"Fleischacker argues that religion provides something that secularism fails to offer successfully -- what he calls "ethics," a telos for the moral life, that which makes living the moral life and life itself meaningful and worthwhile. Fleischacker presents an extended set of convincing arguments for the very legitimacy of seeking a life-telos and "meaning" in life. Then he charges secularism with an inability to provide a persuasive resolution of that seeking. He rejects as an adequate telos for life knowledge, pleasure, self-flourishing, projectivism (that we ourselves bestow value on our life), and Kantian accounts of worth. In any case, he argues, secular views about the meaningfulness of life have no more justification than do religious views (religious views, though, have the advantage of acknowledging that they are held in faith.)"--The passage is from this review.
Leaving aside the merits of the arguments against secularism, the parenthesis suggests that defenders of revelation have made a remarkable journey from Hume's deliciously ironic closing lines "Of Miracles" with stops at Kierkegaard's leap and Nietzschean assertion of faith (in truth, revelation, etc) as (resentful) will to power. Now we learn not just that the life of faith has more integrity than the secular one (which -- echoing Nietzsche -- is disclosed as ultimately relying on faith), but it is also ultimately (in a non-trivial sense) more philosophical (because it has better self-understanding) and the only one that is capable of sustain meaning. Those of us that dance the Pyrrhica Saltatio smile.
Recent Comments