Pain, Completion, Happiness and Philosophy
What is the meaning of life? No really. It's a simple question. What is the goal of human life? If you are reading this you have been sentient for quite some time – so what is the purpose of sentient life? Does it have a purpose? Is the purpose to procreate? No. I’m sorry biologists, but just because we *may* have the physical impulse and bits to do a thing, does not necessarily or even probably make it our purpose or goal. This is like the genetic fallacy.
What if I told you the purpose of human life was the same as the purpose of political philosophy? The purpose of life, on the whole, is quite simply the avoidance of pain. The avoidance of physical and psychological pain for the longest time over the long term is the purpose of life - the tacit goal of every human being. All impulses are obeyed because not obeying them causes pain. Concordantly, the unsaid purpose of political philosophy (perhaps philosophy proper) is to promote a theorretical system which enables us to develop a political system and opinion, a stipulated ethic if you will, that reduces the aggregate pain felt for all humans for as long as possible. The system is discovered. The concordant ethic is stipulated. The purpose is to reduce net pain for as many political members as possible over the long term. Why? Because pain hurts. And quite frankly, we as humans really have nothing else to do.
I mean, consider our other options. Why do we do anything? Happiness or Eudemonia, Completion, Pleasure - none of this is a compelling goal. Not all humans want it. Even the humans that do want it, want it all of the time. Happiness in our sense is merely a pleasurable state. Happiness (in the more thoughtfull Aristotelian sense) is the continued activity of fulfillment or completion. In either case, both are only pursued (when they *are* pursued) because the alternative (pain, or unfulfillment, which is painful) is unpleasant. It is painful. It is so, because we are psychologically wired a certain way. We reproduce because we feel a psychological need to. And not fulfilling that need is painful. Pleasure in the simplistic hedonistic sense is not our goal – because ultimately it causes pain and regret if enjoyed too regularly.
Even people who endure pain on a regular basis in physical training, or masochists who are said to enjoy pain in a sexual fashion, these people really still do not enjoy pain, but seek to avoid it. For these people, small amounts of certain pain has either a) become tolerable in the face of the goal (and not attaining the goal of being the best X is more painful than training hard) and/or even pleasurable. They have a greater tollerance for certain kinds of pain. Rest assured however, all things being equal, and there being no other pain prompting them to act, they will avoid pain that they are unaccustomed to and what fuels their actions and desires is the pain of not being fulfilled, not being complete in their chosen endeavour.
So what does this mean for philosophy? Some say Philosophy may be divided into (3) questions: What exists? (Metaphysical questions), How much can I know about what exists? (Epistemological questions) and is what exists valuable to me or anything, or, what is the value of things? (questions of value or moral questions). When my above claim regarding as the avoidance of pain in some degree is viewed in this light, the historical answer to this question is easy to classify.
The classics (Greek, Chinese, Buddhist, and Hebrew / Arabic (to my knowledge)) answered the question of avoiding pain by espousing an ethic to increase personal resilience to pain and injury by way of virtue or excellence. The more excellent one is (both physically and spiritually), the more they can endure.
However, there is only so much one can make themselves excellent. True, like Pericles the Prince of Tyre, or Odysseus, one can become incredibly resilient to pain and hardship, but if one can reduce the chances of encountering hardship, one reduces the chances of having to endure pain (no matter how well one endures it) all around and for more people. Not everyone is born with the luxury, the luck or the natural endowments to live the philosophic, athletic and spiritual life. I'm afraid as Augustine says in his letter to Romanianus, Fate plays a larger role in philosophic excellence than anything else.
If the point of the game is to avoid pain, one can either increase the resilience of the one who experiences pain, or reduce the probability of pain being experienced. Change the rules of the game, so to speak. This was the goal largely of Machiavelli and the moderns.
Now it's time to eat breakfast, because not eating is painfull :)
josh
What if I told you the purpose of human life was the same as the purpose of political philosophy? The purpose of life, on the whole, is quite simply the avoidance of pain. The avoidance of physical and psychological pain for the longest time over the long term is the purpose of life - the tacit goal of every human being. All impulses are obeyed because not obeying them causes pain. Concordantly, the unsaid purpose of political philosophy (perhaps philosophy proper) is to promote a theorretical system which enables us to develop a political system and opinion, a stipulated ethic if you will, that reduces the aggregate pain felt for all humans for as long as possible. The system is discovered. The concordant ethic is stipulated. The purpose is to reduce net pain for as many political members as possible over the long term. Why? Because pain hurts. And quite frankly, we as humans really have nothing else to do.
I mean, consider our other options. Why do we do anything? Happiness or Eudemonia, Completion, Pleasure - none of this is a compelling goal. Not all humans want it. Even the humans that do want it, want it all of the time. Happiness in our sense is merely a pleasurable state. Happiness (in the more thoughtfull Aristotelian sense) is the continued activity of fulfillment or completion. In either case, both are only pursued (when they *are* pursued) because the alternative (pain, or unfulfillment, which is painful) is unpleasant. It is painful. It is so, because we are psychologically wired a certain way. We reproduce because we feel a psychological need to. And not fulfilling that need is painful. Pleasure in the simplistic hedonistic sense is not our goal – because ultimately it causes pain and regret if enjoyed too regularly.
Even people who endure pain on a regular basis in physical training, or masochists who are said to enjoy pain in a sexual fashion, these people really still do not enjoy pain, but seek to avoid it. For these people, small amounts of certain pain has either a) become tolerable in the face of the goal (and not attaining the goal of being the best X is more painful than training hard) and/or even pleasurable. They have a greater tollerance for certain kinds of pain. Rest assured however, all things being equal, and there being no other pain prompting them to act, they will avoid pain that they are unaccustomed to and what fuels their actions and desires is the pain of not being fulfilled, not being complete in their chosen endeavour.
So what does this mean for philosophy? Some say Philosophy may be divided into (3) questions: What exists? (Metaphysical questions), How much can I know about what exists? (Epistemological questions) and is what exists valuable to me or anything, or, what is the value of things? (questions of value or moral questions). When my above claim regarding as the avoidance of pain in some degree is viewed in this light, the historical answer to this question is easy to classify.
The classics (Greek, Chinese, Buddhist, and Hebrew / Arabic (to my knowledge)) answered the question of avoiding pain by espousing an ethic to increase personal resilience to pain and injury by way of virtue or excellence. The more excellent one is (both physically and spiritually), the more they can endure.
However, there is only so much one can make themselves excellent. True, like Pericles the Prince of Tyre, or Odysseus, one can become incredibly resilient to pain and hardship, but if one can reduce the chances of encountering hardship, one reduces the chances of having to endure pain (no matter how well one endures it) all around and for more people. Not everyone is born with the luxury, the luck or the natural endowments to live the philosophic, athletic and spiritual life. I'm afraid as Augustine says in his letter to Romanianus, Fate plays a larger role in philosophic excellence than anything else.
If the point of the game is to avoid pain, one can either increase the resilience of the one who experiences pain, or reduce the probability of pain being experienced. Change the rules of the game, so to speak. This was the goal largely of Machiavelli and the moderns.
Now it's time to eat breakfast, because not eating is painfull :)
josh
posted by JB @ 9:00 PM
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