Meaning in Life and the Metaphysics of Value

Authors

  • Daan Evers University of Groningen, The Netherlands

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.3384/de-ethica.2001-8819.174327

Keywords:

Meaning in life, Subjectivism, Objectivism, Beauty

Abstract

According to subjectivist views about a meaningful life, ones life is meaningful in virtue of desire satisfaction or feelings of fulfilment. Standard counterexamples consist of satisfaction found through trivial or immoral tasks. In response to such examples, many philosophers require that the tasks one is devoted to are objectively valuable, or have objectively valuable consequences. I argue that the counterexamples to subjectivism do not require objective value for meaning in life. I also consider other reasons for thinking that meaning in life requires objective value and raise doubts about their strength. Finally, I argue that beauty is not plausibly objective, but that it seems important for meaning. This puts pressure on the objectivist to explain why objectivity matters in the case of other values.

References

Björnsson, Gunnar, and Alexander Almér. 'The Pragmatics of Insensitive Assessments. Understanding the Relativity of Assessments of Personal Taste, Epistemic Modals, and More', The Baltic International Yearbook of Cognition, Logic and Communication 6 (2011), pp. 1-45.
https://doi.org/10.4148/biyclc.v6i0.1562

Blackburn, Simon. Ruling Passions. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998.

Bramble, Ben. 'Consequentialism about Meaning in Life', Utilitas 27:4 (2015), pp. 445-459.
https://doi.org/10.1017/S095382081500014X

Brogaard, Berit, and Barry Smith. 'On Luck, Responsibility and the Meaning of Life', Philosophical Papers 34:3 (2005), pp. 443-458.
https://doi.org/10.1080/05568640509485167

Budd, Malcolm. 'The Acquaintance Principle', British Journal of Aesthetics 43:4 (2003), pp. 386-392.
https://doi.org/10.1093/bjaesthetics/43.4.386

Evers, Daan. 'Relativism and the Metaphysics of Value', unpublished.

Finlay, Stephen. 'The Error in the Error Theory', Australasian Journal of Philosophy 86:3 (2008), pp. 347-369.
https://doi.org/10.1080/00048400802001921

Finlay, Stephen. Confusion of Tongues. A Theory of Normative Language. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014.
https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199347490.001.0001

Frankfurt, Harry. 'Reply to Susan Wolf', in Contours of Agency: Essays on Themes from Harry Frankfurt, edited by Sarah Buss, and Lee Overton. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, Bradford Books, 2002, pp. 245-252.

Gibbard, Allan. Thinking How to Live. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003.

Kauppinen, Anti. 'Meaningfulness and Time', Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 84:2 (2012), pp. 345-377.
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1933-1592.2010.00490.x

Kant, Immanuel. Critique of Judgement. translated by James Meredith. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1951.

Luper, Steven. 'Life's Meaning', in The Cambridge Companion to Life and Death, edited by Steven Luper. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014, pp. 198-214.
https://doi.org/10.1017/CCO9781139149129.015

MacFarlane, John. Assessment Sensitivity. Relative Truth and Its Applications. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014.
https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199682751.001.0001

Metz, Thaddeus. Meaning in Life. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013.
https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199599318.001.0001

Nagel, Thomas. 'The Absurd', The Journal of Philosophy 68:20 (1971), pp. 716-727.
https://doi.org/10.2307/2024942

Ridge, Michael. Impassioned Belief. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014.
https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199682669.001.0001

Rowlands, Mark. 'The Immortal, the Intrinsic, and the Quasi Meaning of Life', The Journal of Ethics 19:3/4 (2015), pp. 379-408.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10892-015-9212-7

Smart, John, and Bernard Williams. Utilitarianism: For and Against, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973.

Smuts, Aaron. 'The Good Cause Account of the Meaning of Life', The Southern Journal of Philosophy 51:4 (2013), pp. 536-562.
https://doi.org/10.1111/sjp.12044

Street, Sharon. 'Constructivism about Reasons', in Oxford Studies in Metaethics vol. 3, edited by Russ Shafer-Landau. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2008, pp. 207-245.

Taylor, Richard. 'The Meaning of Life', in The Meaning of Life: A Reader, 3rd edition, edited by Elmer Klemke, and Stephen Cahn. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009, pp. 13-14.

Todd, Cain. 'Quasi-Realism, Acquaintance, and the Normative Claims of Aesthetic Judgement', British Journal of Aesthetics 44:3 (2004), pp. 277-296.
https://doi.org/10.1093/aesthj/44.3.277

Williams, Bernard. 'Internal and External Reasons', in Moral Luck. Philosophical Papers 1973-1980. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981, pp. 101-113.
https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139165860.009

Wolf, Susan. Meaning in Life and Why it Matters. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010.
https://doi.org/10.1515/9781400834594

Downloads

Published

2017-12-04

How to Cite

Evers, D. (2017) “Meaning in Life and the Metaphysics of Value”, De Ethica, 4(3), pp. 27–44. doi: 10.3384/de-ethica.2001-8819.174327.

Issue

Section

Articles