In Obedience vs. Autonomy, I proposed that the purpose of our lives is that for which we are free. In that post, I argued that the freedom to pursue happiness, the freedom to pursue righteousness, and the freedom to love – to will the good of the other do not provide a purpose for human life. I could have given a similar argument that the freedom to pursue truth fails to provide a purpose for human life. I concluded that a freedom to obey something external to our reason might indicate a purpose for our lives.

In this post, I want to set aside an implication that I argued that happiness, truth, righteousness, and love could not be purposes of human life. Also, I want to generalize the notion of obedience to dependence. Only under the assumption that reason is the ultimate authority on what is true, good happiness, beautiful – only under the assumption of the autonomy of reason- can what we determine fail to provide a purpose for life. If we accept a reality apart from our reason upon which our reason depends for its correctness, then truth, goodness, happiness and beauty can be what we live for.