The purpose of this paper is to re-examine the nature of “meaning” and “meaningfulness” in the context of instrumental music education. By doing so, I propose to expand the ways in which instrumental music educators conceive their mission and the ways in which we may instill meaning in people’s lives. Traditionally, pursuits of philosophical deliberation have claimed that meaningfulness comes from either personal happiness (e.g., Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill) or an impersonal sense of duty (e.g., St. Augustine, St. (...) Thomas Aquinas, and Immanuel Kant). However, philosopher Susan Wolf (2010) criticizes these positions in favor of a broader perspective, one that arises from understanding that there is a third sort of value, namely “meaningfulness.” Rightly understanding meaningfulness may help us engage more fully with a greater sense and understanding of the full potentials of eudaimonia: a life of significance and value for oneself and one’s community. Therefore, this paper links meaningfulness to a 4-E (embodied, embedded, enacted, and extended) account of “sense-making” in/for instrumental music education. In doing so, I discuss the aims of public-school music education; aims that engage teachers and students in meaningfulness—a meaningfulness that is ethical, embodied, enacted, and extended—in, with, and through musics and, more directly, “instrumental” music making. (shrink)

It is a common pessimistic worry among both philosophers and non-philosophers that our lives, viewed sub specie aeternitatis, are meaningless given that they make neither a noticeable nor lasting impact from this vast, cosmic perspective. The preferred solution for escaping this kind of pessimism is to adopt a different measure by which to evaluate life’s meaningfulness. One of two primary routes is often taken here. First, one can retreat back to the sub specie humanitatis perspective, and argue that life is (...) meaningful only when viewed within the local context of human values, cares, and concerns. Or, second, one can distinguish between perspectives and standards for meaningfulness, arguing that the latter are independent of the former and are the most appropriate means by which evaluations of life’s meaningfulness are made. Importantly, none of these issues can be sufficiently addressed without first answering a prior question, and one that is surprisingly under-addressed in the literature: What is the sub specie aeternitatis perspective? Unfortunately, many philosophers who employ this perspective do so without carefully defining or clarifying it, or, if they do clarify what it means, they only note its time and spatial components. I will argue that, in addition to these components, this perspective includes something like a modal component (following Thomas Nagel), and an ontological Normative component. I will then apply this more nuanced understanding of the sub specie aeternitatis perspective to the question of whether perspectives can be distinguished from standards for meaningfulness. (shrink)

In this paper, I address human-induced environmental ills we face using an ubuntu-inspired ethical lens. I follow ubuntu scholars to stress the significance for moral agents to embody virtues. Virtue development is essential to carry out obligations and address human impacts on the environment. Thaddeus Metz, in particular, has drawn attention to how embodying ubuntu virtues of humility and friendliness can prompt moral agents to be other-regarding. The view I developed in this paper differs from his ubuntu-inspired account in at (...) least two significant ways. First, humans cannot be in harmonious relationships with some species such as Black Mambas, Hyenas and sea urchins even if they can interact. Second, we must acknowledge the consequentialist dimension of ubuntu ethics and prioritise the different aspects of ubuntu ‘mixed’ ethics, ranking them to offer possibilities for a more realistic recommendation to change our moral life. This paper demonstrates that the three dimensions of ubuntu ‘mixed’ ethics are fundamental because we need to think about moral consequences, right action and our virtue in accounting for our actions. (shrink)

This article argues for the elimination of the concept of life worth living from philosophical vocabulary on three complementary grounds. First, the basic components of this concept suffer from multiple ambiguities, which hamper attempts to ground informative evaluative and classificatory judgments about the worth of life. Second, the criteria proposed to track the extension of the concept of life worth living rest on unsupported axiological assumptions and fail to identify precise and plausible referents for this concept. And third, the concept (...) of life worth living is not shown to serve any major evaluative or classificatory purpose besides those served by already available axiological concepts. By eliminating the concept of life worth living, philosophers will free themselves of the task of addressing ill-posed axiological questions and ground reflection about the worth of life on more rigorous conceptual foundations. (shrink)

Delusions are often portrayed as paradigmatic instances of incomprehensibility and meaninglessness. Here we investigate the relationship between delusions and meaning from a philosophical perspective, integrating arguments and evidence from cognitive psychology and phenomenological psychopathology. We review some of the empirical and philosophical literature relevant to two claims about delusions and meaning: delusions are meaningful, despite being described as irrational and implausible beliefs; some delusions can also enhance the sense that one’s life is meaningful, supporting agency and creativity in some circumstances. (...) Delusions are not incomprehensible representations of reality. Rather, they can help make sense of one’s unusual experiences and in some circumstances even support one’s endeavours, albeit temporarily and imperfectly. Acknowledging that delusions have meaning and can also give meaning to people’s lives has implications for our understanding of psychotic symptoms and for addressing the stigma associated with psychiatric conditions. (shrink)

This paper argues that contemporary philosophical literature on meaning in life has important implications for the debate about our obligations to non-human animals. If animal lives can be meaningful, then practices including factory farming and animal research might be morally worse than ethicists have thought. We argue for two theses about meaning in life: that the best account of meaningful lives must take intentional action to be necessary for meaning—an individual’s life has meaning if and only if the individual acts (...) intentionally in ways that contribute to finally valuable states of affairs; and that this first thesis does not entail that only human lives are meaningful. Because non-human animals can be intentional agents of a certain sort, our account yields the verdict that many animals’ lives can be meaningful. We conclude by considering the moral implications of these theses for common practices involving animals. (shrink)

In this paper, we discuss the relation between recent philosophical discussions about meaning in life (from authors like Susan Wolf, Thaddeus Metz, and others) and the ethics of artificial intelligence (AI). Our goal is twofold, namely, to argue that considering the axiological category of meaningfulness can enrich AI ethics, on the one hand, and to portray and evaluate the small, but growing literature that already exists on the relation between meaning in life and AI ethics, on the other hand. We (...) start out our review by clarifying the basic assumptions of the meaning in life discourse and how it understands the term ‘meaningfulness’. After that, we offer five general arguments for relating philosophical questions about meaning in life to questions about the role of AI in human life. For example, we formulate a worry about a possible meaningfulness gap related to AI on analogy with the idea of responsibility gaps created by AI, a prominent topic within the AI ethics literature. We then consider three specific types of contributions that have been made in the AI ethics literature so far: contributions related to self-development, the future of work, and relationships. As we discuss those three topics, we highlight what has already been done, but we also point out gaps in the existing literature. We end with an outlook regarding where we think the discussion of this topic should go next. (shrink)

Research on meaningful work has not embraced a shared definition of what it is, in part because many researchers and laypersons agree that it means different things to different people. However, subjective and social accounts of meaningful work have limited practical value to help people pursue it and to help scholars study it. The account of meaningful work advanced in this paper is inherently normative. It recognizes the relevance of subjective experience and social agreement to appraisals of meaningfulness but considers (...) them conceptually incomplete and practically limited. According to this normative account, meaningful work should be meaningful to oneself and to others and is also meaningful independent of them. It sets forth grounds for evaluating some work to be more meaningful than other work, asserting the possibility that one could be mistaken about the meaningfulness of one’s work. While it thus proscribes some claims to meaningful work, it also opens up potential new avenues of inquiry into, among other things, self-aggrandizing and harmful work that is experienced as meaningful, morally valuable work that is not experienced as meaningful, and the distinction between experienced and normative meaningfulness. (shrink)

In this article, I briefly reply to four critics who critically engage with my book God, Soul and the Meaning of Life in a special issue of the International Journal of Philosophy and Theology. I view them mainly as addressing the ‘meaning’ of God in three distinct senses, namely, in terms of how best to understand the word ‘God’ and related terms such as ‘the spiritual’, whether God is central to what gives our lives a particular sort of final value, (...) and how beliefs about God might be central to interpreting what on the face of it are non-religious beliefs and practices in contemporary Western society. My remarks are intended to continue the dialogue about these definitional, axiological, and hermeneutic meanings of God. (shrink)

For more than 40 years, the Kingdom of Bhutan has eschewed evaluating its socio-economic status in terms of Gross Domestic Product and has instead done so under the heading of ‘Gross National Happiness’. As part of the upswing in international interest in well-being as the proper final end of development, it would be apt to critically explore the approach that has been in use for several decades. In this article I expound the central elements of Gross National Happiness and discuss (...) their strengths and weaknesses from a moral-philosophical perspective. I conclude that while Gross National Happiness covers many blind spots missed by influential Western indices with which readers are likely to be more familiar, the latter also have corrections to offer the former, inviting a fascinating cross-cultural exchange about how to understand the nature of well-being for purposes of public policy. (shrink)

Taking the good (generosity), the true (enquiry), and the beautiful (creativity) as exemplars of what can make a life noticeably meaningful, elsewhere I have advanced a principle that entails and plausibly explains all three. Specifically, I have proffered the view that great meaning in life, at least insofar as it comes from this triad, is a matter of positively orienting one’s rational nature towards fundamental conditions of human existence, conditions of human life responsible for much else about it. Iddo Landau (...) has raised important objections to this principle, arguing in particular that contouring one’s rationality towards fundamentality is neither necessary nor sufficient for great meaning in life. In this article, I reply to Landau’s objections to the fundamentality account of what makes life very meaningful. I thereby aim to enrich reflection about what it is about the lives of Neslon Mandela, Mother Teresa, Albert Einstein, and Pablo Picasso that made them so significant as well as to indicate how fundamentality implicitly plays a key role in theistic conceptions of meaning in life. (shrink)

‘The Meaning of Life’ and ‘The Philosophy of Religion’ have meant different things to different people, and so I do well to alert my reader to what these phrases mean to me and thus to the subject area of this review of recent work on their intersection. First, ‘The Meaning of Life’: within the analytic tradition, an idea has gained widespread assent; whatever the vague and enigmatic nature of the phrase ‘the meaning of life’, we may sensibly speak of meaningfulness (...) in a life as a particular, positive, normative feature that some individuals’ lives may well have, and this feature is to be distinguished from, though closely related to, other positive features – satisfaction, wellbeing, virtue and so forth. There has been much work done on these assumptions in recent years. An excellent summary of this work up to its date of publication is given by Thaddeus Metz (in his 2007 a). Many – though by no means all – philosophers retain an instinctive scepticism toward the phrase ‘the meaning of life’ and a reluctance to engage with it, for it seems to connote vague and/or impossible-to-fulfil cosmic expectations. (See Thomson , chapter 11 and Seachris 2009 for attempts to engage with it nonetheless.) But philosophers are not generally now so sceptical about talk of meaningfulness in life and thus not so sceptical about the phrase ‘the meaning of life’ if it is taken to be referring merely to this. And that is how I shall be taking it. Secondly, ‘The Philosophy of Religion’: in the analytic tradition, this has usually been taken to be philosophical reflection on the rational acceptability or otherwise of classical theism and on what God's existence, should He exist, entails ontologically, metaphysically, metaethically and so forth. Therefore, I shall be talking about recent reflection in the analytic tradition on the relationship between the God of classical theism's existence (or lack of it) and meaningfulness (or lack of it) in human lives. (shrink)

Here I speak in favor of the view that life's meaning can be found in the pursuit of pleasure. I first present an argument for this view that is grounded in a traditional concept of meaning. To help ease remaining concerns about accepting it, I then draw attention to four things the view does not imply: (1) that we have a reason to take hedonistic theories of meaning seriously; (2) that meaning can be found in the deeply immoral, the deeply (...) ignorant, or the deeply repulsive pursuit of pleasure; (3) that there is a significantly easier route to meaning than the pursuit of morality, the pursuit of knowledge, or the pursuit of art; and (4) that meaning can be found in pursuits that involve only baser aspects of human nature. (shrink)

This article is a reply to Thaddeus Metz's (2011). I suggest that Metz's theory is too broad since it entails that merely understanding Einstein's or Darwin's views can make a life highly meaningful. Furthermore, it is unclear whether , toward which highly meaningful lives are oriented, may or may not be necessary conditions to , how completely the former should explain the latter, and whether Metz's account is indeed non-consequentialist. While acknowledging the importance of Metz's contribution, I consider alternative directions (...) that future research might take. (shrink)

Das sinnvolle Leben ist nicht nur in der gegenwärtigen Philosophie wieder verstärkt ein Thema, sondern auch in Psychiatrie und Psychotherapie. Bereits seit langer Zeit jedoch spielt es eine zentrale Rolle in der Existenzanalyse und Logotherapie, die der Psychiater Viktor E. Frankl entwickelt hat. Frankls eigenständige Sinntheorie wird in der gegenwärtigen philosophischen Sinndebatte allerdings weitestgehend ignoriert. Das Ziel dieses Artikels ist es, diesen Zustand zu beenden und die heutige philosophische Sinndebatte mit Frankl ins Gespräch zu bringen. Einerseits geht es darum, Frankls (...) Sinntheorie im Lichte der philosophischen Sinndebatte zu verstehen und zu bewerten: Was für eine Art von Sinntheorie vertritt er? Wie ist sie einzuordnen? Wie steht es um ihre innere Kohärenz, die Plausibilität seiner sinntheoretischen Überzeugungen und die Qualität ihrer Begründung? Andererseits soll geprüft werden, inwiefern Frankls Ansatz die gegenwärtige philosophische Sinndiskussion voranbringen kann: Gibt es bei ihm theoretische Elemente, die in der Philosophie zu wenig Beachtung finden? Kann er der philosophischen Sinntheorie wichtige Impulse geben? Die Analyse folgt in ihrer Struktur wesentlichen Elementen der Frankl’schen Sinntheorie, von den grundlegenden formalen und metaethischen Aspekten hin zu inhaltlichen Bestimmungen des Sinns und dem individuellen Umgang mit ihm: Zunächst wird die zentrale Bedeutung des Sinns für das menschliche Leben thematisiert, dann Fragen nach der metaethischen Einordnung, nämlich nach der subjektivistischen oder objektivistischen Ausrichtung sowie der Rolle des Supernaturalismus. Dann stehen mit der Selbsttranszendenz und dem Wertebezug sowie den drei Wertkategorien wesentliche Elemente der Sinnkonstituierung im Fokus der Betrachtung. Die Ergebnisse werden im Schlusskapitel zusammengefasst. Es zeigt sich, dass der theoretische Austausch in beide Richtungen fruchtbar sein kann, Frankls Denken allerdings auch einige Hindernisse bereithält. Sein Ansatz entpuppt sich mit seinem objektivistischen Charakter und der zentralen Rolle von Selbsttranszendenz und Wertbezug als an die heutige Sinndiskussion gut anschlussfähig, seine oftmals fehlenden Begründungen hingegen als gravierender methodischer Makel, bei dem eine Orientierung an modernen philosophischen Standards wünschenswert wäre. Wiederholt entsteht der Eindruck, dass seine Sinntheorie maßgeblich durch sein praktisches, therapeutisches Interesse geprägt ist. Einigen seiner Theoreme wird das Potential zugesprochen, die philosophische Sinntheorie bereichern zu können: Das sind die Situativität und Individualität des Sinns sowie die Gegebenheit der Sinnmöglichkeiten und die Verantwortung für ihre Verwirklichung. (shrink)

The central role of human dignity in ethics and law stands in striking contrast to the disagreement regarding the meaning and normative content of this concept. Each competing theory of human dignity also has serious problems. Against the background of this situation, the meaning-oriented theory of human dignity suggests a new understanding that can integrate a number of conceptions of human dignity and resolve their theoretical problems. According to this new theory, respect for human dignity consists in respect for human (...) beings as beings that confer meaning and need meaning. The integrative and problem-solving power of this new approach is demonstrated here by examining two lines of theory: on the one hand, the Kantian tradition of an autonomy-oriented understanding of human dignity, and on the other hand, a theory that focuses on individual identity and protection against humiliation. (shrink)

This article argues that the creation of artificial offspring could make our lives more meaningful. By ‘artificial offspring’ I mean beings that we construct, with a mix of human and non-human-like qualities. Robotic artificial intelligences are paradigmatic examples of the form. There are two reasons for thinking that the creation of such beings could make our lives more meaningful and valuable. The first is that the existence of a collective afterlife—i.e. a set of human-like lives that continue after we die—is (...) likely to be an important source and sustainer of meaning in our present lives. The second is that the creation of artificial offspring provides a plausible and potentially better pathway to a collective afterlife than the traditional biological pathway. Both of these arguments are defended from a variety of objections and misunderstandings. (shrink)

Suppose we are about to enter an era of increasing technological unemployment. What implications does this have for society? Two distinct ethical/social issues would seem to arise. The first is one of distributive justice: how will the efficiency gains from automated labour be distributed through society? The second is one of personal fulfillment and meaning: if people no longer have to work, what will they do with their lives? In this article, I set aside the first issue and focus on (...) the second. In doing so, I make three arguments. First, I argue that there are good reasons to embrace non-work and that these reasons become more compelling in an era of technological unemployment. Second, I argue that the technological advances that make widespread technological unemployment possible could still threaten or undermine human flourishing and meaning, especially if they do not remain confined to the economic sphere. And third, I argue that this threat could be contained if we adopt an integrative approach to our relationship with technology. In advancing these arguments, I draw on three distinct literatures: the literature on technological unemployment and workplace automation; the antiwork critique—which I argue gives reasons to embrace technological unemployment; and the philosophical debate about the conditions for meaning in life—which I argue gives reasons for concern. (shrink)

According to several authors, the enhancement project incorporates a quest for hyperagency - i.e. a state of affairs in which virtually every constitutive aspect of agency (beliefs, desires, moods, dispositions and so forth) is subject to our control and manipulation. This quest, it is claimed, undermines the conditions for a meaningful and worthwhile life. Thus, the enhancement project ought to be forestalled or rejected. How credible is this objection? In this article, I argue: “not very”. I do so by evaluating (...) four different versions of the “hyperagency” objection from four different authors. In each case I argue that the objection either fails outright or, at best, provides weak and defeasible grounds for avoiding enhancement. In addition to this, I argue that there are plausible grounds for thinking that enhancement helps, rather than hinders, us in living the good life. (shrink)

The article analyses whether it is correct to extrapolate the concept of "meaning in life" developed by Thaddeus Metz to the doctrines of ancient philosophers, including Thomas Aquinas. Is Metz’ concept of "purposes" that make "human life" meaningful analogous to Aquinas’ concept of "ultimate goal of man"? Significant points of Metz’ conception of "meaning in life" in our article are described and compared with Aquinas’ conception of "ultimate goal of man." As it turns out, these conceptions are only superficially similar. (...) In fact, they are profoundly different: (1) Aquinas is talking about the "goal of man", which implies objective teleology incompatible with Metz’ "naturalism", and is not talking about "meaning in life" (and even "purpose of life"); (2) "ultimate goal of man", for Aquinas, is intended to provide salvation and eternal life for man, not to make life "significant" in this world. -/- Thus, Metz and Thomas not only use different terminology, but also address different problems. They deal with different questions, not just give different answers to the same question (about the "meaning in life"). Metz’s extrapolation may be correct, when viewed as a kind of rational reconstruction. However, Metz does not make appropriate reservations and groundlessly unifies heterogeneous problems. The article shows that more historically oriented methodology avoids impropriety in the exercise of rational reconstruction of "meaning in life" in the field of ancient and medieval philosophies. (shrink)

The point of psychotherapy has occasionally been associated with talk of ‘life’s meaning’. However, the literature on meaning in life written by contemporary philosophers has yet to be systematically applied to literature on the point of psychotherapy. My broad aim in this chapter is to indicate some plausible ways to merge these two tracks of material that have run in parallel up to now. More specifically, my hunch is that the connection between meaning as philosophers understand it and therapy as (...) psychotherapists ought to practice it is much closer than is suggested by the field of existential psychotherapy, which expressly addresses the topic of life’s meaning and appeals to ideas from classic philosophers such Søren Kierkegaard, Martin Heidegger, and the like. I instead proffer the claim that psychodynamic and humanistic therapy, clinical psychology, and counselling psychology as such, not a particular branch of them, are best understood as enterprises in search of meaning in life, in the way many present-day philosophers understand this phrase. In this chapter, I spell out what I mean by this bold hypothesis and provide some good reason to take it seriously. (shrink)

In this dissertation I examine the topics of ethics, religion, and their relationship in the work of Charles Taylor. I take Taylor's attempt to confront modern disenchantment by seeking a kind of re-enchantment as my guiding thread. Seeking re-enchantment means, first of all, defending an `engaged realist' account of strong evaluation, i.e., qualitative distinctions of value that are seen as normative for our desires. Secondly, it means overcoming self-enclosure and achieving self-transcendence, which I argue should be understood in terms of (...) transcending a `lower' mode of selfhood for a `higher' one in concern for `strong goods'. One of the main issues that Taylor raises is whether re-enchantment requires theism for its full adequacy. He advances - often as `hunches' - controversial claims regarding the significance of theism (1) for defending strong evaluative realism and (2) for motivating an ethic of universal human concern. I seek to fill out his hunches in terms of a theistic teleological perspective that is centered on the `telos of communion'. I argue that such a view is important for overcoming the problem of what Bernard Williams calls the `radical contingency' of ethical beliefs, which seems to undermine their normative authority. However, I argue that if a non-theistic view of cosmic purpose (e.g., Thomas Nagel's view) can be regarded as a viable option, then it could also help to address this problem and support a kind of re-enchantment. Taylor also advances the controversial view that (3) there is an ineradicable draw to `transcendence' in human life in connection to the quest for the meaning of life. Here he opposes certain mainstream theories of secularization that see it as a process involving the ineluctable fading away of the relevance of religion. I seek to fill out and defend Taylor's view in this matter. Besides providing a reading of Taylor's work as a whole and advancing further some of the issues he raises, I also examine his general evaluative framework based on his account of strong evaluation. In doing so I show how he provides a distinct and important perspective among contemporary moral philosophers. (shrink)

Discussion of whether values and norms are neutral or not has mainly appeared in works on the nature of prudential rationality and morality. Little systematic has yet appeared in the up and coming field of the meaning of life. What are the respects in which the value of meaningfulness is neutral or, in contrast, partial, relational, or ‘biased’? In this article, I focus strictly on answering this question. First, I aim to identify the salient, and perhaps exhaustive, respects in which (...) issues of neutrality arise in the contexts of life’s meaning. In addition to providing a taxonomy of the key points of contention, a second aim is to advance reflection about them by considering the most important arguments that have been marshalled in favour of one side or the other, particularly as they appear in recent neutral positions. I conclude that meaning in life is neutral with respect to time but not any other conditions such as agents and patients, with a third aim being to point out that this makes the value of meaning different from the kinds of non/neutrality encountered in some salient conceptions of prudence and morality. (shrink)

Populations in developed societies are rapidly aging: fertility rates are at all-time lows while life expectancy creeps ever higher. This is triggering a social crisis in which shrinking youth populations are required to pay for the care and retirements of an aging majority. Some people argue that by investing in the right kinds of lifespan extension technology – the kind that extends the healthy and productive phases of life – we can avoid this crisis (thereby securing a ‘longevity dividend’). This (...) chapter argues that this longevity dividend is unlikely to be paid if lifespan extension coincides with rampant technological unemployment. This does not mean that we should not pursue lifespan extension, but it does mean that the argument in its favor needs to rest on other grounds. After articulating these grounds, the chapter proceeds to consider the implications this has for our vision of the extended life, postwork utopia. It argues that this vision may need to be reconceived and suggests that one plausible reconception involves prioritizing the role of games in the well-lived life. (shrink)

Many of the leading accounts of what makes a life meaningful are goal-based theories, according to which it is the pursuit of some specific goal (such as love for things that are worthy of love) that gives meaning to our lives. In this chapter I consider how these goal-based theories of meaning in life interact with the two main theories of the nature of time that have been defended in the recent metaphysics literature, namely, The Dynamic Theory of Time and (...) The Static Theory of Time. I argue that The Dynamic Theory fits well with goal-based theories of meaning in life, but The Static Theory does not. Then I close with some thoughts about what a Static Theorist should make of this conclusion. (shrink)

It is commonly assumed that a virtual life would be less meaningful (perhaps even meaningless). As virtual reality technologies develop and become more integrated into our everyday lives, this poses a challenge for those that care about meaning in life. In this chapter, it is argued that the common assumption about meaninglessness and virtuality is mistaken. After clarifying the distinction between two different visions of virtual reality, four arguments are presented for thinking that meaning is possible in virtual reality. Following (...) this, four objections are discussed and rebutted. The chapter concludes that we can be cautiously optimistic about the possibility of meaning in virtual worlds. (shrink)