Albert Camus: Absurdity and Moral values

Camus is well known for his statement that ` there is only one really serious philosophical problem, that of suicide. To judge that life is or is not worth the trouble of being lived, this is to reply the fundamental question of philosophy'. On the face of it this may seem a very eccentric view of philosophy. The presupposition however is that man seeks a meaning in the world and in human life and history which would ground and support his ideals and values. Man wants to be assured that reality is intelligible teleological process, comprising an objective moral order.To put the matter in another way, man desires metaphysical assurance that his life is part of an intelligible process directed to an ideal goal, and that in striving after his personal ideals he has the backing and support, so to speak, of the universe or of reality as a whole.

(However, accordig to Camus) the world is revealed to the clear-sighted man, as without any determinate purpose or meaning. The world is not rational. Hence arises the feeling of the absurd....The feeling of the absurd can arise in a variety of ways, through, for example , the perception of Nature's indifference to man's values and ideals, through recognition of the finality of death, or through the shock caused by the sudden perception of the pointlessness of life's routine.

Suicide is not hwever the action recommended by Camus. In his opinion suicide means surrender to the absurd, capitulation. Human pride and greatness are shown ... in living in the counsciousness of the absurd and yet revolting against it by man's committing himself and living in the fullest manner possible.... The man of the absurd lives without God. But it by no means follows that he cannot devote himself in a self-sacrificing manner to the welfare of his fellow men. Indeed, if he does so without hope of reward and conscious that in the long run it makes no difference how he acts, he exhibits the greatness of man precisely by this combination of recognition of ultimate futility with a life of self sacrificing love. It is possible to be a saint without illusion.
... Man cannot live without values. If he chooses to live , by that very fact he asserts a value, that life is good or worth living or should be worth living. Man as man can revolt against exploitation, oppression, injustice and violence, and by the very fact that he revolts he asserts the values in the name of which he revolts.

Frederick Copleston ( from A History of Philosophy)