well. If happiness, for example, is simply a mental state, no different from sadness or pain, then how can it have the property of 'value'... If happiness, sadness, and pain are all mental states, then they don't differ from each other in respect of being mental states . But that still allows them to differ in terms of whether they have the property of (positive) value....

The view you'd like to counter seems to have two parts: (1) Life, both in terms of individuals and in terms of the totality of humankind, has no intrinsic meaning or value. (2) Any value or meaning we attribute to our lives and those of others is wholly subjective and will evaporate with our deaths. Regarding (1). First, the notion of intrinsic meaning seems to me highly doubtful to begin with: it would be meaning that doesn't derive from or depend on anything else, including any intentional agents. I can't see how that could possibly work. If waves scatter pebbles along the beach so as to form the inscription "Love," that inscription has no meaning: it wasn't produced intentionally. It might perhaps acquire meaning when some intentional agent interprets it as a message. But in either case it has no meaning in and of itself. Second, one might doubt that anything could have intrinsic value , i.e., value that doesn't derive from or depend on anything else (such as being valued or ...

Those who assert that pain is intrinsically bad are disagreeing with those who assert that pain is bad only because God made it so (i.e., only because God gave pain the property of badness). But I don't see how the former are begging the question against the latter, even if the former lack an argument for their assertion. Now consider the claim that pain is bad only because God made it so. The claim might mean either of these: (1) Pain is unpleasant or affectively negative only because God gave pain that property. (2) Pain has moral disvalue only because God gave pain moral disvalue. It's hard to see how (1) could be true, given that pain is typically defined as (or in terms of) suffering, discomfort, and physical or psychological unpleasantness. (1) is like the claim that all squares are four-sided only because God made them so: God seems totally superfluous to the four-sidedness of squares, because they're four-sided by definition. I don't think (2) is much more...

There are at least two ways to interpret your question: (1) Does scientific naturalism imply that no meaning at all exists anywhere in the universe? (2) Does scientific naturalism imply that the universe itself has no meaning? I think the answer to (1) is pretty clearly no . By "scientific naturalism," I presume you mean the denial of supernaturalism , i.e., the denial that any nonphysical minds or causes exist. On that reading, scientific naturalism is compatible with the fact that you meant something by your question (your question isn't meaningless) and the fact that I mean something by this answer to it. Nor does scientific naturalism imply that nothing is ever non-linguistically meaningful: it allows that an experience (say, of great music) can be meaningful to someone. What holds for the concept of meaning holds, I'd say, for the concept of purpose as well. I think the answer to (2) is pretty clearly yes . But what could it mean, anyway, to say that the universe itself has...

Where the weightiness you experience comes from is a psychological, psychobiological, or anthropological question and therefore not a question that philosophers, as such, are competent to answer. Having said that, I'll speculate anyway! It wouldn't surprise me to learn that natural selection has favored a tendency in human beings to treat all, and only, human beings as belonging to a morally special category. But, of course, a tendency favored by natural selection might nevertheless be hard to defend with argument. About the weightiness itself: Speaking as a philosopher, I'd urge us to distinguish between persons (i.e., people) and human beings. I regard person as a psychological category: members of the category possess distinctive (if broadly and vaguely defined) psychological traits and dispositions, such self-consciousness and rationality. I think those traits and dispositions make any person morally significant in a way in which any non-person isn't (even a non-person that's morally...