Reply to Pat A. Manfredi and Donna M. Summerfield:

  1. I agree that life is not rendered absurd by the availability of a standpoint from which we could question or doubt whether our own lives are significant (hence, I agree withou against Thomas Nagel); put differently, over-all world-view perspectives are never more than highly probable from an epistemological standpoint (it is a question of relative plausibility).

  2. I agree that a person can strive (with only approximative success) to be objective in his estimate of his own subjective valuings, and that therefore the greater significance he attaches to these valuings as over against those of other persons who differ about such valuings, may tend to lower his estimate of their objective significance; but this would not make his life absurd, only more tolerant.

  3. BUT why not undercut the alleged inappropriateness of one's estimate of the significance of his own desires (egocentrism) by supposing that, since each person is unique as an individual, the moral and (non-moral) good for that person would be relative to that uniqueness, so that the objective value of a person's life would be a function of the degree to which he realized that unique good:

    1. on this ground, all persons qua persons would be possesseed of an equal intrinsic worth which, in turn would rest on the absolute intrinsic worth of the personhood of God;

    2. but one person would be morally better or worse than another in relation to the degree in which he realized his own unique personhood;

    3. this would make each person's concern for his own morally justifiable desires itself morally plausible and appropriate (also his concern for himself, his family, his friends, etc.); in this way the furthering of one's own subjective aims would contribute appropriately to the realization of the intrinsic worth of personhood in general.




Thanks for a fine contribution!