The Sources of Modern Man’s Crisis of the Meaning of Life

The sources of modern man’s

crisis of The meaning of life

Studente: Felix Akamonye (160279)

FEBRUARY 2012

OUTLINE

INTRODUCTION

1.0 LIFE, MAN AND HUMAN NATURE

1.1. Historical and Cultural variations in the Meaning of life

1.2. Human Nature

2.0 THE SOURCES OF MEANINGLESSNESS IN LIFE OF MODERN MAN

2.1 Biologism/Genetic Revolution

2.2 Globalization, Secularization and Relativism

2.3 Atheism and the New God

2.4 Modern Man, The New Sisyphus

EVALUATION AND CONCLUSION

INTRODUCTION

Life which is the foundational concept of all Bioethics discussion is a term whose meaning and/or definition increases in uncertainty with time. This situation is attended to by the continuous scientific advancement that provides new knowledge and understanding to the categories with which we could define life. There is thus an unabating debate on what is the meaning, value and definition of life. This situation is not bettered by the fact that science especially biotechnology continuously places new data on the table for further discussion on issues relating to life. These data often change the ground for argument even before the argument is reasonably understood and concluded. Worthy of note is that in the discussion, the balance is tilted in favor of science, since the discoveries are made with scientific method.

While the above process goes on, one immediate effect on the life of the ordinary man who is privy to the information and debate is that armed with the data from the life sciences, things are no longer at ease in respect of who he is? Where he comes from? Where he is going from here? What he is here for? Why he is here? Etc. It must be noted that modern man does not suffer from lack of information necessary for arriving at the answers to these questions. If anything, he has a deluge of information in which he would seem to be drowning. It is for this reason that we are said to be in an information age.

The difficulty of...