#5 - Is setting goals ultimately meaningless? - Problem of the Paradox of the End - Activity as an end in itself

In part #5 I will look at the idea of stipulating ends and means as simultaneous acts and so free ourselves from the sense of meaningless of ‘means/ends’ activity.

In later blogs I will take you through to what I think is a resolution of the paradox. A way to find meaning where there is none.

#5 Activity as an end in itself
Activity which is an end in itself again avoids the paradox altogether by stipulating ends and means as simultaneous acts. Such a doctrine is to be found in Stoicism. But perhaps nowhere is a gloomier picture of life to be found than in the unreasoned pessimism of some Stoic writers. For example, Seneca praises death as ‘the best invention of Nature’, and life, on the whole, is lamentable.
However, Stoicism is not all gloom, indeed, to render a calm indifference in the midst of the world’s turmoil and death is often held to be a positive good by many. However, Stoicism is characterised by a limitation of wants and an austere impassivity. Even in a diluted form, when ends are still to be identified with means, it remains a system of thought that suggests we should not try to achieve our ends for trying would obstruct achievement. Consequently this doctrine maintains that nothing is to be done except that which is done for its own sake.
Furthermore, the Stoic world is imbued with divine reason providentially ordained by fate. As a result it is characterised by an all-embracing causal nexus of fate reducing individual efficacy to zero. Our proper function is, according to the Stoic, to live in accordance with Nature’s plan. But this begs the question; what plan? Evidently this is not revealed so we become reliant upon mortal interpretations of which there is more than one.
Yet even supposing you settle for one plan in preference to another, means/ends activity remains a strategy in which nothing is to be achieved. For example, we may greatly admire an activist because we believe they resist injustices, injustices we ourselves hope to see eliminated. Yet Stoicism demands injustices for it is these very injustices which afford the sufferer the most opportunity for virtue in the face of adversity. The Stoic is edified in the thought that in being wronged they are nonetheless right. Consequently, anyone who adheres to this strategy might just as well stay at home for virtue is an end in itself, not something that does good. As for performing public goods; we may, but it should not be motivated by a desire to benefit others as our own virtue is all that matters. Similarly, we might be kind to our fellow beings, though not because we actually care.
Stoicism is, then, a gospel of endurance rather than hope. Moreover, Stoicism, even in its diluted form, adds up to imposing limits on our discontent in the same way as the strategy of transcendent ends. It requires that we direct energies toward securing false goods for others so that we ourselves might be virtuous. While not wanting to deny the heroic within the Stoic, and that in a world of many injustices Stoicism can be useful character trait, it nevertheless is a system of thought whose precepts demand we do not live down to them.

In #6 I will look at the idea of determinism and that we do not actually select our ends but only have the illusion of selecting them. So does this resolve the paradox?