Austin PhillipsHello, this is my first opinion piece on this blog. It is not exactly tech-related, but since I haven't posted in a while, I have decided to dive into my inner thoughts. For a while, many who know me have heard me express my position as both a hard determinist and an ethical skeptic, both terms that I will elaborate on within this think piece. However, I would like to express how the combination of these two beliefs spiral into absurdism, what I think of the effects of absurdism on a micro and macro scale, along with the consequences that large-scale absurdism would have in the place of existentialism. Before getting into that, I will be going over a few important definitions so that the average reader will have enough background to meaningfully interact with my think piece.
Incompatibilism
To start off, determinism is the philosophical view that every event in the universe is caused by prior events according to the laws of nature. Under strict determinism, if someone had complete knowledge of the state of the universe at a given moment and the laws governing it, they could, in principle, predict every future event. In contrast, non-determinism (often called indeterminism) holds that not all events are fully determined by prior causes. In an indeterministic universe, some outcomes may genuinely involve chance or randomness. For example, certain interpretations of quantum mechanics suggest that some physical events occur probabilistically rather than being strictly determined by previous states.
When philosophers discuss determinism in relation to human choice, they often focus on the question of free will. If every action we take is the inevitable result of prior causes - our genetics, environment, and the physical state of the universe - then it raises the question of whether we are truly free to choose differently. This debate has led to two major positions: compatibilism and incompatibilism. Compatibilists argue that free will can still exist even if determinism is true. According to this view, freedom does not require the ability to break causal laws; instead, it means acting according to one’s own desires, intentions, and reasoning without external coercion. Incompatibilist determinism (sometimes called non-compatible determinism or more commonly hard determinism) takes the opposite position. It argues that if determinism is true, then genuine free will cannot exist. Because every decision is the result of prior causes that stretch back before we were born, we could never have acted otherwise than we did. From this perspective, what feels like a free choice is actually the outcome of a long causal chain involving biology, upbringing, and circumstances. My position on this topic is that of a hard determinist. I believe that determinism and free will are incompatible, and I also accept the proposition that determinism is real. The reason this is important is that many people assign moral accountability to the fact that one could have chosen to do otherwise in a situation. If one has free will, they could have chosen to do the morally right thing or the morally wrong thing. If they don’t, it becomes more difficult philosophically to assign moral responsibility to a person. However, in my next section on ethical skepticism, it will be seen why, in my case, I am skeptical of whether any of this matters at all.
Ethical Skepticism
Ethical skepticism is the philosophical position that questions whether we can truly know objective moral truths. In simple terms, it is the view that claims about what is “right” or “wrong” may not be provably true in the same way that facts in science or mathematics are. Ethical skeptics argue that while people often speak about morality as if it were universal and certain, it is actually very difficult to demonstrate that any moral claim is objectively correct. Because moral beliefs are often influenced by culture, personal experience, religion, or social norms, ethical skepticism raises the possibility that what we consider moral might be based more on perspective than on universal truth.
More specifically, ethical skepticism typically takes one of two forms. One version argues that objective moral truths might exist, but humans simply cannot know them with certainty. The other version goes further and suggests that objective moral facts may not exist at all. The form of ethical skepticism that I take is that there is a possibility that objective moral facts may exist, but it is impossible for humans to know this objective truth. The simplest example of this is the ever-changing stance of prejudice throughout the history of humanity. Throughout history, what has been seen as “common sense” morals has come from the classes with wealth, power, and education. These morals have also often resulted in the prejudice of minorities, the poor, and the uneducated. As moral codes are constantly progressing based on the subjective beliefs of modern-day people, who is to say that any instance of these moral codes is the correct one, or if there will ever be a correct one? It seems that for one to know these, one would have to obtain some omnipotent or divine knowledge, which is impossible to rely on. Continuing on this, I will point out that even through history and the present day, people are not punished for their actions based on an objective sense of right or wrong. For instance, they are faced with consequences based on how compatible or incompatible their beliefs are with the beliefs of those immediately surrounding them and those in power. It seems that there has never been an objective way to measure someone’s objective moral alignment without subjectivity being involved. In the previous section, I discussed the hardship of combining moral accountability with hard determinism. However, because of my stance on ethical skepticism, I do not believe that objective moral accountability can really go hand in hand with non-determinism or libertarianism either. Instead of objective viewpoints, moral codes seem to be subjective points to maintain and design order in the world on both a micro and macro scale. For those of you thinking, “Hey, what about moral codes based on religion?”, don’t worry, as I will be getting there soon.
Nilhism
You may recognize that I am stuck with two difficult beliefs- 1. All of our actions and choices are predetermined, leaving us with the absence of free will 2. It is impossible for us to know the objective truths of moral codes to decide what is right or wrong. These two beliefs spiral into another popular belief, Nihilism. Nihilism is a philosophical view that argues that life has no inherent meaning, purpose, or objective value. In its moral form, nihilism holds that there are no objective standards of right and wrong, meaning moral claims are ultimately unfounded. More broadly, nihilism suggests that many of the beliefs we humans rely on—such as meaning, truth, or value—may not exist in any fundamental sense. Looking at the combination of my prior two beliefs, it makes sense how one could come to a nihilistic conclusion. Many people, faced with this conclusion, resort to one of two pathways. These are existentialism and absurdism.
Existentialism is a way of thought that focuses on individual freedom, choice, and the responsibility each person has to create meaning in their own life. People who subscribe to this believe that we as humans are not born with a predetermined purpose or essence; instead, we first exist and then define ourselves through the decisions we make. While this is a good practice on a macro level of human organization, it is something that I reject and view as something commonly referred to as philosophical suicide. This means (and thank you, Google, for this random definition) ‘the act of escaping the absurdity of life by adopting irrational beliefs, such as religion or ideologies that impose artificial meaning. Instead of embracing the lack of inherent purpose, one "leaps" into false hope, destroying intellectual integrity.’ Instead of escaping the absurdity of life, I actively embrace it by subscribing to absurdism. Instead of living life and doing actions with the purpose of finding meaning, I do actions for the purpose of doing them and finding joy in the action itself, despite knowing that my actions have no true meaning or purpose. This has allowed me to more deeply embrace life for itself rather than forcing an artificial meaning/ purpose upon it that I know is false.
Consequences
Now that we all know where I stand, what are the possible consequences of this? What if everyone accepted absurdism, and is it a good practice? To keep things short, absolutely not.
1. Most people are lost without a predefined set of rules and regulations
For absurdism, a person has to accept not having a predefined set of codes to go by and be able to create their own identity through a code they personally create. Not only are many people not willing to do this, but a great vast majority of people on Earth are too incompetent to actually do this. Most people are too incompetent to understand nuances and grey areas, or straight up lack fundamental critical thinking skills. In perspectives such as existentialism, where moral codes are imported from already established religions or doctrines, very little critical thought is required to subscribe to an ethical structure that is compatible with everyday human civilization. Along with this, if one has trouble understanding most of these structures, there are lots of leaders and resources that can guide them and ease their mental anguish. In absurdism, one not only has orders of magnitude less support in understanding themselves, but they also have to figure out how doing things solely for the purpose of doing them can peacefully coincide with modern-day civilization. This is because if they do not, things can lead to chaos.
2. Widespread absurdism leads to chaos
First, I would like to say that I do not believe that absurdism intrinsically leads to chaos. There are a variety of avenues one could go down where they could explain how the masses could all subscribe to absurdism and still come to some type of alignment in their daily actions. However, that is only in a perfect world. In the real world, most people cannot honestly be left to their own devices. So many people have malicious intent, pent-up biases, hatred, and even straight bio incompetence that, without some type of formal moral code (objective or not), the world would fall into total disarray. This is not to say that we live in a perfect world now, because it is far from it.
3. Absurdism leads to internal peace
For those who are able to harmiously embrace absurdism, they can find both a deeper internal peace and compassion for others. For many people, inner turmoil stems from a lack of understanding about the world around them. Not knowing one’s purpose, or why events unfold the way they do, often contributes significantly to that sense of unrest. If one accepts that things could possibly be happening for no reason at all, they can accept events and actions for what they are rather than their deeper “hidden” meaning. This is not to say to ignore causation, quite the opposite. This is saying to accept life as just that, causation. In terms of compassion, in order to reach an acceptance of absurdism, one has to recognize the internal struggles of looking for meaning and justification in everyday life. Once one has accomplished this, they have the potential to recognize that most everyday people are going through similar struggles and are just coping with them in different ways.
4. Absurdism comes from a place of privilege
One of the leading figures of absurdism once said that there are 3 main options when faced with nihilism: suicide, existentialism, and absurdism. However, for many people, choosing absurdism just is not an option at all. As an extreme thought experiment, if a slave were faced with nihilism, a majority of people would find it unreasonable for that slave to live life for the purpose of living. It would instead make much more sense for the slave to look for a deeper purpose in life rather that be through Christianity, revolution, or the potential of one day feeling freedom. Some people are so constrained in their life or situation that they have no mentally sane reason to accept life for the purpose of living it. I am able to subscribe to the absurdist perspective because of my current educational and economic status, which leaves me well off and without the need for a “greater purpose.” To simplify, one needs to reach a certain quality of life and inner peace before accepting absurdism to fully reap the accompanying inner peace that comes with absurdism.