There is a great difficulty in understanding what the purpose of life is, though I believe that this question is often discussed in a bifocal manner that is either left unspoken or at least is not considered adequately. What I am referring to is the fact that this question is frequently considered on either a collective level or an individual level; we may ask what the purpose of all life is directed toward or we may ask what are the purposes of our individual lives. To my ear, this strikes something of a false dichotomy, and I would like to consider this supposed binary in the hopes that it may be reflected upon when we are involved in concrete action of day-to-day life.
I will first consider what the purpose of “life” is in what we may call a ‘collective’ sense, and I think that this concept may indeed be abstract in the worst possible manner. To the question, “What is the purpose of life?” some people may attempt to skim from the surface of all goings-on a collective purpose or end toward which all experience itself is directed. The intricacies of individual lives are left untouched and largely disregarded. My belief is that this is what happens in what we may call ‘fascistic’ or ‘communistic’ political apparatuses. What occurs in these contexts is that the self is not aimed toward a full exploration of experience itself, but rather is directed toward merely one aspect of experience, commonly such aspects as ‘productivity,’ the ‘economy,’ or the ‘common good.’
I must be clear here that these aspects of experience are not in and of themselves negative or to be denigrated. My point is rather that when all experience is made subject to these limited concepts there emerges a great risk of the other aspects of experience being injured or even destroyed. An over-emphasis on productivity may lead to burnout or lacking friendships; an overemphasis on the economy drives us to value money (a means to ends) as an end in itself and to no longer value that which cannot be monetized; over-emphasizing the common-good may prevent one from enjoy the fruits of subjective delight. We must rather consider that each of these aspects of our experience as merely partial—they are concrete, limited realities which we participate in but which cannot fully define our experience—and thus they must be treated more as a means to an end, which is a question we will return to in just a moment.
Similarly, to consider the purpose of life on a purely individual basis can be misleading depending on how we attempt to consider this notion of one’s “self.” Modern thought, in realms ranging from philosophy to economics to art, has moved into what I would refer to a ‘monadic’ individualism—a move that I consider to be an error. What I mean by a ‘monadic’ is in reference to a Greek term ‘μονας’ which can be understood as a complete, self-sufficient, independent unit (stemming from another Greek term ‘μoνος,’ meaning “alone”). Each person in this sense is perfectly stable and complete, meaning that what they do in their lives is, to an extent, based only upon what interests them or what their desires incline them toward. There is nothing for them to achieve aside from pleasures which are momentary and fleeting.
I believe that this too, perhaps more so than the collective view, is evidently problematic. To start, the wills of monadic individuals will evidently come into conflict, which brings into question if one’s desires and inclinations ought to be the standard for action or not. Secondly, however, this blatantly ignores much of human experience; what would a man be without his mother, father, family, and friends? How can a man define himself without his neighbour? We are communal creatures that define ourselves through mediation from others, and we also continuously aid in the self-understanding of those around us. Thirdly, the monadic individual, in viewing himself as self-sufficient and independent, refuses to concede that he is not responsible for his own existence which is a ridiculous proposition, for such a position must reject the beginning of one’s experience itself and reject the reality that it will come to an end (momento mori).
I recognize that I have roughly (perhaps too much so) sketched this basic outline of the dichotomy between ‘collective’ and ‘individual’ purpose, and there is still much to be considered about these positions, but for the purposes of this reflection I will leave those to the side. Instead, I wish to return to one of the early fathers of ‘Western’ philosophy, Aristotle. I believe he allows for a different conception of purpose, and this is where we can return to the point about the ultimate ‘end’ to which we should aim: Happiness.
In his Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle points out that we desire things and perform certain acts so as to arrive at an end: we eat food to sustain ourselves and continue to act; we sleep to continue to work; we make products to fulfill further acts, like assembling a saddle to be able to ride a horse. Importantly, it is the case that these examples are all means to an end, but that the ends themselves can also become a means to another end. There is thus something akin to a ‘chain of means and ends,’ such as working to get money, getting money to buy a house, buying a house to have home, having a home to start a family, etc. Aristotle drives this to its logical end, noting that “if, then, there is some end of the things we do, which we desire for its own sake (everything else being desired for the sake of this), and if we do not choose everything for the sake of something else (for at that rate the process would go on to infinity, so that our desire would be empty and vain), clearly this must be the good and chief good” (Book I, 2). What he is meaning by this is that there will be a ‘supreme’ good, desired for its own sake and never to be used as a means to anything else, which is what everything we do is aimed toward achieving. This end is what has come to us in translation of Aristotle as ‘Happiness.’
I do have a moderate distaste for this word, as I believe that the meaning of Happiness as Aristotle used it has largely been lost, with happiness now being some bastardized concept which is not so different from ‘pleasure’ in contemporary usage. For this reason, I believe a note about the actual term used by Aristotle is in order: ευδαιμονια. What this means, if translated more literally, is something like ‘a good spirit’ or ‘well-ordered spirit’ (we should not understand this in a religious sense, particularly a Christian one, as this would have been a completely foreign concept to Aristotle). I would indeed propose translating ‘ευδαιμονια’ as either ‘fulfillment’ or ‘wholeness.’ In a sense, what is meant is to be able to satisfy one’s needs, understanding what is essential to experience, enjoying the fruits of life, and being merely content in one’s time and place.
Now, of course, we may think about this concept of ευδαιμονια and argue that this provides us with no concrete guidance for our actions, and to that argument I will simply concede. What I believe is important about this concept, however, can be nearly summarized in two key points: the first is that ευδαιμονια requires continuous self-assessment which others may not be able to entirely contribute to since our limited selves will have different needs and capacities that change what we must have and how we may contribute to the world—each of us is a necessary condition; secondly, there is no one object, person, or institution that will ever lead someone entirely to achieving ευδαιμονια. Rather, in a partial and limited capacity, we interact with a great many aspects of our lives in order to aim at the end of Happiness. Perhaps this involves friendships, family, scientific discovery, artistic wonder, philosophic contemplation, or the participation in other’s finding Happiness in their lives as well. This is not a formula, but rather a guideline to be coloured in by the variety of our lived experience.
To return to our original question, the purpose of life is to find a sense of peace within one’s own contingent and limited experience, to learn to love the mere act of being and to find a state of joy—this is the eternal good to which Happiness aspires by the mediating our pluralistic, contingent, lived experience. It is not the mere pursuit of pleasure for oneself, for such elation will always wear off and need to be replaced by another; it is not to participate in some grand narrative of civilization either, as that requires that we leave behind so much of our own experience in which we may take great delight. Happiness is not found in any one aspect of our experience but in the delightful balancing act of the great multiplicity that life has to offer; Happiness is a state of the soul, not the final achievement of some honour or the obtaining of some object in the world.
“I go my way regretting those past times
I spent in loving something which was mortal
instead of soaring high, since I had wings
that might have taken me to higher levels.”
-Petrarch, Sonnet 365, The Canzoniere
Hoping for Clarity 