In hearings on the first travel ban, judges on the Ninth Circuit openly wondered about what to do if the President lied about an order's purpose or about how it would be used, and a number of Fourth Circuit judges also raised those questions.
The philosopher Charles Taylor, in an examination of how our attitude toward interior life has changed over the past five hundred years, argues that the trend line runs in one direction: from a self-understanding gained from our place in larger entities — such as a chain of being or divine order — toward purpose discovered from within, through what we consider to be authentic self-expression.
The world is absurd, Meursault thinks (and Camus seconds), because, without divine order, or even much pointed human purpose, it's just one damn thing after another, and you might as well be damned for one thing as the next: in a world bleached dry of significance, the most immoral act might seem as meaningful as the best one.
The brain, it was argued, directed and gave order and purpose to the different mechanical functions of our bodies.
The historical and theoretical problem raised by science is this: What explanation can we find for the order and purpose we perceive in the universe, and especially in biological life, other than an organizing force or forces?
9.57am BST With the benefit of sleep, coffee and hindsight, how to disentangle a sense of order and purpose from last night's whirlwind live chat?
"Yes, there is something comforting in the idea that your tiny little insignificant life could be mapped out and there is order and purpose to it," he says.
The argument from design also starts from human experience: in this case the perception of order and purpose in the natural world.
"As long as we have the methods to propitiate the gods, or solicit their interest, or appeal to their sense of fairness and justice, or to connect with the presence of an eternal unity, we feel that an underlying order and purpose exist in a seemingly chaotic universe".
It offers a transcendent sense of order and purpose and also provides a platform for an aggressive reaction against, for example, the feminisation of western culture, and the perceived advantages women are being given in the educational system and employment.
