ENGCMP 0200
Dr. Adam Johns
2/21/09
The purpose of humans is an important philosophical question with different possible answers coming from religion and ordinary people. While billions of people believe in these explanations, I think they share a common flaw. Thus, a scientific explanation seems to provide the best answer—that there is no real purpose. While I believe the human species has no purpose, individual humans can invent purposes as a way of achieving satisfaction with their lives.
Some possible purposes to human life include passing on DNA through reproduction and spreading Christianity throughout the world. The long-term result of reproduction, evolution, is an improvement of the human species. Also, an urge to reproduce was created in humans through natural selection. The humans who wanted offspring were obviously more likely to pass on their DNA than those who didn’t want children. This combination of a benefit to humans and the genetic desire to reproduce makes it a tempting answer to the purpose of humans. Spreading Christianity is another possible purpose to human life. Since the start of Christianity, missionaries and conquering Europeans have been attempting to spread the religion. In their eyes, this work will benefit other humans who haven’t realized their mistake in not being Christian.
Both of these purposes have the common theme that they improve our species. However, it is clear that humans did not evolve, or were not created, so that they could improve themselves. A true human purpose has to involve interaction with something besides humans.
Lee Silver provides a better possible purpose to humans in his book Challenging Nature: The Clash Between Biotechnology and Spirituality. He writes that eventually, “human nature will remake all of Mother Nature in the image of the idealized world that exists within our own minds (Silver xvi). This idealized world will have eliminated suffering from humans as well as animals. While this purpose is not entirely for humans, it is conceived mainly for human benefit. The better quality of life that animals receive from this genetic engineering will make people feel good, which is the motivation for doing it. So while this purpose is at least plausible since it helps things besides humans, it does not seem strong enough to be humans’ true purpose.
Religious doctrine provides a variety of other explanations. The bible says that humans exist to serve and glorify God. Similarly, Muslims consider earning benevolence from Allah to be the goal in life. Other religions, such as Hinduism, believe that humans are a final stepping stone in the cycle of reincarnation towards heaven. Each of these explanations contradict each other, however. Allah and God are not the same. God is peaceful, while Allah advocates killing nonbelievers. God said, “This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased,” while Allah said, “Allah is only one God; far be It from His glory that He should have a son.” The idea of reincarnation is also incompatible with Christianity and Islam. Hebrews 9:27 says “it is appointed for men to die once, and after this comes judgment” ("Reincarnation: Is it compatible with Christianity?"). Similarly, Muslims believe that after people die they go either to heaven or to hell.
If one of these religious explanations really is the true purpose of life, the other religions would be wrong because of the incompatibility between the views. Because of this, at least two of these three explanations are wrong. Also, I already established that the true purpose to humans cannot be a benefit to humans themselves. Thus, the Hindu belief can’t be the right answer to this question. Breaking out of the cycle of reincarnation and getting to heaven is solely a human benefit. The Islamic goal of not making Allah angry to get into heaven is also a human benefit. For the Christian purpose of humans to be plausible, a literal God is necessary. With an actual God, then humans could have the purpose of serving and glorifying Him. I don’t believe there is an actual God out there, however. And with a metaphorical God, human purpose reduces to the human benefit of getting into heaven, which isn’t a purpose at all.
While these possibilities for human purpose do not seem very likely, the possibility that humans have no purpose can be supported with science. Animals, including apes, do not have a purpose besides providing food and materials to other animals. Since humans gradually evolved from apes, there is no distinct point where a purpose would be given to humans. Humans and other animals are therefore similar in that none of them might have a purpose. The only difference is that humans have sufficient mental capacity to wonder about their purpose. While this is not great evidence for humans’ lack of a purpose, it at least provides a reason for why this might be true.
Even if humans do not have a purpose as a species, people try to have a purpose to make their lives worth living. As Bill McKibben says in his book Enough: Staying Human in an Engineered Age, we invent challenges like running marathons to give our lives meaning (McKibben 65). I think this shows that the “purposes” in human lives are really just illusions that people fabricate to make themselves happy. McKibben’s argument that genetic engineering will take away the meaning, or the purpose, in these challenges boils down to the fact that the engineering will take away that illusion. This shows that even the challenges humans create for themselves are not really true purposes.
Works Cited
McKibben, Bill. Enough: Staying Human in an Engineered Age. 1. New York: Henry
Holt and Company, 2003.
"Reincarnation: Is it compatible with Christianity?" 01 May 2003. Personal Freedom
Outreach. 21 Feb 2009
Silver, Lee. Challenging Nature: The Clash Between Biotechnology and Spirituality. 1.
New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2007.
3 comments:
The purpose of humans is an important philosophical question with different possible answers coming from religion and ordinary people. While billions of people believe in these explanations, I think they share a common logical flaw. Thus, a scientific explanation seems to provide the best answer—that there is no real purpose. The “purposes” that most individuals have in their lives are really just fabrications used to achieve satisfaction.
Some possible purposes to human life include passing on DNA through reproduction and spreading Christianity throughout the world. The long-term result of reproduction, evolution, is an improvement of the human species. Also, an urge to reproduce was created in humans through natural selection. The humans who wanted offspring were obviously more likely to pass on their DNA than those who didn’t want children. This combination of a benefit to humans and the genetic desire to reproduce makes it a tempting answer to the purpose of humans. Spreading Christianity is another possible purpose to human life. Since the start of Christianity, missionaries and conquering Europeans have been attempting to spread the religion. In their eyes, this work will benefit other humans who haven’t realized their mistake in not being Christian.
Both of these purposes have the common theme that they improve our species. However, it is clear that humans did not evolve, or were not created, so that they could improve themselves. Therefore, a true human purpose has to involve interaction with something besides humans.
Lee Silver provides a better possible purpose to humans in his book Challenging Nature: The Clash Between Biotechnology and Spirituality. He writes that eventually, “human nature will remake all of Mother Nature in the image of the idealized world that exists within our own minds (Silver xvi). This idealized world will have eliminated suffering from humans as well as animals. While this purpose is not entirely for humans, it is conceived of mainly for human benefit. For example, endangered species will be able to thrive in the remade world, which will make people feel good. Silver writes, “The extinction of magnificent mammals or beautiful birds strikes an emotional chord in many people, including me” (Silver 294). However, humans don’t have a good answer to the question “Why should we care if the giant otter species goes extinct?” This indicates that humans only want to preserve endangered species for selfish reasons, not to benefit the animals themselves. So while this purpose is at least plausible since it helps creatures besides humans, it seems too weak to be humans’ true purpose.
Religious doctrine provides a variety of other explanations. The bible says that humans exist to serve and glorify God. Similarly, Muslims consider earning benevolence from Allah to be the goal in life. Other religions, such as Hinduism, believe that humans are a final stepping stone in the cycle of reincarnation towards heaven ("Reincarnation: Is it compatible with Christianity?"). Each of these explanations contradicts each other, however. Allah and God are not the same. God is peaceful, while Allah advocates killing nonbelievers. God said, “This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased,” while Allah said, “Allah is only one God; far be It from His glory that He should have a son.” The idea of reincarnation is also incompatible with Christianity and Islam. Muslims believe that after people die they go either to heaven or to hell. Similarly, Hebrews 9:27 says “it is appointed for men to die once, and after this comes judgment” ("Reincarnation: Is it compatible with Christianity?").
If one of these religious explanations really is the true purpose of life, the other religions would be wrong because of the incompatibility between the views. Because of this, at least two of these three explanations are wrong. Also, I already established that the true purpose to humans cannot be a benefit to humans themselves. Thus, the Hindu belief can’t be the right answer to this question. Breaking out of the cycle of reincarnation and getting to heaven is solely a human benefit. The Islamic goal of not making Allah angry to get into heaven is also a human benefit. For the Christian purpose of humans to be plausible, a literal God capable of being glorified has to exist. I don’t believe there is a God like that, however. If God is only metaphorical, human purpose reduces to the human benefit of getting into heaven, which isn’t even a true purpose.
While these possibilities for human purpose do not seem very likely, the possibility that humans have no purpose can be supported with science. Most people would agree that animals, including apes, do not have a purpose besides providing food and materials to other animals. Since humans gradually evolved from apes, there is no distinct point where a purpose would be given to humans. Humans and other animals are therefore similar in that possibly none of them have a purpose. While this is not great evidence for humans’ lack of a purpose, it at least provides a reason for why this might be true.
Even if humans do not have a purpose as a species, people try to have a purpose to make their lives worth living. As Bill McKibben says in his book Enough: Staying Human in an Engineered Age, we invent challenges like running marathons to give our lives meaning (McKibben 65). I think this shows that the “purposes” in human lives are really just illusions that people fabricate to keep themselves satisfied. McKibben’s argument that genetic engineering will take away the meaning in these challenges boils down to the fact that the engineering will take away that illusion. This shows that even the challenges humans create for themselves are not really true purposes.
Works Cited
McKibben, Bill. Enough: Staying Human in an Engineered Age. 1. New York: Henry
Holt and Company, 2003.
"Reincarnation: Is it compatible with Christianity?" 01 May 2003. Personal Freedom
Outreach. 21 Feb 2009 .
Silver, Lee. Challenging Nature: The Clash Between Biotechnology and Spirituality. 1.
New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2007.
Despite a few misgiving about paragraph structure, I like how this paper begins. However, I wished for something more at this line: "it is clear that humans did not evolve, or were not created, so that they could improve themselves." Arguably, you're on the brink of assuming rather than demonstrating the point of your paper at this moment.
Your discussion of religion was problematic - mostly because you are showing, to my mind, a limited understanding of the relevant religions (it's very easy, for instance, to subsume Christianity and/or Islam into Buddhist or Hindu doctrine, although generally not vice versa; in other words, if Buddhism/Hinduism are right, that doesn't make Christianity or Islam wrong; rather, it makes them incomplete).
Regardless, I thought this paper, although good in most ways, was more defined by negatives instead of positives; I mean that your focus isn't really on a positive demonstration that science is correct, and that therefore the discovery of meaning is a personal thing (or a useless waste of time). In other words, I though your material was basically good, but unbalanced, with a lot of emphasis on what is ultimately a counterargument, and little on your main argument.
One more thing - your second to last sentence was perfect, or nearly so; a paper organized in a more positive way around this idea would have been great.
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