If we are to judge the excellence of a human being, — Agustino

You've got to remember here that the point of the question is not to compare humans by means of some morality contest that judges their ''excellence''. The point is to discover what general purpose lies behind the decisions and actions of an ordinary human being.

Now while it may be true that virtue is a fantastic way of measuring someone's moral '' excellence'', this by no means implies that attaining this moral excellence is a motivation behind general human behaviour.

For an example, a perfectly ordinary human being may don a mask, arm himself with a machine gun and subsequently rob a bank. What role then, would your theory of humans ''striving towards virtue'' play in explaining what motivated this guy to rob a bank?

I think your mistake lies in confusing what should (should in the moral sense) be the general purpose behind human actions with what actually is the general purpose behind human actions.

Virtue is inner strength - nothing can take it away — Agustino

Finally, this isn't entirely true. There are lots of external circumstances which could take away your virtue.

Remember that virtue is merely a notion dealt with by a certain portion of our brain. If some external factor, say a car accident, were to damage this part of the brain, our capability of even understanding what virtue is, would disappear along with it.

You certainly seem to be claiming that what 'humans in general' do is by definition the most rational and true expression of their purpose. — Barry Etheridge

I agree that my OP statement excludes the possibility of happiness being a mental illness, but since you've said nothing to show that it is a mental illness in the medical sense, I'll just ignore that for the moment.

I certainly said nothing of the sort quoted above. All I said was that happiness is what humans in general strive towards. At no point did I conclude that this is "the most rational and true expression of their purpose''.

In other words I was merely stating an empirical fact about human behaviour without evaluating the rationality and truth of this fact.

Happiness is, after all, nothing but a delusional state which denies reality and in its worst expressions (where it reaches near cultic status) actively seeks to hide reality from us all. It is no more than a permanent state of denial which seems to be a pretty poor thing to be considered the purpose or meaning of life — Barry Etheridge

You seem to be speaking with reference to a rather narrow interpretation of what happiness is.

While it may be true that happiness at times appears along side narcissism,etc this, by no means implies that there are no other forms that it could take.

Forget not my friend, that the feeling a human gets by giving a piece of bread to a beggar on a street corner belongs too, under the umbrella of happiness.

I think your mistake lies in confusing what should (should in the moral sense) be the general purpose behind human actions with what actually is the general purpose behind human actions. — hunterkf5732

It is the purpose, whether someone is actually fulfilling it (or is aware it is the purpose, or wants to fulfil it) is a different story.

Finally, this isn't entirely true. There are lots of external circumstances which could take away your virtue. — hunterkf5732

Such as?

Remember that virtue is merely a notion dealt with by a certain portion of our brain. If some external factor, say a car accident, were to damage this part of the brain, our capability of even understanding what virtue is, would disappear along with it. — hunterkf5732

Yes, and you would disappear along with the virtue in that case - you would take it with you. It's similar for example to the woman who tries to be chaste until marriage but is raped before she gets married. Does that mean the virtue of chastity was taken away from her? Absolutely not, because virtue has less to do with physical aspects and more to do with her character (what her will is directed towards) which remains the same.

The point I was getting at is that the human psyche's stability during episodes of trauma is primarily held together by hope. Hope for a better future, hope for a happy future. People will delude themselves their entire lives, believing that if they just run a mile a day, or go Paleo, or convert to such-and-such religion, or meditate three times a day, or get organized with their ergonomic crap, that then they will finally be happy. It's never quite accomplished, though. — darthbarracuda

Oh, well I agree that there is no final resting place. I like the metaphor of just learning to fall off of the horse less often. The "horse" is a general sense of well-being and flow. Falling off is trauma. Life-philosophy or wisdom writing helps keep us on the horse and get back on when we fall off. And even this statement (life philosophy's self-consciousness) can contribute. We can think of our worldview and/or our "ego ideal" as software to be judged by its effectiveness.

It is the purpose, whether someone is actually fulfilling it (or is aware it is the purpose, or wants to fulfil it) is a different story. — Agustino

Well then you aren't answering the question posted in the OP.

Such as? — Agustino

I gave the example of the car accident literally one line below.

Absolutely not, because virtue has less to do with physical aspects and more to do with her character (what her will is directed towards) which remains the same. — Agustino

You seem to be overlooking the fact that character is formed by physical aspects in the first place. For an example, someone born in a well to do, educated family would quickly acquire this ''character'' you expect, owing to the influence he receives via these external factors of education,family traditions,etc.

On the other hand, someone who happened to be unlucky enough to be born the son of a thief may acquire a contrary form of character via the external, physical aspects of watching and learning what his dad does. Would you really then blame the thief's son for not having the ''character'' you expect?

Aaaand you didn't answer my bank robber example.

Aaaand you didn't answer my bank robber example. — hunterkf5732

The criminal is either mistaken about his purpose, or he thinks that robbing a bank is a means to achieve it. Purpose in my framework, which is Aristotelian, is objective. Whether X or Y knows their purpose is a different story. Purpose is not that which they choose and act based on.

You seem to be overlooking the fact that character is formed by physical aspects in the first place. For an example, someone born in a well to do, educated family would quickly acquire this ''character'' you expect, owing to the influence he receives via these external factors of education,family traditions,etc.

On the other hand, someone who happened to be unlucky enough to be born the son of a thief may acquire a contrary form of character via the external, physical aspects of watching and learning what his dad does. Would you really then blame the thief's son for not having the ''character'' you expect? — hunterkf5732

Yes background plays a role in moral development. The thief's son is still to blame for the wrongs that he does, but this is to a smaller extent due to his unfortunate background influence. This doesn't change the fact that he has control over his character - if he wanted to, he could change. The only thing is he doesn't want to.

What is the term in your ''framework'' then, that represents what people choose and act based on?

Say this term is "X''.

Then here's my OP question rephrased in your terminology: What is the X which most people have in their life?

What is the term in your ''framework'' then, that represents what people choose and act based on?

Say this term is "X''.

Then here's my OP question rephrased in your terminology: What is the X which most people have in their life? — hunterkf5732

Motive.

It depends from culture to culture and from person to person. Do you want the motive in today's world? Or 100 years ago, or when?

If today, then that motive most likely is pursuit of an abstract ideal of freedom and pleasure. Most people seek pleasure, but with the underlying assumption that pleasure is always to be found in what they think will be pleasurable (hence the ideal of freedom - one has the freedom to decide what is pleasureable and what isn't). In other words they presuppose that what will be most pleasurable is not given necessarily by the structure of reality.

It is possible to agree about the pleasure, but think that what is most pleasureable follows necessarily from the structure of reality, in which case what is most pleasurable will be most pleasureable regardless of what someone thinks about it.

One of the words I have learned on philosophy forums is 'Eudaimonia' (also a word I can never spell without looking it up) but is said to denote 'human flourishing' and to be associated with the virtue ethics associated with Aristotle. And I think it's a perfectly worthy aim - why wouldn't it be? I don't think it amounts to going everywhere with a fixed grin, but living in such a way that your well-being is optimised. You know the song - like a room without a roof. — Wayfarer

I'm striving for Eudaimonia, but not necessarily Aristotle's version. The research I've done suggests there are many systems that promise Eudaimonia. Each of the ancient schools of philosophy suggested that theirs was that best way to pursue that goal.

Seems to me that one of the failings of modern philosophy, is that no one in the profession spends much time thinking about how to live the best life possible.

The purpose of my life is to crush my enemies, to see them driven before me and hear the lamentations of their women.

To put a demand on myself for a responsibility for the Other. Ethics as first philosophy. However, I'm not sure if this has to do with accumulating virute or anything. Generally a forgetting of one's self as the arbitrator of the just is something I attempt to keep in mind.

“And this is one of the most crucial definitions for the whole of Christianity; that the opposite of sin is not virtue but faith.” — Søren Kierkegaard

The rest - striving for authenticity or pleasure - comes afterward.

In a nutshell: What, if any, is the purpose/goal a human would strive towards, in living his/her life? — hunterkf5732

It's simply for each person to decide for themselves, should they be interested in it.

Well then, what do you think is the most common goal that people are interested in?

Probably some combination of money/material wealth, sex, health, family, friends and social status.

Could you now find some common goal that lies behind the things you name?

To put a demand on myself for a responsibility for the Other. Ethics as first philosophy. However, I'm not sure if this has to do with accumulating virute or anything. Generally a forgetting of one's self as the arbitrator of the just is something I attempt to keep in mind. — Marty

I think Kierkegaard was a bit wrong on this. Faith without virtue is not faith. One cannot claim to have faith while cheating on their wife for example, regardless of how much they profess to be praying to God and loving God, etc.

Could you now find some common goal that lies behind the things you name? — hunterkf5732

You mean something less common than some combination of those things, yet nevertheless relatively common?

I have to guess even more for that, but probably something like time management would be a good candidate--especially with respect to how much time people spend at work versus doing things they enjoy outside of work, including hobbies, spending time with loved ones, etc.

(I'm not sure why we're trying to guess what a lot of people would have in common for goals, though.)

I'll just skip to the chase; the mystery common goal behind all of these things you name is, happiness.

Look hard enough at the motivations that make people do these things they do, and you'll see that these motivations are all just happiness in disguise.

Eg: people yearn for money because this will bring them happiness in the forms of cars,houses,girls,etc,etc.

Ah--I see what you were getting at. I don't agree with that take on it, though. I don't think there's anything more than what people actually have present-to-mind. That is, if they're not literally thinking something like "my goal is happiness," I don't think it makes any sense to say that that's their goal.

Mind comprises of desires, either in pure forms or twisted forms (for instance defeated pride can turn into jealousy).

Desires fall into six broad categories: vitality (perpetual life with perfect health), beauty, strength, wealth, fame and power. These desires drive us relentlessly. We are helpless against them. Our quest for happiness comes to us naturally. According to our desires we drift to different places in the creation.

We are not fully aware of all the desires contained our mind; the degree varying from person to person. The less a person is aware of the self, more he obeys spontaneous surges of desires. Such an act defies some other desire. As we travel through life we attach our desires to different aspects. A child receiving life sustaining help from its mother attaches the meaning of happiness with her. When the child happens to defy her wish for some temptation, the child feels remorse. This instills a new desire for punishing the self. New car can take unreasonably larger proportion of meaning of happiness for a while. This can make us refuse to lend it to a close friend, violating the friendship, and causing the feeling of guilt, which makes us feel less worthy of happiness. We can call this character or self esteem, which decides which direction we go from here in life.

I believe to work on untangling our mind with diligence reduces the amount of pains we would receive in the future. To me, this is the control we have on our affairs. This gives us the purpose of life, since purpose presupposes control over the involved affairs. Other than that, the pursuing of our desires is forced upon us by nature. In cooperation with nature we should keep pursuing our desires with all our heart, avoiding generation of new conflicts in our heart.

Everyone is creating, experimenting and learning all the time. It is fundamentally consciousness evolving - and that is life.

One only has to observe a baby growing into adulthood and then into old age. Creating, experimenting, learning. Everyone dies it individually and in groups continuously and never-ending. Evolution.

The anthropocentric nature of such a question notwithstanding, I offer another purpose of life - TRUTH (whatever that means).

TRUTH may be reworked by happiness fanatics as just another way of achieving happiness. However, note that TRUTH can be painful e.g. the truth that there's no objective purpose in life is, to say the least, disappointing. Therefore, TRUTH deserves its own category re the purpose of life.

I've also written a little book to answer this question definitively. Unfortunately the book indicates in its introduction (which is all there is of the book) that it is not quite universally effective. Indeed, some users experience mild side effects such as insanity, suicide, or, worse (a zit front and center on the nose with a side of anal pruritus). You are however welcome to read this masterpiece. It is scratched on the top of a toilet paper dispenser in an airport restroom. I did leave instructions that the book could be copied without penalty, but only to the furniture of of public restrooms in the lower 48. It is essential that my book of Truth is enjoyed (if at all) as "light" reading (which is indicated in the subtitle to prevent accidents.) Finally, my book was dictated by seven naked angels (only 5 of them female and 1 indeterminate) from God's office on Neptune. They demanded that I set the price at one brown penny per page, cash upon results with an afterlifetime warranty.

My own answer to the above question would simply be happiness.

Happiness here covers a broad variety of emotions and mental states including all sorts of satisfactory, comfortable feelings from peacefulness to orgasms. — hunterkf5732

Sounds like hedonism to me. "Happiness" is something even Aristotle said as the ultimate good (as translated from "eudaimonia"), but he talked about it as excellence of character, as arete, as cultivating virtues. A far cry from Jeremy Bentham and the unfortunate belief that you seem to hold -- but which is quite common in modern times, especially in the West and especially in the United States. Maybe not explicitly, but tacitly -- people are living the answers to the question of "What is the purpose of my life?" and by the looks of it it's exactly as you describe: comfort, sex, distraction, entertainment, material goods, commodities, abundance of food, comfortable furniture and cloths, fancy cars, lots of money, etc.

To me that's a sad state of affairs.

I prefer Aristotle and Nietzsche, actually. Not the "will to live" but the "will to power," and "happiness" is therefore "whatever augments the feeling of power." Note that this does NOT often correspond to pleasure or even the will to live -- people go through much pain in fact.

Purpose is important to think about, and is often dismissed as a philosophical question. But it's one of the more important ones in our times. It also flushes out this underlying view of human nature which is at it's heart quite nihilistic, and very narrow indeed.

To view "happiness" as sitting on a big sofa eating Bonbons and watching a huge HD plasma TV is kind of pathetic, wouldn't you say?

On the contrary, I find the Greek concept just as open to the same criticisms. Being content with the way things are 'meant to be' and being the person we are 'meant to be' is every bit as much a life of denial as happy, clappy ignorance of all that assails us. — Barry Ethridge

The ancient Greek philosophies on life were wide and varied. But assuming you are referring to the Stoic tradition, this is not at all a charitable interpretation of it. Contrary to encouraging apathy and laziness as a life philosophy, the Stoics taught forbearance and emotional mastery, self-knowledge and determination, and fortitude -- to endure those circumstances which lie outside an individual's control. Actually, if you take a look at the writings of some of the great Stoic philosophers, they sort of encourage taking life by the horns and living a fulfilled life. Determinism, for the Stoics, did not entail, nor suppose as a logical consequence, indifference.

Consider:

"Do not act as if you were going to live ten thousand years. Death hangs over you. While you live, while it is in your power, be good." - Marcus Aurelius

"Every day as it comes should be welcomed and reduced into our possession as if it were the finest day imaginable. What flies past has to be seized at... Begin to live at once, and count each separate day as a separate life." - Seneca the Younger

"How long are you going to wait before you demand the best for yourself and in no instance bypass the discriminations of reason? You have been given the principles that you ought to endorse, and you have endorsed them. What kind of teacher, then, are you still waiting for in order to refer your self-improvement to him? You are no longer a boy, but a full-grown man. If you are careless and lazy now and keep putting things off and always deferring the day after which you will attend to yourself, you will not notice that you are making no progress, but you will live and die as someone quite ordinary. From now on, then, resolve to live as a grown-up who is making progress, and make whatever you think best a law that you never set aside. And whenever you encounter anything that is difficult or pleasurable, or highly or lowly regarded, remember that the contest is now: you are at the Olympic Games, you cannot wait any longer, and that your progress is wrecked or preserved by a single day and a single event. That is how Socrates fulfilled himself by attending to nothing except reason in everything he encountered. And you, although you are not yet a Socrates, should live as someone who at least wants to be a Socrates." - Epictetus

This just underlines how happiness lies at the root of our actions. What do you think? — hunterkf5732

Well, the answer to this question is best given from a utilitarian moral perspective, keeping in mind its hedonistic principle that happiness has intrinsic value.

I'm not quite sure of this so you might want to crosscheck what I'm about to say. I believe the great utilitarian John Stuart Mill drew a distinction between higher pleasures and lower pleasures; note that pleasure is about happiness.

As is evident, in terms of hedonic value there is no difference between higher pleasures and lower pleasures for both constitute pleasure and therfore are states of happiness. So, inferring the obvious, the distinction between the two must be based on a nonhedonic value; in other words, happiness is not the be all and end all of what is valuable.

Yes, there's happiness associated with both higher pleasures and lower pleasures but John Stuart Mill recommended a preference for the former that doesn't seem to be based on happiness. Quite odd, if you ask me.

Yes, there's happiness associated with both higher pleasures and lower pleasures but John Stuart Mill recommended a preference for the former that wasn't based on happiness. Quite odd, if you ask me. — TheMadFool

This is a recognition that neither happiness nor pleasure is accurately reducible to a linear hierarchy of value. Mill made a roughly dichotomous distinction between individual bodily pleasures and intellectual moral ones, but it’s fair to say that even the supposedly ‘lower’ pleasure derived from eating can be a complex, multi-dimensional structure of relations inclusive of all five senses, timing, atmosphere, as well as social values and potential.

Personally, I think the idea that happiness is potentially a maximum sustainable state in an individual or entity is false and misleading, and contributes to more suffering than happiness, overall. Mill’s understanding of utilitarianism and happiness was, after all, a more broadly universal aim than an individual one.

This is a recognition that neither happiness nor pleasure is accurately reducible to a linear hierarchy of value. — Possibility

Do you mean the pleasure of having sex is the same as the pleasure of saving a person's life and if given a choice between them, you'd not have a preference?

This is a recognition that neither happiness nor pleasure is accurately reducible to a linear hierarchy of value.
— Possibility

Do you mean the pleasure of having sex is the same as the pleasure of saving a person's life and if given a choice between them, you'd not have a preference? — TheMadFool

I’m not sure how you got that from what I’ve written. That’s not what I mean at all.

The idea that there's some grand purpose to life is false. It serves no ultimate use. However, being a part of the universe, it must be essential to its function. There is no reason to think reality could exist in the absence of life, as it only has ever existed in the presence of life. We know this simply because we are alive.

The question of whether life serves a purpose is the same as if the universe serves a purpose. To something outside of itself, no it does not. And human beings can't decide what purpose is.