Finding Meaning

I have not had much experience with holocaust readings up to this point in my education, which makes the description of how it affected the victims by Viktor Frankl all the more haunting, “The first spark of joy came when we saw a rooster with a tail of multicolored feathers. but it remained only a spark; we did not yet belong to this world.” (Solomon 354). This description of the state of mind that many of the victims of the holocaust had in their first few experiences of freedom puts Frankl’s philosophy  in a very interesting perspective. While my initial impressions of the consequences of extreme suffering include a sort of apathy for life and overall depression, Frankl’s experiences caused him to be even more ambitious about finding meaning in life in an enlighteningly optimistic way. I find that I am at odds with myself again after reading Frankl, with my rational, naturalistic side butting heads with the more romantic, philosophical side. I am enthralled by the philosophy Frankl proposes about how finding meaning is the grand motivation in a person’s life. Yet, Frankl also presents the opposing viewpoint quite succinctly, describing the foil to his philosophy as those who believe that man’s purpose is just a, “secondary rationalization”, of naturalistic, animal behavior. As a man of science, I often consider many issues of ethics and morality as boiling down to the so called “instinctual drives” that Frankl considers opposed to his viewpoint, yet I also agree with Frankl’s assessment that finding meaning is the primary motivation in one’s life. This also seems to come back to the issue of free will and choice. If Frankl is correct, then it means that we are free to choose that path that will give our lives meaning, and consequently we cannot simply be the product of biological reactions because biological reactions don’t make choices. It seems that either way, this view of finding meaning in one’s life and being the naturalistic view of being the result of biological and chemical reactions seem to be mutually exclusive, or at least that’s the way it seems at first glance.

Solomon, Robert C. Existentialism. New York: Oxford UP, 2005. Print.

Living the Contradiction

While I have at times found myself sharing the views and beliefs of many of the existentialist philosophers that I have read up to this point, the same cannot be said for Miguel de Unamuno, and the philosopher he most takes after, Kierkegaard. Within the first page of my reading from Unamuno’s The Tragic Sense of Life, I find my own personal viewpoint represented as a foil to the view that Unamuno presents. Specifically, I find myself in the camp of those who hypothetically tell Unamuno that his position is untenable, and that “unity and clarity are essential conditions for life and thought” (Solomon 157). Despite the fact that I, at this time, hold to a different perspective that Unamuno, I still find his belief extremely interesting as well as slightly disturbing. Unamuno, in direct acknowledgment of the contradiction it entails, claims that it is the disjunction between his beliefs and his actions that unifies him under one purpose. While someone such as myself would claim that in order for a person’s life to have unity, that person must also hold to the tenets of logic and reason that govern the universe, Unamuno seems to call upon Kierkegaard’s ideas concerning passion and claim that it is the conflict in his life that brings him passion and therefor purpose. His philosophy becomes rather disturbing when he comes to the justification for his passion in living in this perpetual contradiction. He gives the metaphor of a man who believes that he is on an unstable boat, if the boat starts to sink, he will be unphased because he already knew that this was a possibility. If the man is the philosopher living in the real world, and the boat is the belief system that a person has, than Unamuno is effectively suggesting to abandon absolute faith in anything. A type of ultimate skepticism where nothing can be believed in too intently lest it give way like the unstable boat as the foolish philosopher, “himself trembles in the earthquake” (Solomon 158).

Solomon, Robert C. Existentialism. New York: Oxford UP, 2005. Print.

Freedom and Determinism

As I am one who has faith in the theory of determinism, the philosophical and scientific idea that chemical and physical reactions govern the choices we make and create the illusion of free will, I have normally given little deep thought to questions of agency and choice that seem to be a mainstay of popular philosophy, noticing that few other theories concerning free will lack the amount of evidence that determinism has in its favor. Considering the confidence I have in determinism, typically questions and monologues concerning free will tend to leave me relatively uninterested. However, Feodor Dostoevsky, in a select reading from Notes From Underground, seemingly uses determinism as a jumping off point to analyze the deeper meanings of freedom itself. Dostoevsky claims that determinism and freedom are incompatible, that in order to have freedom, one cannot have their choices dictated by natural laws. Natural laws, according to Dostoevsky, always lead a person to choose what is in their best interest through logic and reason. However, if we follow what our instincts and rationality tell us to do to meet our best interest, we lose our freedom. We become robots executing the programs coded in our DNA. However, Dostoevsky claims that through our knowledge of these natural laws, we can choose to disobey them and gain true freedom. Although many of the different ‘flavors’ of determinism, so to speak, claim that it is impossible to do anything contrary to natural laws, these theories tend to fall apart when attempting to explain the illusion of choice that we experience through consciousness. It is the theories of determinism of this variety that seem to most closely match some of the new evidence humanity has gathered in the last 200 hundred years or so, yet if one were to converted by Dostoevsky’s very convincing argument, these two different ideas would cause one to either reject the idea of free will, or refuse to act in self interest in defiance.

Master and Slave Morality in The Fountainhead

I've noticed a lot of similarities between Nietzsche’s views on morality and Ayn Rand’s philosophy of Objectivism, particularly in Nietzsche’s theory on master and slave morality. Nietzsche theorizes that the world is divided into masters and slaves, where masters are the ones who will after power and gain independence and freedom from the herd. Slaves, on the other hand, both envy and despise those masters who have gained true freedom. In Ayn Rand’s Objectivist novel, The Fountainhead, Howard Roark is a young architect who seeks after greatness. Roark epitomizes the Objectivist theory, he is an intelligent, driven, yet self centered individual who shows little concern for how he is perceived by others. Roark bears striking similarities to Nietzsche's masters, a strong will, a desire for power or success, and a lack of concern for the perception of others. This similarity is significant to me as I was reading Nietzsche because I was pondering if a world where this master and slave morality is recognized and followed would continue to function effectively. In The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand demonstrates a hypothetical world where the masters, characters such as Howard Roark and others, are more abundant and more powerful. The final result is a utopian society of equality, economic efficiency, zero crime, and a focus on personal achievement. Although the master and slave morality seems counter intuitive to the success of a society as a whole at first glance, it seems that the fictional world in The Fountainhead provides a potential template for how a world such as this could exist and actually benefit society. A desire for power and a strong will are, today at least, very often demonized in our culture. Individuals who possess these traits are often portrayed as cold, mechanical, and oftentimes downright evil. I am convinced, however, that Nietzsche and Ayn Rand are on the right path with their views on morality. Personal self interest above all else can manifest itself in a variety of ways that seems contradictory to the selfish behaviors they stem from. For instance, although it may seem that I am acting selflessly when I return a call from my grandmother, I am actually acting in self interest because it is in my best interest to maintain a positive relationship with my family. The same type of situation occurs when I pay taxes, the taxes may seem detrimental to my self interest, due to the fact that they take money that I could otherwise use towards my other needs, but in fact it is im my best personal interest to continue to have a government that maintains the infrastructure I use. In this way I believe that it is possible to have a functional, successful society based off of Nietzsche’s system of morality.