Ancient philosophy, at least following Aristotle, had a pretty straightforward way to answer the last question. It started by examining the nature or purposes of the animal Man. Then any behavior aligned with that nature or supportive of those purposes was "good"; behavior that conflicted with that nature or thwarted those purposes was "bad". Sounds simple enough.
The problem is that these days, if you talk about humans having a natural purpose or goal, people look at you funny. We're supposed to be so much more sophisticated than that now. We're supposed to know better. We're supposed to know that the world wasn't designed with us in mind, and there are no natural ends we are supposed to fulfill. When we choose between right and wrong, it's really just a fancy way of talking about what we wish or what we want; or else it's an expression of our society's values. Or something like that.
But does anyone really believe this? If morality is arbitrary then why do we universally condemn Leopold and Loeb? (Which we do.) Why do we say that it is good to eradicate smallpox but evil to eradicate groups of human beings? (Which, again, we do.) Clearly nobody really believes that morality is arbitrary. The only reason anybody ever says so is because they don't know how to make a case to the contrary, and so they feel boxed in.
What does it take to make a case to the contrary? Well if there is an objective right and wrong, where does it come from? One answer is religious: these things are right and those are wrong because God said so. If someone is squeamish about this answer, the other traditional answer is Aristotle's: our sense of right and wrong comes somehow from Nature, from our nature. But in that case, why can natural scientists not isolate right and wrong under a microscope? Surely scientists study Nature more closely than anybody else -- why can't they wrap right and wrong into a tidy equation, like gravity?
Back in a very early post, I talked about this odd disjunction between a seemingly purposeless natural world and the obviously purposeful lives that we lead as natural beings inside that world. And I proposed that this disjunction should be called Strauss's Paradox. This name is a nod to Leo Strauss, who described the problem right at the beginning of his classic Natural Right and History.
Natural right in its classic form is connected with a teleological view of the universe. All natural beings have a natural end, a natural destiny, which determines what kind of operation is good for them. In the case of man, reason is required for discerning these operations: reason determines what is by nature right with ultimate regard to man's natural end. The teleological view of the universe, of which the teleological view of man forms a part, would seem to have been destroyed by modern natural science. From the point of view of Aristotle -- and who could dare to claim to be a better judge in this matter than Aristotle? -- the issue between the mechanical and the teleological conception of the universe is decided by the manner in which the problem of the heavens, the heavenly bodies, and their motion is solved. Now in this respect, which from Aristotle's own point of view was the decisive one, the issue seems to have been decided in favor of the nonteleological conception of the universe. Two opposite conclusions could be drawn from this momentous decision. According to one, the nonteleological conception of the universe must be followed up by a nonteleological conception of human life. But this "naturalistic" solution is exposed to grave difficulties: it seems to be impossible to give an adequate account of human ends by conceiving of them merely as posited by desires or impulses. Therefore, the alternative solution has prevailed. This means that people were forced to accept a fundamental, typically modern, dualism of a nonteleological natural science and a teleological science of man. [...] The fundamental dilemma, in whose grip we are, is caused by the victory of modern natural science. An adequate solution to the problem of natural right cannot be found before this basic problem has been solved.
Leo Strauss, Natural Right and History, pp. 7-8
It is this paradox that I propose to discuss here.
First, why is it a paradox? I use the word in the most general sense, to indicate any kind of conundrum where there is a superficially plausible argument supporting some claim and another superficially plausible argument denying it. In this case, the claim is that there is a teleology (a nature, a purpose) for Man. On the one hand it looks like the answer is yes, because it looks hard to make sense of human life in any other way. On the other hand it looks like the answer is no, because Man is clearly part of the natural world (whatever else he might be) and it looks like there is no teleology for the natural world as a whole. Superficially yes, superficially no. Under the most general definition, we can call it a paradox.
Presumably it is clear that there are at least three ways to resolve this paradox.
(1) We can deny the first branch, and conclude that the seeming teleology inherent in human life is an illusion. In that case there is no innate purpose in anything anywhere. This is the nihilistic view, and it is easy because all we have to do is close our eyes to any apparent counterexample.
(2) We can deny the second branch, and conclude that there is a teleology of the whole which includes the teleology of Man as a special case. This is, as I understand it, more like the Aristotelian view. This approach is difficult because it involves building a complete understanding of the natural world that is different from the prevailing or majority view in the modern scientific community; and anybody who wants to take on that community (in this day and age, at any rate) has his work cut out for him.
(3) We can inquire whether a teleology of Man perhaps need not depend on a teleology of the whole. I think this is the most fruitful approach.
Therefore I propose to argue that, supposing the initial hypothesis that there is no teleology for the whole, there is nonetheless a teleology for Man. I will defer till another day any significant discussion of the content of this teleology: whether we are born for the sake of Reason, or for the sake of Art, or for the sake of Video Games. (Spoiler alert: I don't think it is that last one.) In other words, I will be satisfied for today to argue that a teleology for Man exists without inquiring into the details. That part can wait till later.
The argument takes the following form. The main theorem is that, for any living organism, there is a teleology for that organism, even in the absence of a teleology for the whole. Then it is an easy corollary to point out that Man is a living organism, and so there is a teleology for Man.
In everything that follows, I am going to assume the hypothesis that there is no teleology of the whole, so I don't have to keep repeating it.
So. What is a living organism?
The full definition is probably pretty long. I can't quote it. But one of the essential features of a living organism is that -- by definition -- it is an autopoietic system. What does that mean? The article in Wikipedia ("Autopoiesis") says: "The term autopoiesis ... refers to a system capable of reproducing and maintaining itself." For example, think of our skin. We are always losing a layer of skin, as it dries up and flakes off; but we never run out of skin because our body always makes more. When you think of any other living organism, you can think of plenty of other examples. When a machine breaks down, someone has to intervene from the outside to fix it. When a rock wears away, it is all gone. But when a living body breaks down (within limits) it rebuilds itself. When a living body wears away (think of our skin again), it replaces itself. This self-replicating structure is part of what we mean when we say something is alive.
Any autopoietic system can be clearly distinguished from its background. In a landscape, it may not be quite obvious where exactly the rocks give way to the beach; in a storm at sea it can be hard to be sure where exactly is the surface of the water. But for any organism, it is always clear what is inside (part of the organism) and what is outside. The inside is whatever gets replicated and maintained by the processes that take place inside the organism.
Therefore we can talk about the organism as unique and distinct from the environment, as having a being or a nature independent from its environment.
In the same way, we can distinguish these processes themselves, because they repeat in a regular and predictable way. Respiration, perspiration, circulation of the blood -- all of these happen systematically. Each one is triggered in a certain way, takes place in a certain way, and has a specific result. Moreover, the circular (i.e., self-feeding) nature of the system means that one process sets up another in a regular way -- and each process sets up the same next process under the same conditions.
Therefore we can see linkages between the processes, and we can trace how these linked processes serve to maintain the stability and uniformity of the organism. Once we see these linkages, it is natural to speak of the processes "cooperating" to keep the organism alive -- i.e., to keep the selfsame processes still functioning. And in the same way it is natural to speak of "purposes" at a biological level. The lungs expand in order to bring fresh oxygen inside the body; the heart beats in order to distribute that oxygen (dissolved in the blood) throughout the body; and then the life and health of the body repairs any damage to the heart and the lungs.
This system of regular processes which interact to perpetuate themselves constitutes a teleology at a cellular level, or at the level of the single organism.
The same kind of self-feeding, self-maintaining processes can be seen in the interaction between an organism and its environment. Let us suppose that some life form evolved over time inside a specific environment. For it to have survived long enough for that evolution to take place, it must interact with the environment in a predictable, repeatable way that maintains its own life and -- taking the long view -- the environment's life as well. And again, this system of acquired traits which function in a self-maintaining way can be described as a system of interlocking purposes that are an innate feature of this organism's life in this environment.
It is in this way that the most materialist and anti-teleological biologist in the world can still say with a straight face that the reason cats have sharp, curved claws and strong pouncing muscles in their hind legs is in order to catch mice. (Cf. references to the same point in this post and this one. Both posts admit the need for a longer discussion which I don't give. Well, this is that longer discussion.)
This, too, is a teleology. And notice that it is a teleology which speaks (if I may use the term) to a "way of life". Cats are intended for a way of life that involves hunting mice. We can deduce this by looking at their biological endowments as organisms. So when I say that this argument supports a teleology for Man, I have in mind some kind of meaningful content about the human way of life as well. But that will be a later post (although this one is a good start).
Notice, finally, that at no point in this discussion have I had recourse to any conscious Designer or Demiurge. I have built everything on the nature of living organisms as such ... on what it means, by definition, to be alive. Many moderns believe that life can arise from non-life without a conscious Designer. Fine, let it be so. But this argument shows that a teleology of living organisms does not depend on any teleology of the whole.
QED.
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