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A
Valuable and Meaningful Individual Life
John
Shand
Associate
Lecturer in Philosophy, The Open University, Walton Hall, Milton Keynes MK7
6AA UK.
Abstract
Analogously
the determinants of the value and meaning of an artwork are fundamentally
the same as for an individual life. In both the value and meaning are
determined by the parts, in their particularity and in their configuration,
as well as, respectively, the subjective contribution of the person whose
life it is and whomsoever observes the artwork. However, a person and his
life are inextricably linked in a way an observer and an artwork are not.
We should learn caution from the fact that to tinker with the parts and
configuration of an artwork will likely destroy its value and meaning and
apply that to the lives of individuals, and fully respect the particularity
and the subjectivity of evaluation involved. We should eschew all but the
idea of universal prescriptions for the good-life for individuals, just as
we would do so in the case of a good artwork.
1.
A Life and an Artwork
There
is a close and illuminating analogy that may be drawn between what makes a
work of art valuable and meaningful, and what makes a life valuable and meaningful.
The chief purpose here is not to show how a life is like a work of art, but
rather to use the way we understand an artwork as away of understanding
what a life is. Note, the subject here is a life, not life in general as
valuable and meaningful, whatever that may mean. Indeed part of the
argument is that the latter may make no sense, and value can and should
only be attached to the life as it is for an individual. The analogy is found
in the meaning and value of an artwork or a life being determined by the
particularity of its parts and their configuration, along with,
respectively, the sensibility of the observer of the artwork and the
character of the person whose life it is. This suggests two things. Firstly,
that to expect there to be a universal idea of what a valuable and
meaningful, let alone good, life is is a mistake, just as it would be in
the case of a work of art. Secondly, that we meddle with the parts and
configuration of an individual life in acute peril of destroying its value
and meaning for the person whose life it is, just as we are likely to
destroy the value and meaning of a work of art should we tinker with its
parts and their configuration. Whether the meddling is well meaning or not,
makes no difference. Oddly, whereas we accept this as being relatively
obvious in the case of an artwork, where the authenticity and integrity of
the work is something most take for granted as virtually sacrosanct, it is
often neglected or actively rejected in the case of an individual’s life.
The thought that people should be prepared to change aspects of their
lives, and that this will have relatively little detrimental effect, or
that, similarly, they should be made to conform to some life that is a
supposed obvious improvement, is remarkably widespread. Yet, we should if
anything be more reluctant to make such changes for people. For in the case
of a person, the person he is (his personality) and the life that is his
are inextricably linked and mutually constructed. To ask someone to change
what might seem to others an inconsequential part of his life may be
tantamount to asking him to change his personality, his very nature.
In
certain respects it is not an original thought to liken a person’s life to a
work of art, or indeed to go further and advocate that the example of a work
of art, the way it is shaped and considered, should be adopted as the way
one should think about a life.1 One motive is to suggest that one should
not just let things happen to one, but that one should actively construct
and shape one’s life. Further, it may be said that there is liberation in
seeing that one is to a considerable degree free to make of one’s life what
one chooses, and need not be bound by accidental circumstances and
expectations. There is also the thought that the very act of shaping one’s
life as one proceeds through it, perhaps forming it into some kind of
intelligible narrative and recognisable whole, increases the value of and
satisfaction derived from that life; you make your life your own, and like
a work of art it is something that may be appreciated in itself as an
admirable creation.
I
shall not here elaborate on or argue with any of these contentions. My concern
is with another matter. This is an important way in which life may rightly
be likened to a work of art, such that reflection on the similarity illuminates
something that is essential to the way a person comes to consider his life
valuable and meaningful. This is important because it has deep and wide
ramifications for what should be involved in considering what is a valuable
or meaningful life, a view that opposes any kind of blueprint for what
constitutes the valuable and meaningful life in general, and that should
give us serious pause for thought before we try to turn any conception of
the valuable and meaningful life in a universal sense into enforced
policies, perhaps through state power. In short, considering the way in
which a life is meaningful and valuable to individuals should deeply affect
the way we treat people.
To
make the case for taking seriously judging the value and meaning of a life
in the way one might judge the value and meaning of a work of art, one has
to look at the determinants of the latter.2 One then has to see that the
same kind of considerations should be applied to a life.
An
essential determinant of the value and meaning of a work of art is the
particularity of the parts and their arrangements, perhaps indeed their unique
configuration, the overall value and meaning of the artwork deriving from
the parts being just what they are and not otherwise. We have no
expectation of writing out a general formula or program that would generate
a valuable and meaningful work of art. If we look at a painting or listen
to a symphony, it is just that that part is there and that part is there, that
taken together make it into the valuable and meaningful work of art that it
is. The parts themselves may have little significance in isolation, and only
gain it by their place. A touch of red here, a tap on the timpani there.
We can
cut a bit of slack in the determination. Some parts may go by unattended
to; some may be removed to apparently little effect. Nevertheless, it is
the parts and their being put together in the way they are that strongly
determines what the final work is and its value and meaning.
In
the best works of art it is hard to imagine anything changed without it damaging
the value and meaning of the work. The parts and the whole that is created
from them become in the hands of genius as though ruled by a law of nature3
rather than being a constructed artifice. Just as we find it hard to
imagine, as we stand on the earth, a stone doing anything but falling when
released from our grasp, we find it hard to imagine, in the best works of
art - the most valuable and meaningful - the artwork unfolding in any other
way from the way it does or being formed in any other way than the way it
is. What is involved in being an artist is the working and shaping - often
a lengthy process of reworking and reshaping - to create something that is
as good as the artist thinks it can be.
When
others view the work of art, they may come to a consensus that the artist
has done a good or wonderful job, and has created something of real value
and significant meaning. An analysis of the work may aim to shed light on
how this has been done. Some prefer not to bother with this, but instead
are happy to intuit the overall effect gestalt; some fear that an analysis
will destroy the mystery of the artwork and the way it works its magic, and
distract from the value they derive from the work4. For others, understanding
how it is done is both fascinating in itself and enhances their experience
of the whole. However, this may be, both groups can agree that little could
be changed about a great work of art without its value and meaning being in
peril. Various people may come to agree on the value and meaning, and so a
work might become generally regarded as a great one.
Some
may think to dispute the claim that little could be changed about a great work
of art without its value and meaning being in peril, on the grounds that
artists sometimes alter their own works in minor ways but yet produce
another masterpiece, or a work considered a greater masterpiece.
But
this does not challenge the position here because it would by analogy be
akin to an individual person changing some aspect of their life and the life
still being valuable and meaningful to them - it is they who have to decide
what to do, and the part that is changed may seem to others utterly inconsequential
and perhaps even incomprehensible in its significance. The peril is
greatest to value and meaning when it is not the artist of genius or the
individual whose life it is who makes such changes, although even they may
make mistakes. It is others, even when well-meaning, armed with a general
pattern for the good-life or the good work of art who pose the threat.
In
any case, none of this refutes the point that it is the particular parts
and their particular configuration that determines the value and meaning of
the whole for artworks and individual lives.
2. Life, Particularity and Subjectivity
If
it is the case that it may be generally agreed by a range of sensibilities that
an artwork’s value and meaning will most likely be damaged by changing or
rearranging even the smaller parts of it, then we may reflect how much more
this is true of a life. For in the case of a life, there is only one person
that truly matters in judging its value and meaning: the person whose life
it is. Not only are the parts of a life particular and arranged in turn to
form a particular, perhaps unique, configuration, as far as its value is
concerned it is only the evaluation of the person whose life it is that really
matters in determining its value and meaning.
Again,
we may cut a bit of slack here. There may be those who love us acutely who
have a special interest in the life we have, its parts and the way they are
put together, and their evaluation carries some weight. But in the end it
is not their life (indeed the love they have for others will be an important
constituent of the things that make up their life and determine its value
and meaning) - they do not live our life, and indeed they cannot do so -
ultimately all that matters is what the person whose life it is thinks
about the parts that make up his life and how they are put together when it
comes to determining the value and meaning of that life. If loved ones have
only a limited right to appropriate the value and meaning of a life, those
who knows us less well, or not at all, may be seen to have even less right
to appropriate what might come to constitute the parts that make up our
life and shape them, and they will have even less understanding of that
life.
When
this appropriation occurs it is often based on some supposedly justifiable
view of a general notion of the good-life that will show pitiful understanding
of what makes a life valuable and meaningful, one that will crudely
override the delicate balance of the highly subjectively valued concatenation
of parts that goes to make a life valuable and meaningful to an individual.
Just as an insensitive and philistine observer of a great work of art might
suggest changing this or that to ‘improve it’5, so others may suggest all
sorts of things that would make life more valuable and meaningful, and then
impose this across numerous individual lives, not seeing that the
significance of the parts such individuals have put together to create the
life that is valuable and meaningful for them. This may operate purely
negatively of course, with things being taken away from a life, rather than
aspects of it being substituted by others. The act of generalising about
the content of the good-life, the thought that such generalising is even
possible, presupposes that what is truly valuable and meaningful about the
life for an individual isn’t the particularity of it - the particularity of
its parts and their configuration. It is not essentially that the value and
meaning reside in the mere fact of the life being particular - although to
a slight degree that may be true - but rather that the value resides in the
particularity it has. Perhaps it is even the uniqueness of the life that is
at issue. It is arguable that in respect of what makes a life valuable and meaningful
we are concerned with an arrangement of parts into a whole that may have no
counterpart. Changing any part of the life that the individual sees as
important to the value of his life - the part being important partly
because of the way it is related to the other parts – may totally seriously
damage or destroy the value and meaning of a life for that individual;
whereas the very same change may be found to be perfectly acceptable and
even valuable to another. The valuable and meaningful life is both deeply
subjective (as deep as it could be as it is the person’s own life), and
deeply particular (in its parts and their arrangement from which it follows
that no substantive generalisation can be made from a life about what makes
life valuable and meaningful).
So,
what is presented here is partly a kind of warning. The value and meaning
of a life for the individual whose life it is are both very subjective and
very particular. This should lead to consider tampering with it at our peril
if that valuable and meaningful life is to be preserved. It should lead us
to have the greatest respect for the just-so of the way a person’s life is,
the way it is in its full quirkiness and particularity, and lead us to
eschew, as far as we can, thinking that we can just lop off or reshape
aspects of a life without destroying its value and meaning. The difficulty
in grasping this is that we may not even consider that what we are doing
may have this effect, because that the life of another individual should be
valued and is meaningful just because its parts are what they are and
arranged in a certain way and not otherwise, may necessarily be utterly
baffling to us, for it is his life and through his sensibility that such a
life is valuable and meaningful, and may be so uniquely to them. Without
firmly impressing this upon ourselves, we may think it permissible to be
cavalier with the seemingly inconsequential parts, and the configuration of
those parts, that make up the lives of others; whereas in fact the parts
and their configuration not only make such lives valuable and meaningful,
but may leave a life utterly valueless and meaningless if parts are taken
away or replaced and their arrangement reshaped.
There
is nothing egoistical, narcissistic, or excessively individualistic about
what is claimed here. Nothing that is said need claim that people are to an
implausible degree in control of their own lives, or that forming their lives
is their main self-focussed activity, or that social relations are not important
constituents of what makes a life valuable and meaningful and in fact also
shapes it. What is said about what it is for a life to be valuable and meaningful
is consistent with our not being fully in control of what constitutes our
lives. Rather it is the case that we constitute our life so as to give it
value and meaning given what the world - that is to say, living in the world
- throws at us. We build a valuable and meaningful life around that, sometimes
in spite of that. But this merely reinforces the point made here.
For
just as what constitutes the valuable and meaningful life will be determined
by the parts and arrangement of the parts that make up a life in their full
particularity, so the effective determinants beyond my control will be
particular to an individual also.
Most
people suppose that imposing the constituent parts that make up their life
on another individual, and expecting them to add up to a valuable and
meaningful life for that individual, highly unlikely and perhaps even anathema.
Yet, people feel justified in talking in the abstract about the constituents
of a good-life - a valuable and meaningful one - perhaps en route to
guiding public policy on the matter, which may be coercive – and in so
doing they may expect what is provided or imposed to enhance the value and
meaning of the lives of individuals. Yet this is odd, for it too is based
on the same disregard for what makes a life valuable and meaningful for an
individual, and the way in which it cannot be captured in the abstract.
Evidence
for this may be gleaned from lives lived in extremis. A prisoner held in
solitary confinement may find that what makes his life valuable and
meaningful and worth going on with are the tiniest things and rituals that
other individuals may have no comprehension of the value or meaning of, and
certainly could not be accounted for in any general picture of what
constitutes the good-life. It may involve, say, training the small group of
cockroaches that the prisoner shares the cell with. That may now be the
crux of his life’s value and meaning. Hard to understand by others; perhaps
impossible. And for another individual in the same circumstances it may be
and have to be something else. No rulebook on the good-life is going to
cover this.
Another
example reported recently is of a middle-aged woman who went blind
overnight. She was asked what it was she missed most about not being able
to see. That it is most missed suggests something that has significantly
diminished the value and meaning of her life. One might speculate on what
it might be. Sunsets? The sea? The blue sky? Her children’s faces? None of
these things. It was seeing her dog and what it did. One can see how such
features of a life could be utterly overlooked when thinking about what
makes a life valuable and meaningful - but it was of serious value and
meaning for her life.
This
is because what makes a life valuable and meaningful for an individual will
be a particular concatenation, or bundle, that is perhaps unique; the value
and meaning derives from the tiniest features that could not possibly be of
general significance or value or meaning, but are only so to the person
whose life it is.6 Normal everyday life is no different in this respect
from extreme cases: it is things being just thus-and-so in all their particularity
and as they are arranged that makes the life valuable and meaningful for an
individual, and which forms a fragile whole that is his valuable and
meaningful life. The importance of this and what is at stake is clearly
indicated by its being uncontentious that a life devoid of value and meaning
is an intolerable one.
A
complication is that it is hard to know which comes first, the individual
sensibility that judges the life it has as valuable and meaningful, or the
constituents of that life that are judged valuable and meaningful. Indeed
to pose the matter like that is probably foolhardy; the two are intertwined
and grow together interdependently; they cannot really be separated but may
be so separated only abstractly in thought.7 It is absurd to talk about the
person you are on the one hand, and what it is that makes your life your
life and makes it valuable and meaningful. It may be argued,
therefore,
that changing an aspect of someone’s life may, however
inconsequential
the change seem to others, destroy the value and meaning of that life.
For
example, if someone breaks a leg, it may not seem like the end of the
world, nor obviously devalue his life. But say the legs mends, but is never
quite as good again, and may now be more prone to injury. If what this
person valued most highly, very greatly, or perhaps even beyond all else,
is the carefree feeling one gets while hill-walking, then it is quite conceivable
that his life has been significantly devalued, maybe stripped of the
crucial features, as it fitted with other features, that made the life valuable
and meaningful. To someone whose life it isn’t, to someone for whom
hill-walking holds few, no, or less than no, attractions, it will be a mystery
of strained empathy to understand why the value of a person’s life should
be affected so negatively by a leg injury. They may say that there are
surely lots of other things to make life worthwhile, and lots of other things
could make it much worse - missing the point that what makes the life
valuable and meaningful for this individual may have been taken away from
him.
The
relation between a person and his life is similar to that between an artist
and his artwork, but in the case of a life there is only one consumer of it,
and in the case of the artist the artwork is an event in his life, not
(except in exceptional circumstances) his whole life. This makes the
connection between the value and meaning of a life and the person whose
life it is even closer than that between the value and meaning of a work of
art and those who appreciate it; in the latter case tampering with it may
destroy one artwork that is appreciated; in the former case you may destroy
an entire life.
It
is argued here that significant lessons as to how we should treat people
may and should be learnt from the way an artwork comes to have its value
and meaning, because these ways can be transferred to the value and meaning
of the life of an individual person. We tend to see the point in the case
of an artwork, but miss it in the case of a person’s life; but we should try
to bring it about that we do not miss it if the analogy holds, for
otherwise we will find ourselves far too easily riding roughshod over what makes
a life valuable and meaningful for someone.
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1 The idea that one may shape one’s life overall
as one may a work of art, is explored with great skill as part of a
consideration of Nietzsche’s thought, in Nehamas (1985). This is rather a
different point to the one being made here about the determinants of a
valuable and meaningful individual life.
2 Pioneering work on the way that the features
we ascribe to a work of art - such as grace, strength, or liveliness - are
grounded in, but irreducible to, the particular parts is found in, Sibley
(1959) and (1965).
3 Kant (1991 [1790]), p. 168.
4 On this basis, contra-Socrates, the unexamined
life may well be worth living, if it works.
5 The composer Bruckner is a good example of
someone whose works have had their value and meaning undermined, and in
some cases destroyed, by others, some well meaning, some not, who thought
they could improve them through alterations - usually, cuts, re-scoring,
reharmonisation - derived from incomprehension. No-one now thinks the
alterations not approved by the composer (and even in some cases those that
are if they are thought to have come about through pressure on him) improve
the works, or that it is these travesties that should be performed rather
than the originals. And yet, we seem far more sanguine about the benefits
of altering someone’s life, or its being altered, as far as the affect on its
value and meaning is concerned.
6 One might say that what is being described
here is the haecceity of individual lives as far as their value and meaning
is concerned; a life as a unique individual, rather than something, can have
a common nature shared by many lives.
7 As perhaps with Aristotle’s matter and form.
References
Kant, Immanuel. (1991
[1790]), The Critique of Judgement,
trans James Creed Meredith. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Nehamas, Alexander.
(1985), Life as Literature.
Cambridge, Mass:
Harvard University
Press.
Sibley, Frank.
(1959), “Aesthetic Concepts”, Philosophical
Review, Vol. 68, also in Frank Sibley, Approach to Aesthetics: Collected Papers on Philosophical Aesthetics (1965). J. Benson & al. (eds)
(2001). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Sibley, Frank.
(1965), “Aesthetic and Non-aesthetic” Philosophical Review, Vol. 74, No. 2, also in Frank Sibley, Approach to Aesthetics: Collected
Papers on Philosophical Aesthetics
(1965). J. Benson
& al. (eds) (2001). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
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