Interpreting a Meaningful Human Life

Chapter 5 Interpreting a Meaningful Human Life

Although the realm of the absurd is not identical to the province of the meaningless, overlap between the two domains authorizes fuller discussions and analyses of a meaningful human life. In this chapter, I examine the difference between fully and attenuatedly meaningful human activities. I then explain and evaluate the fundamentality theory of meaning in life offered by Thad- deus Metz. I argue that a positive visceral response is a necessary condition of leading a meaningful life. Finally, after describing and assessing Susan Wolf’s understanding of a meaningful life, I offer an alternate depiction of living meaningfully.

1 Full and Attenuated Meaning

David Lund advances the following analysis:1

An activity (E) is fully meaningful where: (1) E embodies enough intrinsic value to be worthwhile in itself; and (2) E has derivative (instrumental) value because it is oriented to a goal (G); and (3) G is important and achievable.

He adds that E is meaningless if it lacks all three of these requirements and E would embody deficient meaning if it lacks at least one of the requirements. Lund’s position, then, is that satisfying the three requirements implies that E is fully meaningful (the vessel of meaning is sated); satisfying some but not all of the requirements merits attenuated meaning; and satisfying none of the requirements relegates E to the scrapheap of utter meaninglessness. Lund’s sketch is instructive in that it underscores that meaning is best understood in terms of degrees. Human life is distorted if we evaluate it from only two possibilities: it must either be fully and gloriously meaningful or complete- ly devoid of meaning. Still, his analysis invites further clarification: How much intrinsic value is needed to anoint E as worthwhile in itself? Should we accept

1 David Lund, Making Sense of It All: An Introduction to Philosophical Inquiry (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, Inc., 2003), 198.

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Lund’s depiction of the relationship between intrinsic value and worthwhile- ness? How might we determine the importance of G? Could E embody zero intrinsic value yet be fully meaningful on other grounds? For example, could digging ditches and immediately refilling them only to dig them anew, a task that is bereft of intrinsic value and worth, provide full meaning if by doing so the agent achieves a goal that is not merely important and antecedently achievable, but of unprecedented global value? Philoso- pher’s bizarre yet instructive hypothetical: Powerful aliens land in Bayonne, New Jersey; demonstrate their capability of destroying our planet; but touched emotionally by Bruce Springsteen’s musical offering—an impromptu set con- sisting of Human Touch, Tougher than the Rest, and No Surrender—agree, after a request from earthlings, that they will leave us alone if and only if Dick Vitale can dig, refill, and dig again a specified number of holes of a certain size in one hour. The doughty Vitale picks up a shovel, proclaims, “I am a PTPer, baby,” and satisfies all requirements. The Boss wails, Rise Up; the aliens depart; and Vitale screams, “Surf and Turfer, baby!” Survivors join hands while crooning We Are the World. Is not Dicky v’s gutty, gritty spadework fully meaningful even though it lacks intrinsic value and worth? Defenders of Lund’s analysis might rejoin that even saving the entire planet under the imagined circumstances would be more meaningful if the E at issue was intrinsically worthwhile. Substitute an E that embodies sufficient intrinsic meaning to qualify for the honorific title worthwhile in itself and which also results in the rescue of the planet and we make that case. This plausible response invites a more serious objection: For every E that apparently qualifies as fully meaningful we can also imagine another E that embodies more intrinsic value or attains a more important objective. If so, the concept of a fully meaningful E is either vacuous or impossible to fulfill. Perhaps, though, I err in equating fully meaningful with maximally meaningful. Even if my remarks impugn the notion of a maximally meaningful E, they need not extinguish the possibility of a host of fully meaningful Es. Ac- cordingly, “fully” should be either understood as or be replaced by “wholly” meaningful or “sufficiently” meaningful or “entirely” meaningful. We return to the initial problem: Even if Dicky v’s redemption of the planet is not maximally meaningful because of the absence of intrinsic value and worth, why should his E fail the test of whole, sufficient, or entire meaning- fulness? In the hypothetical offered, the follicly-challenged, monocular, octo- genarian rescued the planet from extinction. How much can we reasonably expect? An advocate of Lund’s analysis might rejoin: “Sure, digging, filling, and re- digging holes in the ground is activity worthless in itself, but doing so in order