ABSTRACT
Can our lives have meaning? I consider meaning on both the local and on the global scale, linking these, in turn, with arguments advanced by Susan Wolf and Thomas Nagel. There are reservations about detail but broadly I agree with Wolf’s position – our lives are meaningful when we are subjectively attracted to what is objectively attractive. Nagel argues, seemingly against this, that our lives – human lives, lived as best they can be – are absurd. I show that Nagel isn’t using this term in its ordinary sense, where it is pretty much a synonym for meaningless, but rather in a technical sense, related to what we can call his two perspectives view. We go wrong, on this account, in thinking our lives are meaningful, but equally go wrong in thinking they are meaningless. This view is, then, less interesting than it first appears. Ought our lives to have meaning? In the chapter’s second half I argue that the value of meaning is overrated. We can live decent, worthwhile, even happy lives without meeting the conditions for a meaningful life. Moreover, a concern for meaning can undermine our chances of happiness.
