Abstract
The paper proposes to base the notion of the significance of life on the grounds of the singularity of each person as a psychical subject, i.e. personal singularity. No two persons are alike; each one of us, as a person, is intrinsically different from every other person. This personal singularity has a universal significance, namely, it makes a universal difference, whether or not this difference is distinct and acknowledged. Because morality and the significance of a person's life both rely upon personal singularity, there is an inseparable connection between morality and the significance of a human life. Nevertheless, as relying upon personal singularity, there is no insignificant or meaningless life, for a person's life has a universal significance whatever the actions of that person may be. Immoral actions or behavior do not reflect or express the personal singularity of an agent, whereas moral ones reflect or express this singularity. There is more to personal singularity and the significance of life than morality. As singularity is not subject to any comparison or competition, personal singularity implies that the life of one person is not more significant than the life of any other person. Thus, in my view, the significance of life is strictly egalitarian.
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Notes
William Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act 5, Scene 5.
Ethics, part 1, proposition 29 and proposition 33, scholium 2; Ethics, part 2, proposition 31, corollary (Spinoza 1985).
Contrary to an attempt at understanding the notion of the meaning of life in the terms of a weak version of meaning holism, i.e., as if the meaning of an individual life could only be specified in relation to the system of which this life is a constituent (Nanay 2010, p. 89). Nanay himself frankly concedes: “But what is [an individual’s life] a constituent of? Is there any system that our lives could be argued to be a constituent of? I don’t think so … [for] there are no isolated group societies around nowadays; hence there are no meaning-giving larger systems in relation to which we can make sense of the meaning of our life” (ibid. cf. Railton 1984, p. 151). Nevertheless, he still argues: “As we are biologically disposed to look for isolated groups we can be members of, we are also biologically disposed to look for a larger system our life can be constituent of and in relation to which our life can acquire its meaning” (Nanay 2010, p. 89). Elsewhere, in contrast, I argue that the biological uniqueness of each one of us is in fact the physical actualization of the personal singularity of each one of us (Gilead 2014). As I will argue below, singularity and uniqueness should be carefully distinguished, and singularity is irreducible to uniqueness. Hence, the psychical, personal singularity of any of us should not be reduced to any biological disposition, and the notion of the significance of our lives is not biologically determined or entrenched. The metaphysical platform of the discussion in the current paper has been laid in some of my previous works and it is called “panenmentalism” (Gilead 1999, 2003, 2009, 2011).
This might pose a problem especially when psychology as a science is concerned (though as a social science and not as a natural science). Lawrence Pervin was well aware of that problem, when referring to the existential psychology which follows the philosophical existentialists of the 19th century, first of all Kirkegaard, according to whom the individual “is seen as singular, unique, and irreplaceable. The individual is not just a member of the crowd and the herd, he is unrepeatable … and completely irreplaceable” (Pervin 1960, p.305; cf. Villela-Petit 2009, especially pp. 38 and 40–41). The problem is that the existentialists “abandon hope of understanding and predicting human behavior in a lawful way” (Pervin 1960, p. 308) whereas “the understanding of patterned and lawful aspects of human behavior is the subject of inquiry for psychology” (ibid.). As I see it, the problem must not be there to the extent that psychology subjects or applies to patterns and laws the intersubjective significance and reflection of the subjective psychical states of the individual and not these states intrinsically or per se. This makes psychological patterns and laws relational and by no means intrinsic to the singular person as such. Hence, they are valid for the human behavior, relationship, or interaction which is, unlike one’s inner, psychical reality, subject to public observation. For an extensive elaboration on this issue see Gilead 2011.
What about a genuine work of art which is undoubtedly irreplaceable or irreproducible? Is it a singular being intrinsically? It is not, yet its irreplaceability and irreproducibility reflect the singularity of the artist who created it. The irreplaceability and irreproducibility of a genuine work of art supervene on the singularity of the artist, hence they are not intrinsic.
See Mishnah 1919. For a most beautiful interpretation of this quotation, concerning the universal singularity of each person, see Cohen 2010, pp. 16–17. Cohen, an emeritus professor at the Weizmann Institute in Rehovot, Israel, is well known for his unique and important contribution to immunology. For my analysis of this contribution in light of the distinction between uniqueness and singularity, see Gilead 2014.
Ethics part 5, proposition 36 and scholium, which focuses on human lives (Spinoza 1985).
Ethics, part 2, proposition 33, corollary 2 and demonstration (Spinoza 1985)
Yet Spinoza considers individual or singular things (including human beings) as finite modes of this or that attribute of God, whereas I consider persons, who are singular subjects, as substantial entities. For Spinoza, there is only one substance, nature-God as a whole, and the modes are modifications or variations of this absolutely universal substance.
Cf. Brogaard and Smith, according to whom a meaningful life is ascribed to a valuable pattern which has an effect upon the world (2005, p. 443).
Cf., mutatis mutandis, the following moving statement: “If there is anyone who displays moral worth, it seems to me to be someone who acts out of … concern for other individuals. It is someone who perceives their particular needs … It is someone who goes out of her way to make a gesture that only the person involved would appreciate, someone who knows how to make others feel that they, with all of their personal peculiarities, are special and worth attention. I am far more confident that someone who acts in this way throughout her lifetime has led a meaningful life” (Dahl 1987, p. 21).
For a distinction and a relationship between a meaningful life and a worthwhile one, see Metz 2012. According to Metz, self-sacrificing life is worthless but, still, it is certainly meaningful, and meaningfulness of life can also be something worth dying for. In contrast, Metz considers “meaning of life” and “significance of life” as synonyms. Whether life is meaningful or worthwhile, in my view, it reflects or expresses the personal singularity of the person in discussion.
For quite different views, see Peter Railton: “Individuals who will not or cannot allow questions to arise about what they are doing from a broader perspective …may fail to experience that powerful sense of purpose and meaning that comes from seeing oneself as part of something larger and more enduring than oneself or one’s intimate circle. The search for such a sense of purpose and meaning seems to me ubiquitous” (Railton 1984, p. 151); or Neil Levy: “a life is meaningful just in case it is devoted to (or is unified by) the pursuit of goods which transcend the limitations of individuals” (2005, pp. 178–179). Railton advises morality to adopt “a non-alienated starting point—that of situated rather than presocial individual” (Railton 1984, p. 171).
Kekes 2000, pp. 21, 29, and 32–33 concerning one’s identification with one’s successful projects. It is therefore not surprising that Kekes considers Sisyphus’s life as “the epitome of meaninglessness” (2000, p. 23). According to Kekes, meaningful lives “involve the pursuit of projects with which the agents have genuinely identified … their agents’ genuine identification with their projects is based on their true belief that successful engagement in them will make their lives better by providing the satisfactions they seek; they thus exclude all projects in which the agents’ subjective identification is not correlated with objective conditions” (op. cit., p. 32).
Cf. Bernard Williams’s criticism of Alasdair MacIntyre on a similar point concerning “the narrative significance of a life” (Williams 2009).
Think of the common pejorative meaning of the word, “idiot,” whereas the prefix “idio”—which means “one’s own,” “private,” “personal,” distinct,” or “separate”—has no such negative connotation (as, for instance, in the words “idiom,” “idiosyncrasy,” “idiolect,” or “idiopathic”). Interestingly, “idiopathic” is ascribed to diseases of unknown causes, which means that such diseases are not subject to known causal laws, and in this sense they are considered as anomalous (at least, according to the present state of science). As I mentioned above, personal singularity is anomalous, yet this anomalousness does not stem from any ignorance.
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Gilead, A. Personal Singularity and the Significance of Life. Philosophia 44, 775–786 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-016-9714-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-016-9714-y