ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an analysis of the concept of a life worth living. It defends an objective list theory of worth — a life worth living is one high in various objective goods. These principally include welfare and meaning. More precisely, the list the chapter proposes includes knowledge, achievement, pleasure, moral worth, loving relationships, and good effects. A life high in each of these values, and low in the corresponding disvalues, would be a life of indisputable worth. The chapter proposes that lives worth living are those high in various objective goods and comparatively low in objective bads. On a tally sheet for a life worth living (LWL), the goods come out far ahead. A life worth avoiding (LWA) is the opposite: It is high in bads and low in goods. The chapter offers an objective list theory of what makes a life worth living.
