There is as yet no consensus in the field. Repp The thought is that meaning is well represented by a bipolar scale, where there is a dimension of not merely positive conditions, but also negative ones.
The rest of this discussion addresses philosophical attempts to capture the nature of this value theoretically and to ascertain whether it exists in at least some of our lives. Most analytic philosophers writing on meaning in life have been trying to develop and evaluate theories, i. Arguably, though, the systematic search for unity is too nascent to be able to draw a firm conclusion about whether it is available.
The theories are standardly divided on a metaphysical basis, that is, in terms of which kinds of properties are held to constitute the meaning. Supernaturalist theories are views according to which a spiritual realm is central to meaning in life. Most Western philosophers have conceived of the spiritual in terms of God or a soul as commonly understood in the Abrahamic faiths but see Mulgan for discussion of meaning in the context of a God uninterested in us.
There is logical space for a non-naturalist theory, according to which central to meaning is an abstract property that is neither spiritual nor physical. However, only scant attention has been paid to this possibility in the recent Anglo-American-Australasian literature Audi It is important to note that supernaturalism, a claim that God or a soul would confer meaning on a life, is logically distinct from theism, the claim that God or a soul exists.
Although most who hold supernaturalism also hold theism, one could accept the former without the latter as Camus more or less did , committing one to the view that life is meaningless or at least lacks substantial meaning. Similarly, while most naturalists are atheists, it is not contradictory to maintain that God exists but has nothing to do with meaning in life or perhaps even detracts from it.
Although these combinations of positions are logically possible, some of them might be substantively implausible. The field could benefit from discussion of the comparative attractiveness of various combinations of evaluative claims about what would make life meaningful and metaphysical claims about whether spiritual conditions exist. Over the past 15 years or so, two different types of supernaturalism have become distinguished on a regular basis Metz On the one hand, there is extreme supernaturalism, according to which spiritual conditions are necessary for any meaning in life.
On the other hand, there is moderate supernaturalism, according to which spiritual conditions are necessary for a great or ultimate meaning in life, although not meaning in life as such. For a moderate supernaturalist, God or a soul would substantially enhance meaningfulness or be a major contributory condition for it. There has been no reflection as yet on the crucial question of how these distinctions might bear on each another, for instance, on whether some are more basic than others or some are more valuable than others.
In contrast, by the latter, having a soul and putting it into a certain state is what makes life meaningful, even if God does not exist. Many supernaturalists of course believe that God and a soul are jointly necessary for a greatly meaningful existence.
However, the simpler view, that only one of them is necessary, is common, and sometimes arguments proffered for the complex view fail to support it any more than the simpler one. If a person failed to do what God intends her to do with her life or if God does not even exist , then, on the current view, her life would be meaningless.
According to this argument, lower goods such as animal pleasure or desire satisfaction could exist without God, but higher ones pertaining to meaning in life, particularly moral virtue, could not.
However, critics point to many non-moral sources of meaning in life e. There is a different argument for an extreme God-based view that focuses less on God as purposive and more on God as infinite, unlimited, or ineffable, which Robert Nozick first articulated with care Nozick , —; see also Bennett-Hunter ; Waghorn The core idea is that for a finite condition to be meaningful, it must obtain its meaning from another condition that has meaning.
Being finite, the spouse must obtain his or her importance from elsewhere, perhaps from the sort of work he or she does. This work also must obtain its meaning by being related to something else that is meaningful, and so on.
A regress on meaningful conditions is present, and the suggestion is that the regress can terminate only in something so all-encompassing that it need not indeed, cannot go beyond itself to obtain meaning from anything else. And that is God. The standard objection to this relational rationale is that a finite condition could be meaningful without obtaining its meaning from another meaningful condition.
Perhaps it could be meaningful in itself, without being connected to something beyond it, or maybe it could obtain its meaning by being related to something else that is beautiful or otherwise valuable for its own sake but not meaningful Nozick , —68; Thomson , 25—26, A serious concern for any extreme God-based view is the existence of apparent counterexamples. If we think of the stereotypical lives of Albert Einstein, Mother Teresa, and Pablo Picasso, they seem meaningful even if we suppose there is no all-knowing, all-powerful, and all-good spiritual person who is the ground of the physical world e.
Even religiously inclined philosophers have found this hard to deny these days Quinn , 58; Audi ; Mawson , 5; Williams , — Largely for that reason, contemporary supernaturalists have tended to opt for moderation, that is, to maintain that God would greatly enhance the meaning in our lives, even if some meaning would be possible in a world without God.
One approach is to invoke the relational argument to show that God is necessary, not for any meaning whatsoever, but rather for an ultimate meaning. Still another argument is that only with God could the deepest desires of human nature be satisfied e. There has also been the response that, with the opportunity for greater meaning from God would also come that for greater anti-meaning, so that it is not clear that a world with God would offer a net gain in respect of meaning Metz , 34— For example, if pleasing God would greatly enhance meaning in our lives, then presumably displeasing God would greatly reduce it and to a comparable degree.
Notice that none of the above arguments for supernaturalism appeals to the prospect of eternal life at least not explicitly. There are three prominent arguments for an extreme soul-based perspective. One argument, made famous by Leo Tolstoy, is the suggestion that for life to be meaningful something must be worth doing, that something is worth doing only if it will make a permanent difference to the world, and that doing so requires being immortal see also Hanfling , 22—24; Morris , 26; Craig Critics most often appeal to counterexamples, suggesting for instance that it is surely worth your time and effort to help prevent people from suffering, even if you and they are mortal.
Indeed, some have gone on the offensive and argued that helping people is worth the sacrifice only if and because they are mortal, for otherwise they could invariably be compensated in an afterlife e. Another recent and interesting criticism is that the major motivations for the claim that nothing matters now if one day it will end are incoherent Greene A second argument for the view that life would be meaningless without a soul is that it is necessary for justice to be done, which, in turn, is necessary for a meaningful life.
Life seems nonsensical when the wicked flourish and the righteous suffer, at least supposing there is no other world in which these injustices will be rectified, whether by God or a Karmic force. Something like this argument can be found in Ecclesiastes, and it continues to be defended e. A third argument for thinking that having a soul is essential for any meaning is that it is required to have the sort of free will without which our lives would be meaningless.
Immanuel Kant is known for having maintained that if we were merely physical beings, subjected to the laws of nature like everything else in the material world, then we could not act for moral reasons and hence would be unimportant. It finds it in that which proceeds from man and remains with him as his inner essence rather than in the accidents of circumstances turns of external fortune W henever a human being rubs the lamp of his moral conscience, a Spirit does appear.
This Spirit is God The standard objection to this reasoning is to advance a compatibilism about having a determined physical nature and being able to act for moral reasons e. It is also worth wondering whether, if one had to have a spiritual essence in order to make free choices, it would have to be one that never perished. Like God-centered theorists, many soul-centered theorists these days advance a moderate view, accepting that some meaning in life would be possible without immortality, but arguing that a much greater meaning would be possible with it.
Granting that Einstein, Mandela, and Picasso had somewhat meaningful lives despite not having survived the deaths of their bodies as per, e. If a finite life with the good, the true, and the beautiful has meaning in it to some degree, then surely it would have all the more meaning if it exhibited such higher values——including a relationship with God——for an eternity Cottingham , —35; Mawson , , 52—53; Williams , —34; cf. Benatar , 35— Mawson , 53— More common, though, is the objection that an eternal life would include anti-meaning of various kinds, such as boredom and repetition, discussed below in the context of extreme naturalism sub-section 3.
Like supernaturalism, contemporary naturalism admits of two distinguishable variants, moderate and extreme Metz The moderate version is that, while a genuinely meaningful life could be had in a purely physical universe as known well by science, a somewhat more meaningful life would be possible if a spiritual realm also existed. God or a soul could enhance meaning in life, although they would not be major contributors.
From this perspective, God or a soul would be anti-matter, i. They differ in terms of the extent to which the human mind constitutes meaning and whether there are conditions of meaning that are invariant among human beings. Subjectivists believe that there are no invariant standards of meaning because meaning is relative to the subject, i.
Roughly, something is meaningful for a person if she strongly wants it or intends to seek it out and she gets it. Objectivists maintain, in contrast, that there are some invariant standards for meaning because meaning is at least partly mind-independent, i.
Here, something is meaningful partially because of its intrinsic nature, in the sense of being independent of whether it is wanted or intended; meaning is instead to some extent the sort of thing that merits these reactions.
There is logical space for an orthogonal view, according to which there are invariant standards of meaningfulness constituted by what all human beings would converge on from a certain standpoint. However, it has not been much of a player in the field Darwall , — One influential subjectivist has recently maintained that the relevant mental state is caring or loving, so that life is meaningful just to the extent that one cares about or loves something Frankfurt , 80—94, Subjectivism was dominant in the middle of the twentieth century, when positivism, noncognitivism, existentialism, and Humeanism were influential Ayer ; Hare ; Barnes ; Taylor ; Williams As a result, subjectivism about meaning lost its dominance.
Those who continue to hold subjectivism often remain suspicious of attempts to justify beliefs about objective value e. Theorists are moved to accept subjectivism typically because the alternatives are unpalatable; they are reasonably sure that meaning in life obtains for some people, but do not see how it could be grounded on something independent of the mind, whether it be the natural or the supernatural or the non-natural.
In contrast to these possibilities, it appears straightforward to account for what is meaningful in terms of what people find meaningful or what people want out of their lives. Wide-ranging meta-ethical debates in epistemology, metaphysics, and the philosophy of language are necessary to address this rationale for subjectivism.
There is a cluster of other, more circumscribed arguments for subjectivism, according to which this theory best explains certain intuitive features of meaning in life. For one, subjectivism seems plausible since it is reasonable to think that a meaningful life is an authentic one Frankfurt , 80— For another, it is uncontroversial that often meaning comes from losing oneself, i. Work that concentrates the mind and relationships that are engrossing seem central to meaning and to be so because of the subjective elements involved.
For a third, meaning is often taken to be something that makes life worth continuing for a specific person, i. Critics maintain that these arguments are vulnerable to a common objection: they neglect the role of objective value or an external reason in realizing oneself, losing oneself, and having a reason to live Taylor , ; Wolf , , 89— One important strategy is to suggest that subjectivists can avoid the counterexamples by appealing to the right sort of pro-attitude.
Instead of whatever an individual happens to want, perhaps the relevant mental state is an emotional-perceptual one of seeing-as Alexis ; cf. But the will itself And without any appeal to objectivity, it is perhaps likely that counterexamples would resurface.
Another subjectivist strategy by which to deal with the counterexamples is the attempt to ground meaningfulness, not on the pro-attitudes of an individual valuer, but on those of a group Darwall , —66; Brogaard and Smith ; Wong So, atheism cannot deliver the view that. Some find this distressing and discouraging; others find it invigorating and to some extent consoling. Thought Question: What do you think? Thought Question : Do you think that evolution is directional in the sense of producing more and more sophisticated and complex organism?
Perhaps you think that there is a god and that evolution is directed planned , but at the same time you cannot bring yourself to believe in the Abrahamic god, the Trinity, the miracles, and the Bible stories. Then you might be tempted by Deism , a branch of Theism that dismisses Revelation as a piece of superstition.
Deism , which originated in England in the and seems to have been popular among the US founding fathers such as Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Franklin, Paine, and Madison.
Deism is alive and kicking today. The philosophical issue whether death harms us and if so to what extent and when goes back to Greek philosophy. It is extremely complex and particularly significant for one who does not believe in an afterlife. The issue here is not dying, but death. Nobody doubts that dying, vs. Death may be an event, or a process, or even a state, and the arguments proposed vary depending on what notion of death one has.
Probably the easiest approach is to think of death as a permanent state, that of being dead , involving the annihilation of the subject. Is the fear of death justified? That is, is death an evil for the one who dies? If it is an evil, is it a great one, one we should greatly fear? As a preliminary, one should distinguish two senses of evil for an individual:. NOTE: Being an evil by comparison doesn't entail being an evil per se e. Argument :. No matter what Epicurus may have thought, it seems that from the fact that death is not en evil per se it does not follow that it's a matter of indifference, as one can consistently hold that a happy life is better than no life: death is not an evil per se, but may be an evil by comparison.
One might claim that future events may affect me but obviously not causally now even if they have not occurred yet.
If I value my reputation now, and in the future my reputation will be destroyed by slander, then I am harmed now. Similarly, if dying prevents me from finishing my project, and I value my project now, I am now harmed by the fact that my project will never be completed because my present goal will be thwarted.
I may fear death because it harms me by depriving me of goods I may reasonably expect to enjoy. For example, if because of hard work I won a prize and death prevents me from enjoying it, it seems reasonable for me to consider death an evil, and perhaps a great evil.
You can inspire someone who feels broken. If you are social. You can experience the satisfaction of doing something difficult. Just brain activity. Your body is a channel for your soul. No soul. Without your body your brain would not be able to function. Your potential for growth is unlimited. People might have told you that you are worthless, but they are wrong. How would you know? Every morning is an opportunity to renew your connection to your soul.
Plan the unplanable. You are not changing. The cells are. Everything you see in the world has a lesson to teach you. Every day that you are alive you are acquiring experience and knowledge.
Because throwing your money against money-grabbing jews will make your life meaningful… You have the ability to use your resources to produce more than is given to you. If you take from someone else, sure. You can set an example of gracious conduct.
Your soul is your brain that will grow weary. There is no real or fake you. There is just you. Every year on your birthday, the special energy invested in you at birth is present. And when you die that energy will be taken to make a new baby. Pain you experience can be transformed into growth. Or into more pain.
Ambition and creativity are lifelong journeys, so your life matters regardless of your age. Why exactly? Again, why exactly? You are a partner in the creation of the world. You co-create reality with the Universe. You are also a partner in destroying the world. You are killing your home. You have the power to shape your future. Your future is already shaped. You only discover it. The good things you do today have perpetual effects.
What about the bad things? Keep lying to yourself. There is a part of you that has never been wounded — and can never be wounded. Your non-existing soul? But most big things will be more noticable. The journey of your life is more important than your material accomplishments. Or negatively.
You are a link in a long historical chain. Probably a broken chain. You can recognize the extraordinary within the ordinary. Or the other way around. Your life is a miracle, an actual miracle. Your life matters because you yearn for something better.
And how is death not better for some? Your life matters because you care enough to regret your mistakes.
Because you are tought to care. We were created to make a difference — not one person in the seven and a half billion and counting will ever live a life like mine! Why does my life matter? Please leave this field empty.
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