Existential Distress, Suicide, and Moral Faith
摘要
While meaning can be found even under the most adverse circumstances, it can also not be found even under the most favourable circumstances. And when that happens and we are no longer able to see the point in continuing to live, the existential distress we then experience in response to a perceived absence of cosmic meaning may well be so severe that we consider suicide. Whether that is the right response to the ultimate pointlessness of life is the question that Albert Camus tried to answer in his Myth of Sisyphus. This chapter takes its cue from Camus, discussing the nature of existential distress and whether suicide can ever be a rational response to it. Hauskeller argues that while it is not exactly irrational, there is no good reason to feel distressed by an absence of cosmic meaning.