← See the axis · The meaning of life
ObjectionAttacks the positionWill any meaning do?
If meaning is only my decision, then a life devoted to collecting bottle caps would be 'worth' as much as any other. Yet we refuse to believe it.
Objects to
Susan Wolf · Meaning in Life and Why It Matters · 2010
- If the meaning of a life is what each decides, then any project I devote myself to gives it, by that choice alone, as much meaning as any other.
- One would then have to say that a life spent collecting bottle caps, or devoted to a hateful cause, is as full of meaning as a life of love or creation, provided it was chosen. Yet we refuse to believe it.
- This refusal reveals a demand that decision alone does not meet: for a life to have meaning, it is not enough to be attached to something, the thing must also be worth it, independently of what one has decided.
Therefore So meaning does not reduce to what one decides: it requires that what one devotes oneself to be objectively worth it, and that worth one does not give oneself, one recognizes it.
Possible resolutions of the objection
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Problem