Personhood in itself is 'nothingness' devoid of normative substance. The right to personhood is a liberty right which 'condemns' people to freedom, 'a dreadful freedom' in the words of one thinker. It confronts each person with the fundamental questions about 'er existence as an individual, questions such as What is the meaning of life?, What sense can i make out of my existence?. Existentialists, the traditional 'philosophers of life', have often sketched a picture of human life as 'anguished and absurd, distressing and meaningless', of everyone's own being as finite and even of the whole of reality as nothingness because of everybody's anxiety about impending death: 'thrown into the world a human being experiences forlornness and a sense of abandonment'. This is the pessimist or nihilist side of existentialism, and this is the side of formal personhood.

While the origin of every person may be nothingness, 'e achieves 'thingness' by choosing. It is by making decisions that 'e can attain existence, that is, authentic existence. (It has been said that a person thereby creates 'er own nature and values.) Being 'trapped in existence' the world in which 'e lives would be totally meaningless, if 'e had no criterions and principles to order and evaluate what 'e experiences. To make sense out of it, 'e must deal with existence, with the freedom forced upon 'im as a person. It is then that 'e realizes that 'e is not only free to choose 'er own world-view and way of living, but that 'e must choose 'er own world-view and way of living. Yet --as has been correctly argued-- 'e can never be entirely sure that it is the right choice, that it is the right decision 'e has taken, and that 'er life will indeed become meaningful. To find the meaning of 'er existence as a living being, a sentient being or a human being, 'e needs knowledge, and yet the only certainty that can be guaranteed is the certainty of truths without content. Hence, also in this respect 'e has to take risks, for 'e cannot remain in a state of nothingness or emptiness forever; as a skeptic forever. The solution to a person's existential problems has been said to lie in 'the decision to believe, to have faith'. It should be added that a person must have the courage of 'er convictions to boot.

As mere bodies people's (that is, their bodies') attitudes and actions can in principle be explained and predicted on purely behavioristic grounds. That they say such-and-such and do so-and-so, is thus construed a question of their upbringing, their relatives or friends, the class they belong to, the region or country where they live or used to live, the influence of the mediums of communication, and so on and so forth. As persons, however, people can choose regardless of their upbringing, regardless of their relatives or friends, regardless of the class they might belong to, regardless of the region or country where they live, regardless of the influence of radio and television, and so on and so forth; regardless, that is, of what behaviorist science or, for that matter, public opinion expect them to choose. In the 'nothingness' of mere personhood all these physical and social constraints are absent. But if people do not want to, if they cannot, remain in this state and need to take decisions, this does not imply that they have to 'leap into absurdity' and adopt the untruths, prevarications and inconsistences of fideism. The knights of irrational or supernatural faith who embrace a belief 'in virtue of the absurd' escape the darkness of nothingness not to become enlightened but to become blinded by the infinite brightness of exist ideology.

The lives of people are made to appear meaningful --it has been claimed-- in a way they would otherwise not be by people's believing in the existence of one or more gods. Thus, it would not matter whether gods really exist, but what function the belief in a god, or in gods, fulfils in the lives of those who hold it. Altho the belief itself may be nonsensical, accepting it, even if only as a myth, would be useful on this theist view, for it is this which would give life a meaning. Naturally, also this suggestion is preposterous. Firstly --as has been replied before-- the utility of the acceptance of the belief depends upon people's not judging it as mythical. Secondly, the myth is not useful but, on the contrary, harmful because of its extremist and exclusivist content and record. And thirdly, the argument fallaciously presupposes the logical primacy of the existence of one or more gods who tell people what they ought to do and what they ought not to do. (Take the tale of a god who commanded people not to murder, while at the same time commanding a father to kill his only child in order to show his faithfulness).

A person who starts from the primacy of the normative (instead of that of the authority of one or more gods) may attach value to the ends 'e pursues. But 'e only 'creates' 'er own values insofar as they are personal, doxastic ones. The universal norms and values exist independently of the individual and are there not to be created but to be recognized and adhered to. Unlike cultural or subcultural norms and personal values, they are the ones that meaningfully relate things, events, actions, attitudes and ideas to one another and to a supreme goal.

The very moment that we chose catenated neutrality as an ultimate value, and the universal norms of neutrality and inclusivity as paradigmatic principles, we gave life its meaning. But, paradoxically, it is because of this meaning of life, that is, one's own life, that death, one's own death, may have acquired meaning too. When there are reasons in favor of one's own life, these reasons must be based on the norms and value, or values, which give life its meaning; but when there are reasons against (the continuation of) one's own life, they must be based on the very same norms and values. It is merely the factual and modal conditions which differ then. Only if one's life has meaning can one's death have meaning as well.

The most obvious neutral-inclusive reasons for causing or risking one's own death have been mentioned in our discussion of the various aspects of euthanasia. They are in the first place reasons for not choosing or risking death, and are related to one's status both as a living and as a happiness-catenal being. As a living being one has to preserve oneself so long as one is healthy or has a disease which can be cured, but if an incurable illness eats into one's body like acid into metal, it is not a body in equilibrium which is preserved; then it is only the destruction of such a body which is preserved. As a happiness-catenal being one has to fight one's own suffering and that of other happiness-catenals, but if there is no end to one's suffering in sight, and if the continuation of one's existence contributes more to deterioration than to amelioration, this is not the minimization of suffering; then this is only the perpetuation of such suffering. In these instances one should, after prolonged deliberation, while having considered the certainty or probability of the effects and side-effects, cause or risk one's own death.

Also in cases in which one is not very ill or seriously injured, it may be worthwhile to risk one's own death, if the motive is the attainment of an objective which is commendable on the Ananormative model. As regards living beings this motive may be to save other lives; as regards happiness-catenal beings it may be work on a dangerous project or task which improves the situation of many of them when completed. Such objectives have a derivative value according to the DNI. The objective may also be the protection of the interests of the DNI itself, or of its adherents, for example, when their fundamental extrinsic rights are, or otherwise would be, violated.

Should one's service to the objectives or interests of the Ananorm lead to one's death, this has, perhaps, no immediate impact on the attainment of a neutral-inclusive society, of the ideal of veridical truth or of a universal respect for persons, yet it is a way of dying which stands out among all other ways of dying because of its meaning. Being determined by the Norm itself, the meaning of such a death is the same as that of life. The path of anafactive conduct which leads to death, while pursuing neutral-inclusive ends or while serving the interests of the Norm, does not lead to meaninglessness; on the contrary, it preserves the very meaningfulness of the mortal life in death. It is in this manner that 'to partake of Dao', the Way, the ultimate principle, 'and so to be authentic, that is eternal, immortal' is 'to grasp the imperishable in the perishable' or the suprapersonal in the personal. This conclusion was already drawn more than two thousand years earlier: "The person who attains the ultimate, attains the everlasting. Tho 'er body may decay, 'e never perishes".

THE   DAO   OF   NANHONORE
 
When people know how to show honor as honor,
they know how to show dishonor as dishonor.
When they are thus subject to being honored,
they are thus subject to being dishonored.
When they further distinguish 'high' and 'big' and 'in',
they further distinguish 'low' and 'small' and 'out'.
When they speak of "young" and "rich" and "mine",
they speak of "old" and "poor" and "thine".
And when there finally arises
the recognition of what is really wrong,
there arises the recognition of what is really right.
Therefore,
the person who promotes the cause of neutral-inclusivity
under the denomination of the Ananorm
accomplishes 'er task
without claiming exclusive credit for it,
and without receiving such credit for it.
It is precisely
because 'e does not claim exclusive credit for it, and
because 'e does not receive such credit for it,
that 'er accomplishment can wholly remain with 'im.

[This canon was inspired by a two to
 two-and-a-half thousand years older one.]