07 Sep 2025 - Objectivity vs Subjectivity

Daily Thoughts: Sharon Rawlette shares this quote from RM Hare in her book The Feeling of Value, pg 9:

"I really think the terms 'objective' and 'subjective' have introduced nothing but confusion into moral philosophy; that they have never been given a clear meaning, and have frustrated all serious discussion of the subject."

Rawlette goes on to make a distinction between mind-dependence and judgment-dependence. She says (pgs 14,15):

Quote:

I don't myself use the term 'mind-independence' because, given what I take to be the most plausible form of realism—a theory based on the intrinsic value and disvalue of certain forms of phenomenology—to define moral realism as a claim about the "mind-independence" of moral facts would be misleading. On my view, moral facts are not mind-independent. They are quite dependent on whether people are in the mental states of pleasure or pain. And indeed, most mainstream realist views do take moral facts to be at least in part dependent on facts about pleasure and pain. However, on my view and on these other realist views, facts about the goodness of pleasure and the badness of pain . . . are judgment-independent.

End quote.

Thoughts, which aim to clarify the situation: 

* We have experiences and we have judgments.

 
* For example, Bob has an experience of a certain image in Bob's mind. Bob judges this image to be a memory: Bob remembers having pancakes for breakfast today. Bob's experience cannot be "wrong"; it's just data. It's the judgment that can be wrong: the image in Bob's mind is a memory of him eating pancakes for breakfast, but it was yesterday, not today! Bob misremembered. Bob's interpretation of his experience is wrong.

 
* So we have experience facts and judgment facts—facts about what experiences have taken place, who had them, what caused them, etc., and facts about what judgments have taken place, who made them, what caused them, etc.

 
* Experience facts are phenomenal facts / qualia facts. E.g. the experience of tasting food that is too salty.

 
* Judgment facts are not phenomenal facts, though maybe there is always a quale / qualia that accompanies a judgment. And so for every judgment fact, there is a corresponding phenomenal fact or facts (the mental experience of making the judgment or having the judgment form in your mind).

 
* Some true propositions are made true by experience facts (experience-dependent truths) and some true propositions are made true by judgment facts (judgment-dependent truths).

 
* I guess both of these are subjective facts? And so 'subjective fact' is vague over experience-dependent truth and judgment-dependent truth.

 
* Some true propositions are made true by facts that do not depend on either experience or judgment. These are objective truths.

 
* Facts are states of affairs.

 
* States of affairs have an objectivity to them. So subjective facts are in some sense objective by virtue of being facts.

 
* That sense is this: There are objective facts about subjective facts. For any subjective fact, there is the state of affairs that includes the subjective fact. So for every subjective fact, there is an objective fact about that fact.

 
* This is why there can be mind-dependent truths, which sound subjective, that are objectively (judgment-independently) true.

 
* E.g. "Bob liked the movie." This is mind-dependently true (which is the same as saying experience-dependently true) as it depends on Bob's mind (i.e. Bob's experience), but it's judgment-independently true because people can be mistaken about this claim. E.g. Alice believes Bob liked the movie because Bob told her he did, but little does Alice know that Bob was lying. So Alice's judgment that "Bob liked the movie" is mistaken.

 
* (So are judgments the same as beliefs?)

 
* "This food is too salty." Is this a statement made true by an experience (experience-dependent claim) or is it made true by a judgment (judgment-dependent claim), or both?

 
* Bob has a certain experience (the experience fact) which causes Bob to form the belief that the food is 'too salty' (the judgment fact).

 
* Bob shares his food with Alice. She does not have the too salty experience and thus does not form the judgment that the food is too salty. So the judgment "This food is too salty" is true or false depending on the experience fact that grounds the judgment (i.e. the judgment is explained by the experience).

 
* But doesn't that mean the truth of "This food is too salty" is not exactly judgment-dependent, but experience-dependent? Because it's not the judgment that makes the claim true or false, but the experience behind the judgment. (You could say that if the judgment is sincere, then the judgment just is a report of the experience, so a proposition being made true by a judgment or experience is the same kind of proposition. So judgment-dependent truths and experience-dependent truths are the same, both made true by the experience. What would an example be of a proposition whose truth is judgment-dependent and yet not experience-dependent? That is, a statement that is made true by the belief or judgment itself, but not an experience? I can't think of any. Even the judgment "I am in pain" is a report of an experience, and it's the experience of pain, not the judgment, that makes it true that I am in pain.)

 
* If that's right, then we have experience-based truths (propositions made true by experience facts), which are subjective truths, and objective truths (propositions made true by non-experience facts).

 
* But where does that leave a proposition like "I liked the song"?

 
* On the one hand, it's a subjective fact because its truth depends on who you ask – on whose experience you are referring to. But on the other hand, if someone says "No you didn't!", then they have said something false about my experience (assuming I really did like the song). It's true that I liked the song regardless of what someone else says.

 
* I guess it depends on the referent: The statement "This song sounds great!" is true or false depending on who you ask (on whose experience you are referring to). There's no fixed referent. But "This song sounds great to Ben" is true or false depending on Ben's experience. Ben's experience is the fixed referent. So while "This song sounds great" is subjective (true or false depending on someone's experience), "This song sounds great to Ben" is objective (true or false regardless of anyone's experience, with exception to Ben's experience).

 
* So "This song sounds great" has no definite truth value, because its truth value depends on someone's experience, and so you need a referent (a person's experience) to determine the truth value.

 
* "This song sounds great to Ben" has a definite truth value, because it depends on Ben's experience, and so you have your referent.

 
* But that means both of these statements have their truth dependent on experience facts. So both are subjective. The difference is that the first has no definite truth value while the second does, which is why people can have mistaken judgments about the second.

 
* So does that mean the better distinction than 'objective vs subjective' is between propositions with definite vs indefinite truth values? Because "This song sounds great to Ben" has a definite truth value, a person can be wrong when making this claim. But "This song sounds great" has no definite truth value, so you cannot be wrong when making this claim until you clarify: to whom the song sounds good.

 
* (But there are still propositions whose truth does not depend on anyone's experience.)

 
* This is not necessarily to say that "This song sounds great" is a gappy sentence, i.e. a genuine proposition that is neither true nor false (because its truth is indefinite, lacking the referent needed to make it definite). Rather, "This song sounds great" is too vague to express a proposition until made precise.

 
Maybe we need to first answer the question of what it means to be mistaken?

 
* Correspondence / representational theory of truth: Propositional beliefs are sentences. Sentences represent propositions. Propositions represent facts. Representation is transitive, so sentences represent facts. Propositions, and thus sentences, are made out of properties bound together by grammatical rules which set out the exact properties and how they relate within a sentence.

 
* This means you have "inner" properties and "outer" properties. When there is an inner/outer property match, you have truth, and when there is a mismatch, a misrepresentation, then you have falsity.

 
* E.g. a map of the US has inner properties representing the outer properties of the US territory. If the map shows that there is a pond somewhere and you go there and the pond has since dried up, then the inner properties do not match the outer properties and the map is now misrepresenting the area.

 
* In some cases misrepresentation occurs at a higher level of representation. E.g. let's say a picture is taken of a mountain. By coincidence, the photo contains an optical illusion that causes humans to, at least initially, form a false belief about the area the photo is taken of. The representation of the mountain by the photo is fairly accurate (though only capturing a tiny portion of the whole thing), but because of the optical illusion our belief, an interpretation of what we are seeing, is not accurate.

 
* So the order of representation is:

 
* Mountain -> Photo -> Visual data -> Belief (judgment). The visual data is corrupted by the optical illusion, leading to a false belief (until the illusion is recognized and the belief corrected).

 
* So when I say "The moon is smaller than the sun", that should be an objective statement, i.e. a statement whose truth does not depend on anyone's experience. But if truth just is a match between inner and outer properties, and if the inner properties are the properties of my belief (and the outer properties are the properties of the moon and sun), then all truth claims depend on inner properties of beliefs. And all beliefs depend on consciousness, and thus experience, and so really all claims are experience-dependent in some sense.

 
* So I started off saying that all propositions are objective because propositions are made true by facts and the very notion of 'fact' is objective, and now I'm saying that all propositions are subjective because all propositions involve inner properties which are experience-dependent.

 
* Maybe all beliefs have inner properties which are experience-dependent, but the propositions represented by the beliefs have inner properties which are not experience-dependent. This is why propositions are discovered, and why we have necessary propositions which exist (okay, it's debatable whether propositions exist; substitute this with a paraphrase from your favored nominal theory if applicable) independently of any consciousness whatsoever. Beliefs represent the proposition, so propositions ground our beliefs.

 
* So the order of representation is:

 
* Beliefs (Sentences) -> Propositions -> Facts.

 
* Properties can play a dual-role; for example, the properties of propositions are inner with respect to facts (because they represent facts), but are outer with respect to beliefs (because beliefs represent propositions).

 
* This could relate to how fictions work: The claim "Sauron reunited with the One Ring" is false with respect to the outer properties of the Lord of the Rings canon, and the stories within the Lord of the Rings canon are false with respect to the outer properties of real life. (And the claim "Sauron reunited with the One Ring" could be true with respect to the outer properties of a fan fiction, which in turn are false with respect to the outer properties of the main canon.)

 
* An objective proposition is supposed to be a proposition made true by a non-experience fact, and a subjective proposition is made true by an experience fact. But being "made true" means there is a match between representation and represented, between inner and outer properties.

 
* So the distinction between objectivity and subjectivity was supposed to be what makes each claim true. But really what makes each claim true is property matching.

 
* So "The moon is smaller than the sun" is true because the inner properties of the proposition (as represented by the sentence) represent, i.e. match, the properties of the moon and sun and the relational properties between the two.

 
* "Ben liked the song" is true because the inner properties of the proposition match the properties of the fact, which happens to be an experience fact. If Ben did not like the song, then there would be a property mismatch and the statement would be false.

 
* "The song is great" – by itself this is too vague to express a proper proposition.

 
* Precisfy(1): "This song sounds great to Ben" – made true or false by an experience fact.

 
* Precisify(2): "The song sounds great to many people" – made true or false by a collection of experience facts.

 
* Precisify(3): "The song is 1) Not extremely short, like one second; 2) Not extremely long, like one thousand hours; 3) Takes advantage of music theory in a number of ways; 4) The song 'comes from the soul' of the composer, meaning that it expresses emotions and feelings that come from a place of deep feeling and imagination; 5) The song achieves a balance between simplicity and complexity – not so complex so as to alienate the audience but not so simple so as to be uninteresting; 6) Is original and not too similar to any song already composed, providing novelty, entertainment, excitement, and a kind of 'horizon-expanding' effect on those who hear it, showing a musical space hitherto unexplored, inspiring future musicians to further explore that space; 7) Contains virtuosity on the part of the performers; 8) Is recorded in high-fidelity by sophisticated equipment in an acoustically appropriate environment; 9) Is well-mastered and produced, ensuring perfect rhythm for the whole song and balanced volume for each track; 10) Contains mathematical, puzzle-like symmetries and patterns that appeal to the human brain in the form of motifs, phrases, novelty, variation, repetition, melody, harmony, etc.; 11) Contains a story-like structure of rising and falling, and climax and resolution, and it is because of these features of the song that explain why it sounds great to many people."

 
* Some of these, maybe all of them, are non-experience facts about the song itself. So in some combination of these senses, "The song is great" is not only meaningful (and thus a genuine proposition), but true without an experience fact making it true.

 
* But you might argue that what counts as "not too short", "not too long", "a story-like structure", etc., depends on how people experience the song. A song being "too short" just is a song producing the "Huh? That's it?" feeling when someone listens to it.

 
* But on the other hand, it seems objective to me whether a song has a story-like structure to it, and you can't fit that structure in a one second song. (And even if you could, it would not be a substantial story.) It's not a coincidence or an unexplained fact that a very short song produces the "Huh?" feeling it does. There's something true about the song itself (in combination with truths about our brains and psychology) that explains that experience. And so music has some objectivity to it. By denying that objectivity, you fail to fully explain why it is that songs have the effects they do on us.

 

Question 1: Are experiences representational? Surely we would at least say visual experiences are representational; my visual experience of a tree represents the tree. So my visual experience of the tree contains inner properties that can match or fail to match the tree. But then that means my experiences (at least visual ones) can be inaccurate.

 

Answer 1: Even if there is visual representation, it's still important to distinguish which representation is inaccurate: the visual representation itself or my interpretation of the visual data.

 

Let's say I see a photo of a Lego figure next to a human. The Lego figure is massive compared to the human. I interpret this visual experience as meaning there is a very large Lego figure next to a normal human. But really, the Lego figure is actually a normal Lego figure set very close to the camera lens, and the human is far away, and the background is neutralized so that context clues don't immediately give away what's happening. In this case it might be tempting to say that my visual image of a large Lego figure next to a human was inaccurate. But actually the visual image is a perfectly accurate representation of a Lego figure set very close to the camera, etc. It was my interpretation of the image that was inaccurate.

 

Answer 2: This reminds me of Kant's concept of noumenal vs phenomenal. A tree has noumenal properties, and my visual experience of the tree has phenomenal properties. There's no reason to think, says Kant, that there is any match at all between the two. We can be confident, even certain, in the phenomenal properties, but we can have no confidence that there is any match at all between the inner properties of the phenomenal data and the outer, noumenal properties.

 

I suppose I'm just not that skeptical. I suspect that what's happening is that we recognize that a tree has many, many properties that we can't see, and so our visual image fails to capture the tree in its totality. So the hidden properties are the "noumenal" properties. But even if that's true, it could still be that a tree truly has the shape, color, texture, etc., that it has as represented by our visual experience. It helps that we have multiple ways of perceiving the tree; we can touch the tree and "see" its shape that way, and the "touch shape" and the "sight shape" match each other, increasing our confidence that the tree really has that shape, texture, etc. Plus, other people report seeing and feeling the same thing we do, so we know it's not just a hallucination, but something real and external to us that affects others in the exact same way.

 

Just because our first person data fails to represent the entirety of an object (because we lack total data, not because the data we have is inaccurate), that doesn't mean it fails to represent some of the object. But again, that would be a misrepresentation at the level of interpretation, not experience. If I see a tree and conclude that that's all there is to the tree, then that's a false conclusion.

 

So my guess is that our first person data is always an accurate representation of something, and it's our interpretation that goes wrong.

 

Even if I hallucinate and see a pink rabbit dashing by, that first person data is not representing an actual pink rabbit dashing by. Rather, that first person data is coming from within my brain, representing a certain brain state, and my brain presents that experience to me as if it is genuine visual data when it's not. This is why the statement "I saw a pink rabbit!" is false but the statement "I hallucinated a pink rabbit!" is true. The inner pink rabbit properties of the experience do not match any outer pink rabbit properties, because there is no pink rabbit. But the inner properties of the proposition "I hallucinated a pink rabbit!" match the outer phenomenal properties of the hallucination.

 

Answer 3: Representations cannot misrepresent themselves. So in the case of representations themselves, such as first person data / qualia, there is a phenomenal / noumenal collapse; the phenomenon and the noumenon are one and the same. The phenomenal properties of qualia and the noumenal properties of qualia are identical. Or put another way, when you have properties that aren't in a representing / represented relationship, then there is no representation – no inner or outer properties, only properties.

 

This is why our experiences, our first person data, cannot be wrong. But our interpretations of that data involve representation, which entails a separation between inner and outer properties, allowing for a mismatch.

 

Question 2: The properties of a representation need not match the properties of what is represented, and indeed this cannot be the case. A mountain is large and heavy, while a photo of a mountain is small and light. A pipe can be smoked, while a painting of a pipe cannot be. Kansas is roughly 82,000 square miles; a map of Kansas is not. So how are the properties of a representation supposed to match the properties of what's being represented?

 

Answer: There need not be total property matching between representation and represented to have an accurate representation, and indeed there cannot be. The property 'representing' and the property 'being represented' are two different properties, so it's always trivially necessary that representing objects and represented objects are different. But 'representation' itself just is a concept about property matching.

 

While a painting of a pipe cannot be smoked, a painting of a pipe can create within us a visual image of something brown, curvy, etc., the same visual image that a pipe creates within us. A hallucination of a pink rabbit represents a pink rabbit in the sense that both hallucinating a pink rabbit and seeing an actual pink rabbit produce within us an experience of seeing a pink rabbit. So you have partial representation, and this partial representation explains why it is that a person who hallucinates a pink rabbit might incorrectly conclude that they really saw a pink rabbit. But the experience does not represent an actual pink rabbit anymore than an experience of imagining a unicorn represents a real unicorn. Instead, both represent something going on in the brain (or, in the case of identity theory, both are identical to a particular brain state caused by something other than an actual pink rabbit or unicorn).

 

Question 3: What about self-justifying beliefs / self-fulfilling prophecies? Example: Medical reports say that if I believe I will get better, then I am more likely to get better. So my belief that I will get better might make it true that I do get better. So this would be an example of a judgment-dependent truth; the judgment that I will get better makes it true that I will.

 

Stress can worsen your health. So illness can create a feedback loop: The illness causes you emotional stress, which worsens the illness, which causes more stress. Being convinced that you will get better lessens stress. If the stress caused by worrying is the tipping point for recovery, and believing you will get better prevents your stress from reaching that tipping point, thus allowing you to recover, then it seems as though believing you will get better truly did cause the absence of stress and thus caused your recovery. Assuming that future contingents can be meaningful and true (which may not be the case), and assuming that your recovery is a future contingent (which may not be the case, as it could be necessary), then "I will get better" in this case is a future contingent made true by the judgment itself, and thus is a judgment-dependent, but not experience-dependent, truth.

 

I doubt that future contingents can be meaningful, I doubt that they can be true, and I suspect that everything is necessary, so I doubt their possibility.

 

Second set of thoughts:

 

* What does it mean for something to be objectively versus subjectively true?

 

* What does it mean for something to be true?

 

* First, what does it mean for something to exist? It seems that any attempt to define existence leads to circularity:

 

Exist(1): To exist is to be (exist as) the value of a bound variable;

 

Exist(2): To exist is to instantiate (exist with) at least one property;

 

Exist(3): To exist is to be a property. 

 

And so on.

 

When a concept is phenomenally defined, trying to define it leads to circularity / tautology:

 

Red: A red color.

 

Pain: A painful feeling. 

 

What is that which is intrinsically good? Happiness. And what is happiness? That which is intrinsically good.

 

The reason we run into circular or tautologous definitions for phenomenal concepts like red and happiness is because these concepts cannot be defined semantically, but only phenomenally. So we can only gesture to the real definition, which is a phenomenal definition.

 

So one theory is that the reason why attempts to define 'exist' leads to circularity / tautology is because 'exist' must be, like red and happiness, phenomenally defined.

 

(Another theory is that 'exist' is a basic concept that cannot be analyzed. There's probably other competing theories, including one which says 'exist' can be reduced and need not result in circularity.)

 

What is the best way to gesture toward phenomenal definitions?

 

Red is an experience, a visual experience of a particular color that is different from other colors. There is an intrinsic redness to this experience.

 

Happiness is an experience, an experience with certain qualities to it: it is desirable for its own sake, it motivates us to pursue it, it has a worthiness to it, it makes life worth living, a complete lack of it would make life not worth living (at least, in the absence of any pains, no more worth living than not). There is an intrinsic happiness or goodness to this experience.

 

For something to exist is for it to have a certain kind of "ontological positivity to it", as opposed to not existing, which lacks that positivity. There is a somethingness to that which exists, and there is a nothingness to that which does not.

 

But how to capture this notion of positivity? Certainly our experiences have a self-evident somethingness to them. And a lack of experience lacks this somethingness.

 

So to exist is to be an experience, to be that which grounds / causes / explains experience, or to be that which is disposed to be an experience or disposed to ground / cause / explain an experience.

 

The undeniable positivity to experience transfers to that which grounds / causes / explains the experience. So that which causes experiences, either dispositionally or in practice, inherits that positivity.

 

So for a property to exist is for that property to be an experiential property, to ground / cause / explain experiential properties, or to be disposed to ground / cause / explain experiential properties.

 

Even if there were no experiencers in our universe, the stars and planets would still exist because 'star' and 'planet' denote bundles of properties disposed to ground / cause / explain experiential properties, which certainly exist and could not exist without those prior properties.

 

So for God to exist is for God to be an experiential property, to ground / cause / explain our experiential properties, or to be disposed to ground / cause / explain any experiential properties under possible circumstances. For God to fail to exist is for God to not be an experienced property, to fail to ground / cause / explain our experiential properties, and to fail to be disposed to ground / cause / explain any experiential properties under possible circumstances.

 

In short, to exist is to be a first-person property or to be a third-person property. To put in oversimplified terms, to exist is to be an experience or to be that which causes an experience. This is a circular definition because 'exist' must be phenomenally defined, just as definitions for red and intrinsic good are circular because they too must be phenomenally defined.

 

Note: The word 'red' can refer to phenomenal red – the first-person experience of redness – but it can also refer to non-phenomenal red – the third-person properties responsible for causing phenomenal redness. So if I say "That car is red", it may be vague whether I am making a phenomenal claim: "I am having a red-car experience right now" or a non-phenomenal claim: "There are non-phenomenal red-car properties out there disposed to generate phenomenal red-car properties." Plausibly, both claims entail each other, so there is no need, in our everyday language, to disambiguate the claim. Indeed, this is how existence works: To say there exists a red car is to say the same thing as "That car is red". To say of anything that it exists just is to comment on its status as an experience and/or its status as that which generates experiences.

 

* Propositions can be true or false.

 

* Non-problematic sentences (complete, grammatical, not too vague) refer to propositions. E.g. "Snow is white" and "La neige est blanche" are two different sentences that refer to the same proposition.

 

* Things that express (refer to? represent?) propositions, like sentences, take on the truth value of their corresponding proposition.

 

* Propositions are arrangements of properties (See: Josh Rasmussen, "About Aboutness", Metaphysica). ('Arrangement' being synonymous with 'combination' and 'bundle' as far as I can see.)

 

* For every property, and every combination of properties, there is a proposition (or propositions) about that property or combination of properties.

 

* This is because properties can be referred to and propositions are arrangements of references to properties. (Hmm... so propositions are bundles of references to properties, and not of the properties themselves. Of course propositions have properties of their own, like properties of reference.)

 

* Because propositions have properties of their own, every proposition has a proposition about it. E.g. "The proposition 'The moon is smaller than the sun' is true." Here is a proposition about the truth of another proposition.

 

* Propositions refer to facts (facts are states of affairs, and states of affairs are bundles of properties). So all propositions have a referring property, with the properties referred to taking on an additional referred property.

 

* A proposition is true when it refers to real properties, i.e. properties that are experienced, explain experiences, or dispositionally explain experiences. (Put another way: properties that are experienced, explain experiences in practice, or explain experiences in theory.)

 

* Does Sauron exist? Sauron is a fictional character, and as such is made up of a fictional bundle of properties. That means either one or more of the properties of Sauron are fictional (e.g. being magical) and/or the bundle of real properties of Sauron is itself fictional (e.g. being a golden mountain). Fictional properties themselves are fictional bundles of real properties (so the fictional property of being magical can be analyzed in terms of real properties combined in a non-real way). We can trace this fictional bundle of properties to the imagination of an author, JRR Tolkien. We experience reading sentences and thinking thoughts about the fictional bundle that is Sauron. Those experiences are explained by the real properties of the writings of JRR Tolkien, which are in turn explained by the real properties of the events of imagination of Tolkien. The real properties of Sauron do not explain our experiences of Sauron, because there are no such properties and there are no such experiences.

 

* We can use our imagination to abstract out properties and combine them in novel ways, allowing us to invent fictions. We can write sentences that refer to these fictional properties.

 

* When it comes to propositions about fictions like: "Sauron was defeated", these are true in one sense and false in another. They are true in the sense that they refer to the fictional properties of the events of the main canon. They are false in the sense that they don't refer to any real properties.

 

* While it's true that in some sense a mismatch between inner and outer properties means falsity – a mismatch between repraesentans (that which does the representing) and repraesentandum (that which is represented) – perhaps more fundamentally, in the case of representation, it's the representation failing to "refer" to real properties that drives that falsity. What makes something true is not property matching, but property reference.

 

I can't really make sense of this notion of inner and outer properties, because it's undeniable that the properties of a proposition are different from the properties of what the proposition is about. In the case of a photo of a mountain, the photo doesn't refer to the mountain but represents it. The concept of accurate representation may not make sense if it's always interpretations of representation that are true or false. Even if we allow for accurate vs inaccurate representation, the difference between a photo being an accurate representation of a mountain and a sentence about the mountain being true is that the photo has no words, and truth is a linguistic notion, and that's because language involves words which refer to properties, and so truth is fundamentally about property reference. When representation is linguistic, as in "He did not accurately represent my views", then you have a failed property reference, which is a falsehood.

 

* Objective properties are properties that do not depend on a subject. They are non-phenomenal, non-mental, non-experiential properties.

 

* Subjective properties are properties that do depend on a subject. They are phenomenal, mental, experiential properties.

 

* When a proposition accurately refers to a particular bundle of objective and/or subjective properties, then that proposition is true. Otherwise, the proposition is false.

 

* Adapted from Rasmussen's theory of aboutness: A proposition is about a bundle of properties when it refers to a bundle of unique properties. So if something fails to refer to unique properties, it's too vague to be a proposition.

 

* When someone says "Bach's music is objectively good!", the subjectivist can take this as false because this proposition is trying and failing to refer to properties about Bach's music that are independent of experience that make Bach's music good. But, so can the subjectivist say, such properties are not possible. Because goodness is itself phenomenal, any talk of good music, good movies, good art, good games, good anything (including good behavior and good actions) will itself be phenomenal. So all good-related properties are experience-dependent.

 

* The realist can say that while it's true that whether an experience is good or bad depends on the experiential property, it's nonetheless true that the experiential property has the quality it does; i.e., that it is in fact good or bad. So even if goodness and badness is subjective in the sense of being experience-dependent, it's objective in the sense that it's true that there are good and bad experiential properties.

 

* This means axiological realism is true. People can be wrong or right about value facts, facts about goodness and badness. For example, if I experience a pain and say "This pain is intrinsically bad", that's true, and its denial is false. If someone says "Ben's pain is not intrinsically bad", then this proposition is about unique properties – the properties of my pain – but refers to properties that don't exist (Ben's pain minus intrinsic badness).

 

* Hmm... this sounds like I'm saying that if a proposition fails to refer, then it's too vague to be a proposition, and yet if a proposition fails to refer, then it's false. Which is it? 

 

* One option: Trying and Failing: In the case of "Ben's pain gyres and gimbles", this is too vague and meaningless to be a proposition, and so is not true or false. But "Ben's pain is not intrinsically bad" is trying and failing to refer to Ben's pain and its relationship to intrinsic badness. It's the trying to refer and failing to refer that makes something false. The vague proposition fails to try to refer to anything (perhaps successfully referring to 'Ben's pain', but failing to try to refer to anything by 'gyres and gimbles', giving an overall failed attempt of reference, as there must be enough semantic content to all referring terms for there to be an attempt at reference).

 

* Option two: Matching: For every property or bundle of properties there are true propositions about those properties. They are made true by the fact that they successfully refer to real properties and real relationships about those properties. Our sentences are true when they match one of these true propositions in meaning. So "Ben's pain is not intrinsically bad" fails to match any proposition made true by referring to real properties, and thus is false. Our sentences are vague when they fail to match a true proposition by lacking meaning. So a sentence is false when it's meaningful enough to match a true proposition, but doesn't. A sentence is not true when it is either false or too vague to even potentially match a true proposition. True propositions are precise enough to refer to real, unique properties, and so cannot be vague.

 

* These options may be compatible with one another.

 

* If we allow for axiological realism, then other forms of realism might get their foot in the door. If there are truths about intrinsic goodness and badness such that people can be mistaken about them, then it seems to follow that there are truths about extrinsic goodness and badness such that people can be mistaken about them. "Bach's music is extrinsically good" is a true statement, and so is "The happiness caused by Bach's music is intrinsically good."

 

* Similar true statements can be made about aesthetics, gustatory goods, and morality. If there are truths about intrinsic goods, then there are truths about extrinsic goods. And if there are truths about extrinsic goods, then there are truths about the extrinsic goodness of actions, goals, beliefs, attitudes, behaviors, habits, and so on. If "You should not kill for fun" means "Killing for fun is extrinsically bad" and/or "Killing for fun fails to bring about the most good compared to other actions available to you" then "You should not kill for fun" is true. And so a kind of moral realism is true.

It's okay to be a bully bully bully bully

The paradox of intolerance goes like this: Do not tolerate the intolerant, only judge those who are judgmental, only kill killers, only bully bullies, and only war with warmongers. It's a superficial paradox; a contradiction only arises if you are using a strict rule: Intolerance of all kinds is wrong, judgment of all kinds is wrong, killing of all kinds is wrong, bullying of all kinds is wrong, and war of all kinds is wrong. But this strict rule is clearly false; defensive intolerance is fine, defensive judgment is fine, killing in defense is fine, bullying in defense is fine, and defensive war is just war. So it's perfectly consistent to be intolerant of intolerance, judgmental of judging, to kill killers, to bully bullies, to war with warmongers, and to hate hatred. If everyone followed the rule of "only bully bullies", then no bullying would be needed, as no bullying would get started. Same with all the other defensive rules. As long as you are not the aggressor, you are in the clear, because the alternative is to fail to stand up for yourself, to fail to stand up for others, to allow victimization to go unchecked, and to allow tyranny to trample over the innocent. A complication arises when escalation is involved. Is the escalator the bully, or the bully bully? If escalation bounces back and forth, you could argue that both sides are bullies, and so a third party that bullies either side would be a bully bully, which is fine. But, because of the muddiness of the situation, a fourth party might mistake the bully bully for a bully and proceed to bully the bully bully, making them a bully bully bully, which is not fine. If you understand who is who you might try to correct things as a fifth party by bullying the bully bully bully. In short, if you are an odd-numbered aggressor, you are in the wrong, but if you are an even-numbered aggressor, you're fine. Odd is evil, even is okay. But what if you are mistaken about where you are in the chain, or where you would be if you intervened and began to withdraw toleration, to judge, kill, bully, war, or hate? Our inability to ever know whether we are odd or even is exactly why we can do none of those things ever, and must take on a position of absolute pacifism. If aggressors walk all over us and crush us, so be it. We can guarantee we are even-numbered in the chain of aggression by being aggressor zero.

What does it mean for something to exist? The data view

I've heard a few definitions of existence over the years:

1) To exist is to be the value of a bound variable.

2) To exist is to instantiate at least one property.

3) To exist is be an indispensable property. 

4) To exist is to explain at least one point of data; to explain our experiences.

The last one is interesting. To exist is to explain data. We have two kinds of data: privately accessible and publicly accessible. Both cry out for explanation. If I have a religious experience where I strongly feel the presence of God, then we broadly have two explanations for this data: 1) God exists. 2) God doesn't and something else is causing this feeling that is being misperceived as the presence of God.

There are two kinds of data, again: a priori data and a posteriori data, or data that depends on perception, observation, and science, and data that depends on concepts, language, meaning, and understanding.

To not exist is to fail to explain any data. Does God exist? That depends. Is there any data that God explains, that could not be explained otherwise? Theists say yes: The beginning of the universe, contingent facts, the advent of life (especially: life capable of feeling love from and for God), the advent of consciousness, and morality are five key data points theists say require God for explanation. Non-theists argue that we do not need God to explain the beginning of the universe (maybe because there isn't one), contingent facts, the advent of life, the advent of consciousness, or morality.

Do numbers exist? That depends. Is there any data that numbers explain that could not be explained otherwise? Nominalists will say we don't need numbers to explain numerical data, only ideas or thoughts about numbers. After all, we don't need unicorns to explain our thoughts about unicorns, we just need the thoughts! Just as fictional entities are explained by ideas in the mind, so too are numbers explained by ideas in the mind.

Realists can say that this doesn't cut it, because we can trace any fictional entity to real properties (or to real objects that have properties). We can trace fictions to an author's mind. While we cannot trace the unicorn to a single author, we can trace the unicorn to ideas of horse, horn, magic. We can further trace magic to real properties. So thoughts about unicorns are thoughts about <list traceable properties here>. If numbers don't explain data, and only thoughts about numbers do, then what are the traceable properties of numbers?

What is data if not experiential? And so to explain data is to explain our experiences. This includes direct data, like when we see a tree in front of us, and indirect data, like when we hear scientists talk about quarks and leptons. I experience scientists talking about these things. What explains this experience? Here is an explanation: scientists are talking about quarks and leptons as if they exist because the scientists have experienced reading experiment reports, or conducted experiments themselves, that cause them to experience data that cries out for explanation, and they have posited quarks and leptons to explain that. So we have degrees of "directness" of data. Some data is direct, most of it is inferential.

Moral data, therefore, in the form of intuitions, is absolutely data. Anything we experience is data. If someone wrongs me and I feel strongly that they have done something truly incorrect, what explains that feeling? Or when we hear about a dog owner locking her dog up in a room and then going on vacation for weeks so that she can get rid of her dog, and the dog slowly dies of thirst trapped in that room, and we feel so strongly that this was an evil thing to do that ought not be done, what's causing this strong feeling we have? Are there moral facts that cause us to feel these convictions, or is it just evolutionary programming?

Doxastic psychology and addiction

Doxastic psychology says we can explain human behavior, in part, through what humans believe. If someone believes that life is meaningless, then we can explain their depression-behavior (lack of motivation, excessive sleeping, inability to enjoy anything, etc.) by this belief.

One question for this idea is from addiction. If someone is addicted to smoking, and yet wants to quit, one option is to say that this person believes against their behavior but the addiction causes them to act contrary to their belief.

Another option is to say that their behavior is in line with their belief, because the addiction causes them to believe that smoking is all-things-considered worth it. If someone wishes they did not have the addiction, then their second-order belief is against their first-order belief. You can believe something but wish you didn't.

Hypocrisy is when you say one thing but do another, like telling your kids that you shouldn't smoke while being a smoker yourself. The smoker has an option: either I be consistent and say smoking is (at least in some cases, such as in my case) worth it, or be a hypocrite and say it's wrong. I'm morally obligated to say it's wrong (to protect my kids), so I'm morally obligated to be a hypocrite.

But is the smoker really a hypocrite here? They could believe that smoking is wrong, and the addiction causes the behavior against the belief. It's exactly because smoking causes you to act against what you know to be right that is one of the reasons why you shouldn't start.

And so belief in some cases does not help us predict or explain behavior. People can behave opposite their beliefs.

And yet, it sounds crazy that someone could perform a voluntary action, like smoking a cigarette, while at the same time not having some belief in the action. There is pleasure in the addictive act, and the pleasure explains the motive behind the act. But the agent has to believe that the act is in fact pleasurable to engage in it. People absolutely can and do have conflicted beliefs, but that doesn't mean one belief doesn't win out at the end of the day. I believe eating junk food is bad for you. I also believe it tastes good. Sometimes the "tastes good" belief is just strong enough to beat out the "is bad for you" belief. How can you tell which belief has won out? By the behavior.

So the smoker really is a hypocrite when they tell their kids not to smoke. You believe smoking is not worth it, hence warning your kids, and yet you believe it's worth it, hence your continued smoking.

But not so fast. The smoker does believe, if only barely, that smoking is worth it, hence the continued smoking. The parent warns their kids because the addiction causes the pleasure to rise to a level so strong that it's able to beat out, if only barely, the belief that you shouldn't smoke. Without the addiction, the irrational belief wouldn't be there, and the addiction behavior wouldn't be there either.

To have a second-order belief that runs against the first-order belief is to believe that the first-order belief is irrational, and yet cannot be shaken (by addiction, genetics, social conditioning, or what have you). Addiction is evil not because it causes you to behave against your first-order beliefs, but because it causes you to take on irrational first-order beliefs, such as the irrational belief that smoking is all-things-considered worth it. I know eating junk food is all-things-considered not worth it. Often I still eat it anyway because I hold an irrational belief, even if just for a moment, that it is worth it, caused by the sneaky chemicals in junk food. In the moment you are engaging in the addiction, your brain is saying "Yeah, this is worth it", even though you know it's not. This is why second-order beliefs (or second-order desires) can run against first-order beliefs (or first-order desires). (You could argue it's not the chemicals in junk food that causes the irrational belief that it's worth it, but our own akrasia, or weakness of will. Or it's just our own irrationality in general. But if that were true, then we wouldn't have a second-order desire that runs contrary to the first-order desire.)

So doxastic psychology is safe. When someone believes smoking is worth it, because of addiction, we can predict that this person will continue smoking. When someone believes smoking is worth it, and yet believes that this belief is irrational, then we can predict that they will warn others against smoking, or will try to quit. This person is not being hypocritical (hypocrisy is always wrong; there can never be a moral obligation to hypocrisy); when engaging in the addiction behavior, they are behaving according to their (irrational) first-order belief, and when giving their warning they are behaving according to their second-order belief.

This does place a limit on doxastic psychology: behavior reveals first-order beliefs, but not necessarily second-order beliefs. As Frankfurt argued (roughly), it's really the second-order beliefs (or desires) that reveal the moral qualities of the person.

If someone has a first-order desire to smoke, but a second-order desire to quit, then the second-order desire places pressure against the first-order desire. Eventually, this pressure may reach a critical mass where the irrationality of the addiction act is felt strongly enough by the agent to where the desire against it wins out, allowing them to break free from the addiction. But if someone has no such second-order desire, then there is no internal pressure against the behavior, and so the irrational behavior is more likely to be permanent. If the irrational belief were caused by addiction, that speaks less against the quality of the agent than if the irrational belief were caused by the agent's innate irrationality.

Whenever there is apparent hypocrisy, there might not be hypocrisy, but a mismatch between first- and second-order beliefs. The addict believes in the addiction act, but believes they shouldn't believe it.

But am I contradicting myself here? I'm saying that if a person truly believed against the addiction act, then they wouldn't engage in it. But if that's true, then wouldn't a person who truly believed against believing in the addiction act not believe in the addiction act? I said you can't act against belief, because act entails belief. But then how could someone believe against belief?

The addiction forces the irrational belief upon the addict. The act follows the belief. So the addiction indirectly forces the act. The act depends on belief(1) (first-order belief), and so the act entails belief(1). Belief(1) obviously entails belief(1), and in that sense you can't believe against belief. But belief(1) does not depend on belief(2) such that the former entails the latter. So you can believe(2) against belief(1). And you can act(2) against act(1), like warning someone to not smoke while smoking yourself.

First-order beliefs and second-order beliefs can come apart, exactly because of things like addiction. But addiction doesn't allow first-order and first-order beliefs to come apart, which is what believing(1) against an act would mean. So you can believe(2) against an act, but you can't believe(1) against an act.

It sounds like I'm saying there can be a clash of mixed-ordered beliefs, but not a clash of first-order beliefs. But then what is hypocrisy, or self-contradiction, if not a clash of first-order beliefs?

I'm not saying you can't have both belief and non-belief. Let's say someone believes that they should not phi. They phi. So they believe that they should not phi and that they should. Contradiction. But in the case of self-contradiction, there is no mismatch between first- and second-order beliefs. The hypocrite believes(1) that they should phi and not phi, and believes(2) that they should believe that they should phi and not phi. (Or at least doesn't believe that they should not believe that they should phi and not phi.)

Often, hypocrisy is not taken to just be self-contradiction. Rather, it's special pleading – when a person makes themselves an exception to a personal rule without good reason for doing so. Hypocrisy is not a failure to recognize contradiction in this case, but a failure to recognize that there is no relevant difference between your case and others' case. Though the contradiction reintroduces itself when the hypocrite would not accept the same special pleading from others. (Which then returns to a relevant difference case when the hypocrite doesn't see the special pleadings as the same. I guess this could go on forever.)

Other than addiction, I wonder if social conditioning could force irrational beliefs the way addiction can? Someone who is raised around extreme ableist language and attitudes might find themselves stuck with that way of looking at things, while believing that such attitudes are irrational.

Or someone raised in a very strict household is stuck with the belief that they should never cuss. But then later comes to the belief that this belief is irrational, and yet is still stuck with it.

Or someone who works a job that they hate might be forced by survival pressures to hold the belief that they ought to work the job, even though they believe that the belief that they ought to do the job is false. Actually, this example is a reverse, where the person desires(1) against the act of doing the job, but desires(2) to desire to do the job so that they would be less miserable (unless they approve of their hatred of the job). But hang on, how can someone do a job they don't believe in? Doesn't act entail belief? That's simple: they believe in the job for its extrinsic rewards, but they don't believe in the job per se.

Summary:

• Doxastic psychology says that because behavior is grounded in belief, we can psychoanalyze and understand someone's behavior in light of their beliefs.
• A challenge to doxastic psychology arises: there are cases, like addiction, where folks can hate their own behavior and believe against it, and yet find themselves falling into the behavior anyway. So behavior doesn't always entail belief, and so we cannot always explain someone's behavior in terms of what they believe. (Which, by the way, of course we cannot understand all human behavior in terms of belief. That would be a silly suggestion. Doxastic psychology is simply an additional tool in the psychoanalyst's toolbox.)
• Obsessive-compulsive behavior, hypocrisy, and self-contradiction are further candidates for when people behave in one way and either lack a belief in that behavior or even believe against it.
• But this challenge runs into its own challenge: how could it be possible for someone to will a voluntary action while simultaneously holding no belief in the action whatsoever? How could the action even be psychologically possible?
• Suggestion: Actions require belief. Some actions are conflicted, meaning that there are considerations pulling in opposite directions for the belief that grounds the action. When the agent acts, their action proves which belief won out in the end, even if it only just barely won out.
• Continuing the suggestion, the badness of addiction is found in, among other things, not the fact that it causes someone to act contrary to what they believe, but because it causes such pain in withdrawal, and such satisfaction in the addiction act, that it forces the person to believe, at least in the moment, that satisfying the addiction is worth it all-things-considered when engaging in the addiction behavior is decidedly not worth it. Therefore, addiction causes irrational beliefs. 
• An addict can recognize the irrationality of these beliefs caused by the addiction, leading to a higher order belief that they ought not believe what they do. The addict desires the object of their addiction, but desires to be rid of this desire. 
• This mismatch between first- and second-order desires (and beliefs) reveals a moral quality in some folks. The irrational behavior of the addict is grounded in the irrationality of the belief caused by the addiction and not caused by the irrationality of the addict per se. The fact that the addict can recognize the irrationality of their first-order beliefs goes a long way in 1) Showing that this person is sensitive to reasons, and 2) Generates internal reason-based pressure against the addiction behavior. This pressure shows potential for the individual to one day feel the pressure generated by this reason-sensitivity strongly enough to one day kick the habit.
• Contrast this with an addict whose second-order beliefs are in line with their first-order ones. This addict fails to display the same sensitivity to reasons, and fails to generate the same internal pressure against the irrational behavior, significantly reducing the chances of overcoming the addiction in the long term.
• But if you cannot act without believing in the act, then how could someone believe without believing in the belief? How could the belief be psychologically possible?
• The belief is psychologically possible for reasons mentioned: the satisfaction of the addiction act. The (reasons-sensitive) addict sees the reasons for abstaining from the addiction act, and sees how these reasons would win out if it weren't for the addiction causing the satisfaction from the addiction act to overpower the addict's sensitivity to reason.
• This irrationality is not subjective (the psychosomatic reasons are real) but objective (the reasons to abstain from the addiction act are real). You could say then that the irrationality is external, imposed by the addiction, and not internal, from the addict's innate capacities. In theory, the more rational someone is, the harder it is for their sensitivity to reasons to be defeated.
• So an addict genuinely believes that the addiction act is worth it, as otherwise engaging in the addiction behavior would not happen. And yet, the (reasons-sensitive) addict believes that the addiction behavior is not worth it (and will thereby warn against it). Is this self-contradiction, or hypocrisy?
• One option would be to say that this is a contradiction, and addiction causes the reasons-sensitive addict to self-contradict. But it's weird that reason-sensitivity would cause contradiction when it should do the opposite.
• Compare two addicts, one that is sensitive to reasons and one that is not. The one who is not does not contradict itself; its lower and higher order beliefs are in sync. The one who is does contradict themselves, because their rationality forces them to believe that the addiction behavior is not worth it, while the addiction behavior forces them to believe it is. So ironically, the more rational addict is the one that self-contradicts. This would suggest that there are cases where self-contradiction is more rational than not.
• Another option is to say that it's totally consistent to have a desire and yet to desire for yourself to not have that desire. You can believe P and yet wish you did not believe P, because you know P is objectively irrational, but subjectively rational because of addiction (i.e. addiction gives you reasons to engage in the addiction behavior. The irrationality of the addiction behavior is not grounded in the subjective irrationality of the behavior, but in the fact that the objective reasons are good reasons for abstaining from the behavior while the "it feels good" reasons are not good reasons for engaging in it, and are mere motivating reasons).
• But if one cannot act without belief and cannot believe without belief, then how is self-contradiction possible?
• Absolutely one can believe P and believe ~P, contradicting oneself. Because act entails belief, one could act, entailing belief in P, while internally holding ~P, generating the contradiction. The mistake is in thinking that acting entails a lack of counter-belief. I do not say this, only that acting entails the positive belief needed to ground the action.
• We might think of hypocrisy as different from simple self-contradiction, but an instance of special pleading where the hypocrite makes themselves an exception to a rule when there are no good reasons for doing so.

The peace that surpasses all understanding is perfectly understandable

Christians, like Paul, have been in situations where they suffer horribly. These are situations of imprisonment, martyrdom, or suffering under the pains of life. And yet, Christians report a sense of peace, calm, and even joy in these situations. In Philippians 4 (NRSVUE) we read:

Rejoice[b] in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice.[c] 5 Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. 6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. 7 And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

8 Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about[d] these things. 9 As for the things that you have learned and received and heard and noticed in me, do them, and the God of peace will be with you.

There is an obvious psychoanalysis of this peace: by believing that death is not the end, and that death is the worst this world can do to you, you are in an existentially complete state. Put another way, you feel fundamentally safe. Caveat: this requires that you don't have any anxiety over whether you are living out God's plans for you – basically, as long as you don't feel like Jonah running away from your Nineveh.

Is it possible to learn this peace? "Not from a non-Christian", the Christian says.

But I disagree. While I've already written about this, I'll duplicate thoughts for this topic. I wrote the following in response to a prompt from class, about Socrates discussing how pleasures and pains, matters of the body, distract us from what matters most, which are matters of the mind and virtue:

Is it true that the body distracts us from what matters most?

In Christianity, God incarnates as Jesus, taking on a human body. From a Christian point of view, the human body is elevated and esteemed, validated by the God who designed and created the human body and the environment in which it lives. Even when Jesus rose from the dead, he did not turn into a bodiless spirit, but retained a physical body that somehow ascended to heaven.

Christians consider it a Gnostic heresy to say that the body is wretched and the soul pure, and that the physical is imperfect and evil while the immaterial is perfect and good. Indeed, the Christian would say that our souls are as corrupt as our bodies, both being corrupted by sin. It is only through faith in Jesus, and baptism, that the soul can be purified. So on one view, both the body and the soul are corrupt, and yet both are glorified and validated.

On a very different view, it is matters of the mind that distract us from what matters most, which are bodily affairs. For many folks, life just is a matter of family, sex, drugs, food, relationships, social experiences, traveling, and so forth—matters of the body. Matters of the mind are irrelevant, or even distracting us from living life. Philosophy, on this view, causes “analysis paralysis,” leading to a paralyzed life. While some people, like me, love to stay inside and read and write, many others would consider this an impoverished way of living, and a failure to live life to the fullest, which requires one to go out and do things in an embodied way.

On a third view, what matters most is transcendence. I’m reminded of a lyric I wrote long ago:

Aim for pleasure

And you won’t survive the pain

Aim for transcendence

And death will transcend your aim

I’ve heard it said that we shouldn’t aim for a life free of suffering, as that sets you up to be most vulnerable to suffering. Instead, we should engage in work we find so important that it’s worth suffering for. Transcendence refers to this ability to overcome suffering, even transform it into something good. Transcendence also refers to achieving a level of consciousness and existence that is higher than what you’ve had previously.

Death threatens transcendence, because you cannot exist on a higher level when you don’t exist at all. So, as the lyric suggests, we have a dilemma: If we focus on an embodied way of being, and ignore matters of the mind and soul, then we make ourselves too vulnerable to pain and won’t have a way to surpass our pain. And yet, if we aim for transcendence as a way to overcome pain, death threatens our transcendence. This dilemma lies at the core of the “human predicament.”

So how do we solve this dilemma? This is why Christianity is so powerful: it solves the problem of death through the promises of eternal life that Jesus makes to His followers.

But for those who find the challenges to Christian belief too challenging, this is not an option. If you find the idea of heaven too good to be true, you must admit that on some level death wins and we lose.

However, there is a way to transcend even death, not by defeating death, but by sharing in death’s victory. If you allow death to motivate you to work as hard as possible while you still have time, then, if you’re lucky, you will have the resources needed to create that thing or achieve that achievement that allows you to die happy. (Something even Christians may feel pulled by.)

If you can achieve something so great, at least of such great personal importance, that you enter into a state of bliss such that you can genuinely die happy, then, by enabling this possibility, both in terms of the urgency and of the magnitude of the achievement – of such magnitude that you can die happy – death itself becomes the mechanism by which you transcend. Death glorifies you indirectly through this achievement at the same time it humiliates you through your destruction.

If the achievement lasts beyond the grave, then you will have achieved the closest thing to immortality that we can. Though, it’s not the immortality that matters, but the state of being able to die happy. It just so happens that achieving such a state requires achieving something of great personal significance, and often such achievements will be the kind that leave a mark on the world. But you could have a person who does some great work behind the scenes that doesn’t last beyond their lifetime, but who is nevertheless connected to the work in such a way that they can die happy having done it. I think parenthood can be like this, a great work (when done right) that involves giving up yourself to build up someone else. When people say "Some people should never be parents," part of what they are getting at is the fact that some people are not connected to the work of parenthood in the right way; they see parenthood as a burden and not as a core part of their life's work.

Matters of the body can distract us from transcending death in this way: if someone ignores death and strives not to achieve that which will enable one to die happy, but instead lives in the moment and pursues entertainment, then death will creep up on them and they will have little, in their own eyes, to show for their life. They may find themselves regretful in the end, suffering at the thought of dying, because they cannot die happy. Those who do not account for death in the way they live run the risk of suffering in this way. Though, it's possible for someone to not know what it would take for them to die happy until after they have already achieved it, perhaps even ironically thanks to their ignoring death, living in the moment, and pursuing entertainment.

A disadvantage for the non-Christian is that achievements are not a reliable method of transcendence. It requires a great deal of luck to be able to achieve one's essential personal goal. Some folks will find it impossible not to desire something too ambitious, and will thus be stuck in unfulfilled desires. The Christian, on the other hand, need only believe, and from their beliefs come hope.

Paradoxically, as in the case of the Christian martyr, both horrendous suffering and existential completeness can be found in a person at the same time. Hope, from believing the best is yet to come, allows one to endure suffering, so of course a hope-based existential completeness is compatible with horrendous suffering. But does this mean that only a hope-based existential completion can withstand horrendous suffering?

I don't think so. "Die happy" needn't be taken so literally. Even Jesus, a paradigm of existential completion, didn't die happy in a strict sense. What matters is whether, in addition to your suffering, there is the added suffering of feeling incomplete, like you didn't do what you set out to do. As long as you feel complete, the most important pain is avoided. Achievement-based existential completion is just as compatible with a painful death as a hope-based one. Death is the worst the world can do to you, and for those who can die happy, not even the worst can impede their happiness. Feeling fundamentally safe in this way generates a profound inner peace, even in the face of death and suffering, even for the one without hope in a life to come.