人生的意义

人生的意义 我们有谁不曾问过，自己的人生是否是有意义的人生？ 谁没有过疑问——在失眠的夜晚，或长时间身陷乏味或繁重 的工作，抑或面对恼人得快要超过承受极限的小孩子——它 们最终指向任何意义么？如今仍然如此，许多人沦陷于个人 损失的痛苦记忆中，于是自然想知道答案。 The philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre thought that, without God, our lives are bereft of meaning.He tells us in his essay “Existentialism,” “if God does not exist, we find no values or commands to turn to which legitimize our conduct.So, in the bright realm of values, we have no excuse behind us, nor justification before us.”On this view, God gives our lives the values upon which meaning rests. And ifGod does not exist, as Sartre claims, our lives can have only the meaning we confer upon them. 哲学家萨特认为，如果上帝缺席，人生就会失去意义。他在 文章《存在主义》中写道， “如果上帝不存在，我们会找不 到任何价值或依托，来肯定我们的种种行为。所以在敞亮的 价值领域中，人们身后没有借口，面前没有理由。 ”从这个 观点来看，是上帝赋予了人生的价值，而人生的意义即依赖 于此价值。像萨特所说，如果上帝不存在，人生就只剩下我 们自己赋予的意义。 This seems wrong on two counts. First, why would the existence of God guarantee the meaningfulness of each of our lives?Is a life of unremitting drudgery or unrequited struggle really redeemed if there’s a larger plan, one to which we have no access, into which it fits?That would be small compensation for a life that would otherwise feel like a waste — a point not lost on thinkers like Karl Marx, who called religion the “opium of the people.”Moreover, does God actually ground the values by which we live?Do we not, as Plato recognized 2500 years ago, already have to think of those values as good in order to ascribe them to God? 这个结论似乎有两点谬误。第一点，为何上帝的存在即保证 了每个人的人生之意义？不懈地做着单调沉闷的工作，或坚 持没有任何回报的奋斗，这样的人生真的就能得到救赎么， 如果有更广阔也更契合的蓝图，而我们不得其入呢？除非有 微小的补偿，否则会感觉生活浪费了——此想法没有被马克 思这样的思想家遗漏，他称宗教是“人类的鸦片” 。而且， 上帝确为我们种下了赖以生存的价值基石么？其实正如柏 拉图在 2500 年前所说，人们已经自发把那些价值看成是好 的，目的就为了把它们归为上帝的功劳。 Second, and more pointedly, must the meaningfulness of our lives depend on the existence of God?Must meaning rely upon articles of faith? Basing life’s meaningfulness on the existence of a deity not only leaves all atheists out of the picture; it leaves different believers out of one another’s picture. What seems called for is an approach to thinking about meaning that can draw us together, one that exists alongside or instead of religious views. 第二点，同时也是更尖锐的一点，人生的意义必须有赖于上 帝的存在么？意义必须仰仗于宗教信仰么？如果说人生的 意义基于神灵的存在，那么所有的无神论者被排除在外了， 不同信仰的人们也被排除出彼此的宗教之外了。我们需要的 似乎是其意义能海纳百川的东西。 A promising and more inclusive approachis offered by Susan Wolf in her recent and compelling book, “Meaning in Life and Why It Matters.”A meaningful life, she claims, is distinct from a happy life or a morally good one. In her view, “meaning arises when subjective attraction meets objective attractiveness.” A meaningful life must, in some sense then, feel worthwhile.The person living the life must be engaged by it.A life of commitment to causes that are generally defined as worthy — like feeding and clothing the poor or ministering to the ill — but that do not move the person participating in them will lack meaningfulness in this sense. However, for a life to be meaningful, it must also be worthwhile. Engagement in a life of tiddlywinks does n