Thom Hamer

A popular view on existential absurdity holds that if life is absurd, it must be inescapably so. In opposition to this view, I argue that the concept of existential absurdity allows for life to be contingently absurd. In Nausea (1938) and Being and Nothingness (1943), Jean-Paul Sartre puts forward two distinct conceptions of an absurd life, both of which entail an absurdity that is contingent rather than inescapable. Given the internal coherence of these accounts of existential absurdity, we have reasons to reject the view that existential absurdity is necessarily inescapable. A challenge arises, however, for radically contingent versions of absurdity: if life is absurd in a radically contingent way, it seems that no rational agent will live under absurd conditions for a significant portion of their life. This seems to run counter to the intuition that an absurdity can only be genuinely existential if it is a fundamental feature of human life. In response to this ‘problem of triviality’, I argue that there can be pro-absurdity reasons that outweigh the pro tanto reasons for escaping absurdity. Thus, it would not necessarily be irrational to continue to live under the yoke of absurdity.

If life is absurd in that we cannot help but desire the unattainable, then there is prima facie reason to lament the absurd whenever we are confronted with it. This is an intuitive idea: it is fitting to be disappointed by what is essentially disappointing. But if there is nothing we can do about the absurdity of life, we may have reason to minimize awareness of it. My paper explores this hyporeflective response. I present an initial case for hyporeflectivism—what I call the argument from irremediability. I proceed to argue that the hyporeflectivist can overcome three difficulties (the unavoidability objection, the involuntarist objection, and the truthfulness objection). They are hard‐pressed, however, to overcome the pyrrhic objection: in avoiding the negatively evaluative feelings associated with a desire for the unattainable, we may lose more than we gain.

What do we mean when we say that life is absurd? This monograph pioneers a "metaexistential" approach, focusing on the conceptual features of existential absurdity regardless of any one source of absurdity. Whether it is death, meaninglessness, cosmic indifference, or something altogether different that renders life absurd—the absurdity of life consists in a fundamental discrepancy between demand and reality. Contrary to the phlegmatic response so popular in analytic assessments of existential absurdity, I argue that it would be a lamentable fact of life if it was in fact absurd. This does not mean, however, that there is nothing we can do to make our absurdity more bearable. We can regard the absurdity of life from a disinterested perspective, laugh at it, and to some extent avoid awareness of it, though these are only a handful of ways in which we could manage the feeling of the absurd. The metaexistential insights offered here are valuable in their own right, but they gain special significance when I proceed to argue, on a first-order ontological level, that life is in fact absurd. This has to do, I submit, with the fact that the choice of a life-project tends to be incredibly hard, because we are generally not in a position to know which path would be best.

Moral error theory has recently faced formal objections. Since it denies the existence of moral properties that are defined in contradistinction to each other (e.g. permissibility and impermissibility), it appears to fall into incoherence. While some have rejected the duality of interdefinable deontic modals in response to this objection, I defend moral error theory while upholding this duality. Drawing on the distinction between ‘weak’ and ‘strong’ permissibility in relation to requiring and justifying reasons, my analysis shows that any plausible formulation of deontic duals must define a strong deontic modal in contradistinction to a weaker dual. This allows moral error theory to deny propositions that ascribe a strong deontic status to action, while affirming those that ascribe only a weak status.

A popular view on existential absurdity holds that if life is absurd, it must be inescapably so. In opposition to this view, I argue that the concept of existential absurdity allows for life to be contingently absurd. In Nausea (1938) and Being and Nothingness (1943), Jean-Paul Sartre puts forward two distinct conceptions of an absurd life, both of which entail an absurdity that is contingent rather than inescapable. Given the internal coherence of these accounts of existential absurdity, we have reasons to reject the view that existential absurdity is necessarily inescapable. A challenge arises, however, for radically contingent versions of absurdity: if life is absurd in a radically contingent way, it seems that no rational agent will live under absurd conditions for a significant portion of their life. This seems to run counter to the intuition that an absurdity can only be genuinely existential if it is a fundamental feature of human life. In response to this ‘problem of triviality’, I argue that there can be pro-absurdity reasons that outweigh the pro tanto reasons for escaping absurdity. Thus, it would not necessarily be irrational to continue to live under the yoke of absurdity.

To what extent can humorism be a legitimate disposition toward the Absurd? The Absurd is born from the insurmountable contradiction between one’s ceaseless striving and the absence of an ultimate resolution – or, as I prefer to call it, the ‘dissolution of resolution’. Humoristic Absurdism is the commitment to a pattern of humorous responses to the Absurd, which regard this absurd condition, as well as its manifestation in absurd situations, as a comical phenomenon. Although the humoristic disposition seems promising, by virtue of humor’s recognition of incongruity and its denial of an ultimate resolution, and succeeds in countering three major objections, it falls prey to the claim that comprehensive humorism portrays as frivolous what is earnest, thereby renouncing the gravity of the desire for ultimate resolution, which is fundamental to the notion of the Absurd. In an attempt to explore alternative roles for humor in a legitimate disposition toward the Absurd, Metamodern Absurdism is suggested, which revolves around a post-ironic oscillation between humor and earnestness. In short, only in a role limited to one pole of an oscillatory pattern of responses can humor be integrated in a legitimate disposition toward the Absurd.