93:1 January 2010 

The Meaning of Life

Advisory Editor: Quentin Smith, Western Michigan University

The vagueness and ambiguity of the question ‘Is there a meaning of human life?’ is standardly resolved by reformulations using more precise categories from the philosophy of religion or from moral realism. But are there alternatives to such reformulations? Consider:

• Biology: the meaning of human life is to survive and reproduce; because we no longer have to struggle to survive and reproduce, we are no longer in a position to experience this meaning.
• Physics: Hawking has argued that the meaning is in principle expressible in terms of a ‘complete unified theory’, which will throw light inter alia on‘the question of why it is that we and the universe exist.’
• Psychology: People talk of sensing ‘emptiness’ in depression and ‘fullness’ in joy. Can these metaphors be justified as referring to modes of epistemic access to some mind-independent meaning of human life that is neither religious nor ethical in nature?
• Art: Some hold that there are artistic symbols which somehow express the meaning of human life but in a way that is not expressible in linguistic form. Can such a linguistic ineffability theory be philosophically defended?

Are there other approaches to defending a theory of the meaning of human life? Is it possible to articulate a formal structure or account of meaning which all such theories must share? Articles are invited addressing these and related questions in an analytical spirit.

Table of Contents:

Duncan Pritchard 

Absurdity, Angst, and the Meaning of Life

David Heyd and Franklin G. Miller

Life Plans: Do They Give Meaning to our Lives?

Lisa Bortolotti

Agency, Life Extension, and the Meaning of Life

Laurence James

Activity and the Meaningfulness of Life

Bence Nanay

Group Selection and our Obsession with the Meaning of Life

Michael A. Almeida 

Two Challenges to Moral Nihilism

Tim Oakley 

The Issue is Meaninglessness

Shidan Lotfi

The ‘Purposiveness’ of Life: Kant’s Critique of Natural Teleology

Jason Murphy

Betting on Life: A Pascalian Argument for Seeking to Discover Meaning 

Christoph Fehige and Robert H. Frank

Feeling Our Way to the Common Good: Utilitarianism and the Moral Sentiments