Philosophy Discussion Forums

Felix wrote:"Pinker again: 'The facts of science, by exposing the absence of purpose in the laws governing the universe, force us to take responsibility for the welfare of ourselves, our species, and our planet."

If people will accept that the universe is purposeless, they'll be motivated to take responsibility for the health of the biosphere? Is he really that ignorant about human nature?!

I think you are misrepresenting Pinker. I happen to agree with him, except that I don´t think science had to expose the lack of purpose. There may be no purpose to the universe. If someone were to announce one, many people would not agree anyway. We may never all agree on the announcement of a purpose/reason for life or the universe.


However, "taking responsibility for the welfare of ourselves, our species, and our planet" seems to be the most logical thing to do. If we wait around for someone to announce a purpose or follow someone´s possibly flawed idea of purpose, we may fail to take care of ourselves, which inevitably includes taking care of our planet.

I agree with that, in some ways. After all such ideas are basic to utilitarian philosophies, and the notion of acting purposefully in spite of the purposelessness of the Universe is also basic to existentialism.

Don't mix 'purpose' up with 'God's plan for mankind'. It doesn't have to be imposed from above to still be perfectly real. It could be that each individual being (and even animal) is enacting a purpose, just going about their lives and doing what they do. If you have a meaningful occupation and loving relationships, then that will naturally engender a sense of purpose. And as Victor Frankl noted decades ago, those who have a sense of purpose in life are generally more emotionally robust and able to cope with the vicissitudes of life than those who don't. 'Not having a sense of purpose', conversely, is often associated with nihilism, ennui and isolation. Seems like common sense, to me.

As a matter of fact, this really is related to the whole thread. Imagine trying to find some trace of an individual's 'sense of purpose' from doing an autopsy on the body. 'Hey, we can't see anything that looks like "purpose" here. Just organs, muscles, bones and the rest. Clearly this mysterious "purpose" is simply a romantic notion'.

-- Updated September 5th, 2014, 10:33 am to add the following --

I have always believed that the idea that life 'arose by chance' - which practically everyone I know believes - is quite a meaningless idea. I also have always thought that when 'science says' that 'life arose by chance' that it is abdicating its role, which is to understand causes. The issue in regard to life is simply that the kinds of 'cause' which science can deal with, which are basically physical and chemical, are not equal to the task of explaining the discontinuity between living and non-living things; hence 'chance' is invoked, mainly in the absence of any other kind of explanation, God having already been ruled inadmissible. Of this, Owen Barfield said:

“Chance, in fact, equals no hypothesis” and to resort to it in the name of science means “that the impressive vocabulary of technological investigation (associated with evolutionary biology) was actually being used to denote science’s breakdown; as though, because it is something that we can do with ourselves in water, drowning should be included as one of the ways of swimming”.