After Theory by Terry Eagleton

Author:Terry Eagleton [Eagleton, Terry]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
Tags: non.fiction, philosophy
ISBN: 9780141015071
Goodreads: 1895070
Publisher: Penguin Books, Limited (UK)
Published: 2003-12-24T00:00:00+00:00

historical creatures, we look as though we are going somewhere – so that it is easy to misread this movement in teleological terms and forget that it is all for its own sake. Nature is a bottom-line concept: you cannot ask why a giraffe should do the things it does. To say ‘It belongs to its nature’ is answer enough. You cannot cut deeper than that. In the same way, you cannot ask why people should want to feel happy and fulfilled. It would be like asking what someone hoped to achieve by falling in love. Happiness is not a means to an end.

If someone asks you why you do not want to die, you might reply that you have a trilogy of novels to finish, or grandchildren to watch growing up, or that a shroud would clash horribly with the colour of your fingernails. But it would surely be answer enough to say that you wanted to live. There is no need to specify particular goals. Living is enough reason in itself. There are certainly some people who would be better off dead; but those that would not do not need a reason for carrying on. It is as superfluous to explain why you want to live as it is to explain why you don’t enjoy being nuzzled all over by buzzards. The only problem is that something which is or should be valuable in itself, like living, does not seem to need to end. Since it is not instrumental for something else, there is no point at which we can say its function is fulfilled and its purpose over. This is one reason why death is always bound to appear arbitrary. Only a life which had realized itself completely could seem undamaged by it. And as long as we are alive, there is always more self-realization where that came from.

The idea of fulfilling your nature is inimical to the capitalist success ethic. Everything in capitalist society must have its point and purpose. If you act well, then you expect a reward. For Aristotle, by contrast, acting well was a reward in itself. You no more expected a reward for it than you did for enjoying

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