What is the meaning of

Life?
Session 5
Philosophy and Critical Thinking
“ To lose one’s life is a little thing and I shall have the
courage to do so if it is necessary; but to see the
meaning of this life dissipated, to see our reason for
existing disappear, that is what is unbearable. One
cannot live without meaning.

Albert Camus
“ What is missing in my life is an understanding of what I must
do, not what I must know—except, of course, that a certain
amount of knowledge is presupposed in every action. I need to
understand the purpose of my life, and this means that I must
find a truth which is true for me, that I must discover that Idea
for which I can live and die. For what is truth but to live and
die for an Idea?
Søren Kierkegaard as a twenty-two-year-old university student.
What gives life meaning?
Here are the kinds of questions about life
oWhat is the meaning of life? What, if anything, makes life
meaningful?
oWhat is the purpose of my life? Why am I here? What is the point of it
all?
oHow can humans have a purpose if there is no God to give them one?

oHow can we matter if we are, as science seems to suggest, not part of

some divine cosmic plan?
Here are the kinds of questions about life

o What meaning can my life have if all my struggles, hopes, and schemes
ultimately end in death?

o We are microscopic specks in a vast cosmos—ants on a tiny blue rock

spinning around a star identical to billions of other stars strewn among
billions of galaxies. So how can we think our lives are of any significance at
all?

o In a world darkened by suffering and loss—where children starve, despots

enslave, disease kills, and injustice thrives— how can life have any meaning?
To all of this, it can be tempting to respond,
“Who cares?”
But people do care. Successful people
sometimes ponder such questions when,
despite their many achievements, they begin
to wonder what the point of all their work
has been. They ask, What is the ultimate
purpose of all this activity? Why should I go
on? Happy people devoted to the pursuit of
pleasure can gradually—or quite suddenly—
come to believe that their lives are trivial and
without value. People living well-planned and
steady lives can find their blueprint for life to
be humdrum, arbitrary, or aimless.
• Questions about life’s meaning
are forced to the surface by
misfortune, tragedy, and
heartbreak—by the death of a
loved one, the failure of a career
or business, disenchantment
with a political or social cause,
collapse of a worldview or belief
system, devastating illness and
disability, social isolation,
poverty, racism, persecution. In
such cases, life can seem bereft
of meaning. And then a deeper
question may arise unbidden:
why should I keep living?
Philosophers taking charge
Growing number of philosophers probing two areas:
(1) what the meaning-of-life question means (what we’re really asking
when we enquire about life’s meaning) and
(2) what, if anything, makes life meaningful (what things can give
meaning to a person’s life).
Clarity of Question: Questioning the question
o They also distinguish between meaning of life in general (or meaning
of the universe or the human species) and meaning in individual lives.
o People usually call the former “meaning of life,” and sometimes they
refer to the latter as “meaning in life.”
o For many, “meaning of life” is about meaning derived from God or
religion or some spiritual or sacred order. They tend to ask questions
like “What’s it all about?” or “What does it all mean?”
o For others, “meaning in life” is about meaning that they find or create
for themselves. They might ask, “Is my life meaningful?” or “What
things give my life meaning?”
Clearing the Confusion
o Mixing up these two senses of meaning can cause confusion.
o When people assert that life is meaningless, they may be saying only
that life as a whole has no meaning, not that individual lives are
meaningless.
o And when they say that life has meaning, they may be referring only
to the meaning that their own lives exhibit.
Meaning in life
• The majority of the philosophical investigations of life’s meaning have
focused on meaning in life, on the quality or qualities that make an
individual life worth living

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9dZQelULDk
We will look...

On the Question of Meaning of Life

Pessimism: Life has no meaning

Optimism: Life can have meaning

Externalist View (Religious perspective)

Internalist View

Subjectivist

Objectivist
The Pessimist’s View: Life has no meaning

• The pessimists have something in common with the religious

optimists
• Both believe that life is meaningless unless a divine entity
has provided the world with ultimate purpose or value
• In other words, life can have no meaning if external meaning
is nonexistent
• Tolstoy tells the story of a traveler fleeing an infuriated animal. Attempting to
save himself from the beast, the man runs towards a well and begins to climb
down, when to his distress he spies a dragon at the bottom. The dragon is
waiting for him with open jaws, ready to eat him. The poor fellow is caught in
a dilemma. He dare not drop into the well for fear of the dragon, but he dare
not climb out of the well for fear of the beast. So he clutches a branch of a
bush growing in the cleft of the well and hangs onto it for dear life. His hands
grow weak, and he feels that soon he shall have to give into his grim fate, but
he still holds on desperately. As he grasps the branch for his salvation, he
notices that two mice, one white and one black, are nibbling away at the main
trunk of the branch onto which he is clinging. Soon they will dislodge the
branch, and he will fall into the waiting jaws of the dragon.
• The traveler knows that he will soon perish, but while clinging to the branch,
he sees some drops of honey hanging on the leaves of the bush, and so sticks
out his tongue and licks the leaves.
• The traveler is you, and his plight is your plight, the danger of your
demise on every hand. The white mouse represents your days and the
black your nights. Together they are nibbling away at the three score
years and ten which make up your branch of life. Inevitably all will be
over, and what have you to show for it? Is your brief distraction of the
taste of honey all you get out of life? Is this life all there is? Can this
brief moment in the history of the universe have significance? What
gives life importance?
 The Optimist’s View: Life Can Have
Meaning

• Optimists beliefs in the meaningfulness of human life

• Divided on how this meaning is possible
• External Vs. Internal
Externalist Approach to Meaning of Life
• Externalist approach view the matter from a religious standpoint
• The central doctrine is that a human life has meaning only because it
is part of God’s plan
• People have a preeminent role to play and a purpose preordained by
God
• To have a meaningful existence is to align your life with God’s plan:
either by performing certain duties
or by being a particular kind of person
• To live contrary to God’s plan is to live a meaningless life
 “ Faith consists in being vitally concerned with that ultimate reality
to which I give the symbolical name of God. Whoever reflects
earnestly on the meaning of life is on the verge of an act of faith.
—Paul Tillich
“ You were made by God and for God, and until you
understand that, life will never make sense.

— Rick Warren, author of The Purpose Driven Life

Is that true?
 Suppose you are not religious, yet you have always felt that your life
has meaning (just as many atheists believe their lives have meaning).
Then someone tells you that your life cannot possibly have meaning
because you are not religious. Would you think the person was
denying the obvious or speaking truth? Why?
Is religion sufficient for Meaning of Life?
• Julian Baggini asks, “Is it better to be slaves with a role in the universe
or to be free people left to create a role for ourselves?”
• The existence of God shows that there must be a purpose, since God
wouldn’t have created us without one, but that we do not know what
that purpose is
• Religions are not clear about what this purpose is
Internalist Approach to Meaning of Life
• Internalists believe they can have meaningful lives without relying on
the concepts of God
• Person’s life is meaningful if we know that he devote himself to a
cause such as the spread of communism or the reform of political
institutions
• When we characterize a person’s lives as meaningful we mean:
• The life in question had some dominant, over-all goal or goals which
gave direction to a great many of the individual’s actions
Problems with Internalist View
• A common reply to any internalist view is that the prospect of death
and the eventual obliteration of all human creations rob our lives of
meaning.
• How can our lives be meaningful, they ask, when life is so short and
death is certain?
• What’s the point of living if everything we are and do will soon sink
into nothingness?
I would rather live my life as if there is
a God and die to find out there isn’t,
than live my life as if there isn’t and die
to find out there is.
—Albert Camus
Internalists are divided into two camps:
• Subjectivists: those who believe that meaning is something they
create
• Objectivists: those who think meaning is something they discover
Subjectivist View of Life
• For subjectivists, meaning is relative to each person and depends on his
or her attitudes, desires, and goals.
• Subjectivists might say their lives are meaningful if they do what they
deem most important or satisfy their strongest desires or act out of
love or concern
• A common criticism of subjectivist views is that it’s intuitively obvious
that sometimes objective standards apply
• If satisfying our strongest desires leads to obviously immoral or trivial
acts, subjectivism is implausible.
• Things aren’t meaningful just because we say they are.
Lucretius: A Subjectivist
• Lucretius believes life can be meaningful even in a completely
materialistic universe bereft of the supernatural
• The universe is infinite and entirely material
• The universe is eternal; it has always been here
• The soul is also material, which means that it dies just as the body
does
• There is no afterlife; the present world is all we have
• Religion discourages the pursuit of happiness and pleasure
Jean-Paul Sartre: A Subjectivist
• He is one of the modern founders of existentialism
• He argues that humans are profoundly free to create their own lives
• Humans is entirely responsible for defining the meaning and moral
relevance of their existence
• There are no objective standards to define what is and is not
meaningful for them
• “Man,” he says, “is nothing else but what he makes of himself.”
Objectivist View of Life
• For objectivists, meaning is mind-independent
• Objectively worthwhile activities or states convey objective meaning
that everyone can recognize as such
• Life is meaningful if it has objective value
• Subjective preferences or desires do not give life meaning
• Objectivist believes that some things are inherently worthwhile.
Susan Wolf: An Objectivist
• She argues that meaning in life must consist of both subjective and
objective elements
• “Meaningful lives are lives of active engagement in projects of worth.”
• Active engagement is involvement in something that grips or excites a
person
• But mere passion about an activity is, in itself, insufficient to contribute
meaningfulness to a life
• The passion must be directed at projects that are in themselves worthwhile
• People do wonder sometimes if an activity they enjoy is in fact worthwhile
What activities are inherently meaningful?
• Wolf lists some of the activities that seem objectively worthwhile:
• Moral and intellectual accomplishments and the ongoing activities
that lead to them
• Relationships with friends and relatives are perhaps even more
important for most of us
• Aesthetic enterprises
• The cultivation of personal virtues, and religious practices are large
part of it
Some video links
Leading Scientist on meaning of life
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNeiEgAFGgk
What Can and Cannot Give Life Meaning?
• Unless there is an eternal afterlife, human life can have no meaning.
• Life has meaning only if there is a God who has created us for a
purpose.
• Life has no meaning and no purpose
• Death has no impact on the meaningfulness of life