AGENDA
- Where are we going?
- Susan Wolf
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6. More accounts of meaning in life
- Tolstoy -- union with infinite
- Taylor -- no objective meaning, but subjective meaning
- Wolf -- fitting fulfillment view
- DeBres -- narrative view
- Strawson -- against the narrative view
- Setiya/Hahn -- seizing the day, living in the present
- Kauppinen -- against seizing the day
7. Ultimate meaning
- Cottingham -- The urge for transcendence
- etc.
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Some preliminaries
Reasons for action (p. 1-7)- Happiness, pleasure
- Morality, doing the right thing
- Meaning
Aristotle's "endoxic" method (p. 10)
- first survey the various different "doxa" (beliefs, what people have said, the "received wisdom,")
- propose new theory on which -- everyone was right in some way
- show how theory improves on doxa -- avoids the errors
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What are the doxa on meaning in life?
- Do something you love! (Richard Taylor)
- Get involved in something "larger than yourself"! (Peter Singer)
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Wanted: a theory of meaning in life that integrates both Taylor and Singer
"meaning arises from loving objects worthy of love and engaging with them in a positive way" (p. 8)
"meaning arises when subjective attraction meets objective attractiveness" (p. 9)
"the fitting fullfilment view" -- many pages
Two conditions have to be met for meaning
- Loving things, subjective attraction, fulfillment
- Worthy of love, objective attractiveness, fitting
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The objective worth condition
What makes something "objectively attractive"? (p. 18-23)
- it's something "larger than oneself"
- problem: taking care of one child or one parent could count, but isn't "larger than oneself"
Passages from article on "objectively attractive"
- p. 19 -- other than oneself
- p. 27 -- objective worth
- p. 27 -- holds up from external point of view (Nagel...we will read later)
- p. 27 -- need for self-esteem
- p. 27 -- overcoming cosmic insignificance
- p. 31 -- a "notional community"
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Subjective fulfillment without objective worth....silly examples (p. 9)
- The man who loves to copy out War and Peace by hand
- Some who finds counting blades of grass extremely fulfilling
- Someone who loves doing crossword puzzles
Subjective fulfillment without objective worth? Real world examples for discussion
- Looksmaxxing
- Free solo climbing a skyscraper
- Hobbies, pastimes--knitting, embroidery, pottery, carpentry, intensive cooking
- Better examples?
Intelligibility to others comes in degrees
- Can't explain to anyone
- Can explain only to fellow travellers/audience
- Can explain to almost anyone
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Is the fitting fulfillment view a plausible account of meaning in life?
Objections
