But that would suppose, right, that there is a point in assigning value in the first place? We must first decide that assigning value is a meaningful and worthwhile human activity before asking what it is that we value. Do you agree?
It's not about assigning value, it's about perceiving value.
If you've got a kitten, and you get a lot of joy with playing with the kitten, taking care of it, seeing it be content, and it brightens your day when you come home from work and see your kitten, then the kitten is valuable to you whether or not you've consciously assigned value to it or not.
A happy person perceives their life to be valuable because through their life, they continue experiencing happiness, which is enjoyable in and of itself. A happy person does not ask another happy person why they bother with happiness. It's something that, when had, is already understood.
Secular moral systems would then be begging the question with regards to assigning subjective meaning and value. I don't see how it they couldn't.
I don't disagree with you. Life is not teleological in the sense that it deliberately or willfully seeks out goals to strive for. In fact, I think some people are wrongly critical of evolutionary biology because they confuse evolution with progress. I have no reason to believe that life exists for a purpose or that it's part of a grand plan. If my wording suggested that I believed otherwise, I apologize for any confusion my wording might have caused.
My struggle is with my own life. I'm not sure what point there is to assigning purpose or worth to my life. I don't see the point to happiness or morality, to be frank. I struggle with apathy and depression.
You've already answered your own question. In the OP, you said you want to be happy. Here, you said you struggle with apathy and depression. Why not the reverse? Why not say you want to be unhappy? Wouldn't it be unreasonable for a person to say they struggle with happiness and contentment, and seek to fix that?
This is what I struggle to understand. How is happiness an inherently desirable end?
I agree but I can't help thinking ethical systems can't escape the guilt of question-begging by assuming happiness is inherently worthwhile and deserving of spreading as a goal to be achieved.
I'm no stranger to ethics
I've read Aristotle, Kant, Mill, and Simone De Beauvoir. Facinating bunch although De Beauvoir's book
The Ethics of Ambiguity was sheer torture for me to read!
Happiness is one thing that is not consciously achieved simply for the sake of achieving something else. A happy person does not use happiness merely as a tool to achieve something else- happiness itself is the end result. Biologically, happiness provides a greater chance for living and producing, so it's a means to an end. It's a successful means, and humans desire it because, when had, it is valued for its own sake.
It's an axiom; self-evident. It's like in medicine, the axiom is that health is desirable. All of medicine is based on making people healthier. Happiness is inherently desirable by basically everyone because it's a biological tool that our species, and many animals, use to direct organisms to continue living. When working correctly and not abused, happiness is the body's tool for telling someone they are on the right track.
