Miscellaneous
In 2017, Joseph Carter wrote an op-ed for the New York Times as a graduate student in philosophy at the University of Georgia entitled, “The Universe Doesn’t Care About Your Purpose.” He wanted to explore the tension between the world of purpose that we see and the scientific reality of mechanistic forces that actually order things. As a materialist, Carter argues that there are no intrinsic purposes in reality. But, on the other hand, humans need a sense of purpose and the world seems to hold together through the purposes of entities, including humans. Whether our purposes are real or illusory depends on who is asking the question and why. And in the struggle to achieve material fairness for people, it doesn’t really matter whether justice is inherent or not. Either way, justice is what we need to be working toward. The fact that purpose is not inherent does not mean the universe is meaningless.