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The Meaning of Life

Many major historical figures in philosophy have provided an answer to the question of what, if anything, makes life meaningful, although they typically have not put it in these terms. Consider, for instance, Aristotle on the human function, Aquinas on the beatific vision, and Kant on the highest good. While these concepts have some bearing on happiness and morality, they are straightforwardly construed as accounts of which final ends a person ought to realize in order to have a life that matters. Despite the venerable pedigree, it is only in the last 50 years or so that something approaching a distinct field on the meaning of life has been established in Anglo-American philosophy, and it is only in the last 30 years that debate with real depth has appeared. Concomitant with the demise of positivism and of utilitarianism in the post-war era has been the rise of analytical enquiry into non-hedonistic conceptions of value, including conceptions of meaning in life, grounded on relatively uncontroversial (but not certain or universally shared) judgments of cases, often called “intuitions.” English-speaking philosophers can be expected to continue to find life's meaning of interest as they increasingly realize that it is a distinct topic that admits of rational enquiry to no less a degree than more familiar ethical categories such as well-being, virtuous character, and right action.

This survey critically discusses approaches to meaning in life that are prominent in contemporary Anglo-American philosophical literature. To provide context, sometimes it mentions other texts, e.g., in Continental philosophy or from before the 20 th century. However, the central aim is to acquaint the reader with recent analytic work on life's meaning and to pose questions about it that are currently worthy of consideration.

When the topic of the meaning of life comes up, people often pose one of two questions: “So, what is the meaning of life?” and “What are you talking about?” The literature can be divided in terms of which question it seeks to answer. This discussion starts off with works that address the latter, abstract question regarding the sense of talk of “life's meaning,” i.e., that aim to clarify what we are asking when we pose the question of what, if anything, makes life meaningful. Afterward, it considers texts that provide answers to the more substantive question about the nature of meaning as a property. Some accounts of what make life meaningful provide particular ways to do so, e.g., by making certain achievements (James 2005), developing moral character (Thomas 2005), or learning from relationships with family members (Velleman 2005). However, most recent discussions of meaning in life are attempts to capture in a single principle all the variegated conditions that can confer meaning on life. This survey focuses heavily on the articulation and evaluation of these theories of what would make life meaningful. It concludes by examining nihilist views that the conditions necessary for meaning in life do not obtain for any of us, i.e., that all our lives are meaningless.

1. The Meaning of “Meaning”

• 2.1 God-Centered Views
• 2.2 Soul-Centered Views

3.1 Subjectivism

3.2 objectivism, 4. nihilism, works cited, collections, books for the general reader, other internet resources, related entries.

One part of the field of life's meaning consists of the systematic attempt to clarify what people mean when they ask in virtue of what life has meaning. This section addresses different accounts of the sense of talk of “life's meaning” (and of “significance,” “importance,” and other synonyms). A large majority of those writing on life's meaning deem talk of it centrally to indicate a positive final value that an individual's life can exhibit. That is, comparatively few believe either that a meaningful life is a merely neutral quality, or that what is of key interest is the meaning of the human species or universe as a whole (for discussions focused on the latter, see Edwards 1972; Munitz 1986; Seachris 2009). Most in the field have ultimately wanted to know whether and how the existence of one of us over time has meaning, a certain property that is desirable for its own sake.

Beyond drawing the distinction between the life of an individual and that of a whole, there has been very little discussion of life as the logical bearer of meaning. For instance, is the individual's life best understood biologically, qua human being, or instead as the existence of a person that may or may not be human (Flanagan 1996)? And if an individual is loved from afar, can it logically affect the meaningfulness of her “life” (Brogaard and Smith 2005, 449)?

Returning to topics on which there is consensus, most writing on meaning believe that it comes in degrees such that some periods of life are more meaningful than others and that some lives as a whole are more meaningful than others (perhaps contra Britton 1969, 192). Note that one can coherently hold the view that some people's lives are less meaningful than others, or even meaningless, and still maintain that people have an equal moral status. Consider a consequentialist view according to which each individual counts for one in virtue of having a capacity for a meaningful life (cf. Railton 1984), or a Kantian view that says that people have an intrinsic worth in virtue of their capacity for autonomous choices, where meaning is a function of the exercise of this capacity (Nozick 1974, ch. 3). On both views, morality could counsel an agent to help people with relatively meaningless lives, at least if the condition is not of their choosing.

Another uncontroversial element of the sense of “meaningfulness” is that it connotes a good that is conceptually distinct from happiness or rightness (something emphasized in Wolf 2010). First, to ask whether someone's life is meaningful is not one and the same as asking whether her life is happy or pleasant. A life in an experience or virtual reality machine could conceivably be happy but very few take it to be a prima facie candidate for meaningfulness (Nozick 1974: 42–45). Indeed, many would say that talk of “meaning” by definition excludes the possibility of it coming from time spent in an experience machine (although there have been a small handful who disagree and contend that a meaningful life just is a pleasant life. Goetz 2012, in particular, bites many bullets.) Furthermore, one's life logically could become meaningful precisely by sacrificing one's happiness, e.g., by helping others at the expense of one's self-interest.

Second, asking whether a person's existence is significant is not identical to considering whether she has been morally upright; there seem to be ways to enhance meaning that have nothing to do with morality, at least impartially conceived, for instance, making a scientific discovery.

Of course, one might argue that a life would be meaningless if (or even because) it were unhappy or immoral, particularly given Aristotelian conceptions of these disvalues. However, that is to posit a synthetic, substantive relationship between the concepts, and is far from indicating that speaking of “meaning in life” is analytically a matter of connoting ideas regarding happiness or rightness, which is what I am denying here. My point is that the question of what makes a life meaningful is conceptually distinct from the question of what makes a life happy or moral, even if it turns out that the best answer to the question of meaning appeals to an answer to one of these other evaluative questions.

If talk about meaning in life is not by definition talk about happiness or rightness, then what is it about? There is as yet no consensus in the field. One answer is that a meaningful life is one that by definition has achieved choice-worthy purposes (Nielsen 1964) or involves satisfaction upon having done so (Hepburn 1965; Wohlgennant 1981). However, for such an analysis to clearly demarcate meaningfulness from happiness, it would be useful to modify it to indicate which purposes are germane to the former. On this score, some suggest that conceptual candidates for grounding meaning are purposes that not only have a positive value, but also render a life coherent (Markus 2003), make it intelligible (Thomson 2003, 8–13), or transcend animal nature (Levy 2005).

Now, it might be that a focus on any kind of purpose is too narrow for ruling out the logical possibility that meaning could inhere in certain actions, experiences, states, or relationships that have not been adopted as ends and willed and that perhaps even could not be, e.g., being an immortal offshoot of an unconscious, spiritual force that grounds the physical universe, as in Hinduism. In addition, the above purpose-based analyses exclude as not being about life's meaning some of the most widely read texts that purport to be about it, namely, Jean-Paul Sartre's (1948) existentialist account of meaning being constituted by whatever one chooses, and Richard Taylor's (1970, ch. 18) discussion of Sisyphus being able to acquire meaning in his life merely by having his strongest desires satisfied. These are prima facie accounts of meaning in life, but do not essentially involve the attainment of purposes that foster coherence, intelligibility or transcendence.

The latter problem also faces the alternative suggestion that talk of “life's meaning” is not necessarily about purposes, but is rather just a matter of referring to goods that are qualitatively superior, worthy of love and devotion, and appropriately awed (Taylor 1989, ch. 1). It is implausible to think that these criteria are satisfied by subjectivist appeals to whatever choices one ends up making or to whichever desires happen to be strongest for a given person.

Although relatively few have addressed the question of whether there exists a single, primary sense of “life's meaning,” the inability to find one so far might suggest that none exists. In that case, it could be that the field is united in virtue of addressing certain overlapping but not equivalent ideas that have family resemblances (Metz 2013, ch. 2). Perhaps when we speak of “meaning in life,” we have in mind one or more of these related ideas: certain conditions that are worthy of great pride or admiration, values that warrant devotion and love, qualities that make a life intelligible, or ends apart from base pleasure that are particularly choice-worthy. Another possibility is that talk of “meaning in life” fails to exhibit even this degree of unity, and is instead a grab-bag of heterogenous ideas (Mawson 2010; Oakley 2010).

As the field reflects more on the sense of “life's meaning,” it should not only try to ascertain in what respect it admits of unity, but also try to differentiate the concept of life's meaning from other, closely related ideas. For instance, the concept of a worthwhile life is probably not identical to that of a meaningful one (Baier 1997, ch. 5; Metz 2012). For instance, one would not be conceptually confused to claim that a meaningless life full of animal pleasures would be worth living. Furthermore, it seems that talk of a “meaningless life” does not simply connote the concept of an absurd (Nagel 1970; Feinberg 1980), unreasonable (Baier 1997, ch. 5), futile (Trisel 2002), or wasted (Kamm 2003, 210–14) life.

Fortunately the field does not need an extremely precise analysis of the concept of life's meaning (or definition of the phrase “life's meaning”) in order to make progress on the substantive question of what life's meaning is. Knowing that meaningfulness analytically concerns a variable and gradient final good in a person's life that is conceptually distinct from happiness, rightness, and worthwhileness provides a certain amount of common ground. The rest of this discussion addresses attempts to theoretically capture the nature of this good.

2. Supernaturalism

Most English speaking philosophers writing on meaning in life are trying to develop and evaluate theories, i.e., fundamental and general principles that are meant to capture all the particular ways that a life could obtain meaning. These theories are standardly divided on a metaphysical basis, i.e., in terms of which kinds of properties are held to constitute the meaning. Supernaturalist theories are views that meaning in life must be constituted by a certain relationship with a spiritual realm. If God or a soul does not exist, or if they exist but one fails to have the right relationship with them, then supernaturalism—or the Western version of it (on which I focus)—entails that one's life is meaningless. In contrast, naturalist theories are views that meaning can obtain in a world as known solely by science. Here, although meaning could accrue from a divine realm, certain ways of living in a purely physical universe would be sufficient for it. Note that there is logical space for a non-naturalist theory that meaning is a function of abstract properties that are neither spiritual nor physical. However, only scant attention has been paid to this possibility in the Anglo-American literature (Williams 1999; Audi 2005).

Supernaturalist thinkers in the monotheistic tradition are usefully divided into those with God-centered views and soul-centered views. The former take some kind of connection with God (understood to be a spiritual person who is all-knowing, all-good, and all-powerful and who is the ground of the physical universe) to constitute meaning in life, even if one lacks a soul (construed as an immortal, spiritual substance). The latter deem having a soul and putting it into a certain state to be what makes life meaningful, even if God does not exist. Of course, many supernaturalists believe that certain relationships with God and a soul are jointly necessary and sufficient for a significant existence. However, the simpler view is common, and often arguments proffered for the more complex view fail to support it any more than the simpler view.

2.1 God-centered Views

The most widely held and influential God-based account of meaning in life is that one's existence is more significant, the better one fulfills a purpose God has assigned. The familiar idea is that God has a plan for the universe and that one's life is meaningful to the degree that one helps God realize this plan, perhaps in the particular way God wants one to do so (Affolter 2007). Fulfilling God's purpose by choice is the sole source of meaning, with the existence of an afterlife not necessary for it (Brown 1971; Levine 1987; Cottingham 2003). If a person failed to do what God intends him to do with his life, then, on the current view, his life would be meaningless.

What I call “purpose theorists” differ over what it is about God's purpose that makes it uniquely able to confer meaning on human lives. Some argue that God's purpose could be the sole source of invariant moral rules, where a lack of such would render our lives nonsensical (Craig 1994; Cottingham 2003). However, Euthyphro problems arguably plague this rationale; God's purpose for us must be of a particular sort for our lives to obtain meaning by fulfilling it (as is often pointed out, serving as food for intergalactic travelers won't do), which suggests that there is a standard external to God's purpose that determines what the content of God's purpose ought to be (but see Cottingham 2005, ch. 3). In addition, some critics argue that a universally applicable and binding moral code is not necessary for meaning in life, even if the act of helping others is (Ellin 1995, 327).

Other purpose theorists contend that having been created by God for a reason would be the only way that our lives could avoid being contingent (Craig 1994; cf. Haber 1997). But it is unclear whether God's arbitrary will would avoid contingency, or whether his non-arbitrary will would avoid contingency anymore than a deterministic physical world. Furthermore, the literature is still unclear what contingency is and why it is a deep problem. Still other purpose theorists maintain that our lives would have meaning only insofar as they were intentionally fashioned by a creator, thereby obtaining meaning of the sort that an art-object has (Gordon 1983). Here, though, freely choosing to do any particular thing would not be necessary for meaning, and everyone's life would have an equal degree of meaning, which are both counterintuitive implications (see Trisel 2012 for additional criticisms). Are all these objections sound? Is there a promising reason for thinking that fulfilling God's (as opposed to any human's) purpose is what constitutes meaning in life?

Not only does each of these versions of the purpose theory have specific problems, but they all face this shared objection: if God assigned us a purpose, then God would degrade us and thereby undercut the possibility of us obtaining meaning from fulfilling the purpose (Baier 1957, 118–20; Murphy 1982, 14–15; Singer 1996, 29). This objection goes back at least to Jean-Paul Sartre (1948, 45), and there are many replies to it in the literature that have yet to be assessed (e.g., Hepburn 1965, 271–73; Brown 1971, 20–21; Davis 1986, 155–56; Hanfling 1987, 45–46; Moreland 1987, 129; Walker 1989; Jacquette 2001, 20–21).

Robert Nozick presents a God-centered theory that focuses less on God as purposive and more on God as infinite (Nozick 1981, ch. 6, 1989, chs. 15–16; see also Cooper 2005). The basic idea is that for a finite condition to be meaningful, it must obtain its meaning from another condition that has meaning. So, if one's life is meaningful, it might be so in virtue of being married to a person, who is important. And, being finite, the spouse must obtain his or her importance from elsewhere, perhaps from the sort of work he or she does. And this work must obtain its meaning by being related to something else that is meaningful, and so on. A regress on meaningful finite conditions is present, and the suggestion is that the regress can terminate only in something infinite, a being so all-encompassing that it need not (indeed, cannot) go beyond itself to obtain meaning from anything else. And that is God.

The standard objection to this rationale is that a finite condition could be meaningful without obtaining its meaning from another meaningful condition; perhaps it could be meaningful in itself, or obtain its meaning by being related to something beautiful, autonomous or otherwise valuable for its own sake but not meaningful (Thomson 2003, 25–26, 48).

The purpose- and infinity-based rationales are the two most common instances of God-centered theory in the literature, and the naturalist can point out that they arguably face a common problem: a purely physical world seems able to do the job for which God is purportedly necessary. Nature seems able to ground a universal morality and the sort of final value from which meaning might spring. And other God-based views seem to suffer from this same problem. For two examples, some claim that God must exist in order for there to be a just world, where a world in which the bad do well and the good fare poorly would render our lives senseless (Craig 1994; cf. Cottingham 2003, pt. 3), and others maintain that God's remembering all of us with love is alone what would confer significance on our lives (Hartshorne 1984). However, the naturalist will point out that an impersonal, Karmic-like force of nature conceivably could justly distribute penalties and rewards in the way a retributive personal judge would, and that actually living together in loving relationships would seem to confer much more meaning on life than a loving fond remembrance.

A second problem facing all God-based views is the existence of apparent counterexamples. If we think of the stereotypical lives of Albert Einstein, Mother Teresa, and Pablo Picasso, they seem meaningful even if we suppose there is no all-knowing, all-powerful, and all-good spiritual person who is the ground of the physical world. Even religiously inclined philosophers find this hard to deny (Quinn 2000, 58; Audi 2005), though some of them suggest that a supernatural realm is necessary for a “deep” or “ultimate” meaning (Nozick 1981, 618; Craig 1994, 42). What is the difference between a deep meaning and a shallow one? And why think a spiritual realm is necessary for the former?

At this point, the supernaturalist could usefully step back and reflect on what it might be about God that would make Him uniquely able to confer meaning in life, perhaps as follows from the perfect being theological tradition. For God to be solely responsible for any significance in our lives, God must have certain qualities that cannot be found in the natural world, these qualities must be qualitatively superior to any goods possible in a physical universe, and they must be what ground meaning in it. Here, the supernaturalist could argue that meaning depends on the existence of a perfect being, where perfection requires properties such as atemporality, simplicity, and immutability that are possible only in a spiritual realm (Metz 2013, chs. 6–7; cf. Morris 1992; contra Brown 1971 and Hartshorne 1996). Meaning might come from loving a perfect being or orienting one's life toward it in other ways such as imitating it or even fulfilling its purpose, perhaps a purpose tailor-made for each individual (as per Affolter 2007).

Although this might be a promising strategy for a God-centered theory, it faces a serious dilemma. On the one hand, in order for God to be the sole source of meaning, God must be utterly unlike us; for the more God were like us, the more reason there would be to think we could obtain meaning from ourselves, absent God. On the other hand, the more God is utterly unlike us, the less clear it is how we could obtain meaning by relating to Him. How can one love a being that cannot change? How can one imitate such a being? Could an immutable, atemporal, simple being even have purposes? Could it truly be a person? And why think an utterly perfect being is necessary for meaning? Why would not a very good but imperfect being confer some meaning?

2.2 Soul-centered Views

A soul-centered theory is the view that meaning in life comes from relating in a certain way to an immortal, spiritual substance that supervenes on one's body when it is alive and that will forever outlive its death. If one lacks a soul, or if one has a soul but relates to it in the wrong way, then one's life is meaningless. There are two prominent arguments for a soul-based perspective.

The first one is often expressed by laypeople and is suggested by the work of Leo Tolstoy (1884; see also Hanfling 1987, 22–24; Morris 1992, 26; Craig 1994). Tolstoy argues that for life to be meaningful something must be worth doing, that nothing is worth doing if nothing one does will make a permanent difference to the world, and that doing so requires having an immortal, spiritual self. Many of course question whether having an infinite effect is necessary for meaning (e.g., Schmidtz 2001; Audi 2005, 354–55). Others point out that one need not be immortal in order to have an infinite effect (Levine 1987, 462), for God's eternal remembrance of one's mortal existence would be sufficient for that.

The other major rationale for a soul-based theory of life's meaning is that a soul is necessary for perfect justice, which, in turn, is necessary for a meaningful life. Life seems nonsensical when the wicked flourish and the righteous suffer, at least supposing there is no other world in which these injustices will be rectified, whether by God or by Karma. Something like this argument can be found in the Biblical chapter Ecclesiastes , and it continues to be defended (Davis 1987; Craig 1994). However, like the previous rationale, the inferential structure of this one seems weak; even if an afterlife were required for just outcomes, it is not obvious why an eternal afterlife should be thought necessary (Perrett 1986, 220).

Work has been done to try to make the inferences of these two arguments stronger, and the basic strategy has been to appeal to the value of perfection (Metz 2013, ch. 7). Perhaps the Tolstoian reason why one must live forever in order to make the relevant permanent difference is an agent-relative need for one to honor an infinite value, something qualitatively higher than the worth of, say, pleasure. And maybe the reason why immortality is required in order to mete out just deserts is that rewarding the virtuous requires satisfying their highest free and informed desires, one of which would be for eternal flourishing of some kind (Goetz 2012). While far from obviously sound, these arguments at least provide some reason for thinking that immortality is necessary to satisfy the major premise about what is required for meaning.

However, both arguments are still plagued by a problem facing the original versions; even if they show that meaning depends on immortality, they do not yet show that it depends on having a soul . By definition, if one has a soul, then one is immortal, but it is not clearly true that if one is immortal, then one has a soul. Perhaps being able to upload one's consciousness into an infinite succession of different bodies in an everlasting universe would count as an instance of immortality without a soul. Such a possibility would not require an individual to have an immortal spiritual substance (imagine that when in between bodies, the information constitutive of one's consciousness were temporarily stored in a computer). What reason is there to think that one must have a soul in particular for life to be significant?

The most promising reason seems to be one that takes us beyond the simple version of soul-centered theory to the more complex view that both God and a soul constitute meaning. The best justification for thinking that one must have a soul in order for one's life to be significant seems to be that significance comes from uniting with God in a spiritual realm such as Heaven, a view espoused by Thomas Aquinas, Leo Tolstoy (1884), and contemporary religious thinkers (e.g., Craig 1994). Another possibility is that meaning comes from honoring what is divine within oneself, i.e., a soul (Swenson 1949).

As with God-based views, naturalist critics offer counterexamples to the claim that a soul or immortality of any kind is necessary for meaning. Great works, whether they be moral, aesthetic, or intellectual, would seem to confer meaning on one's life regardless of whether one will live forever. Critics maintain that soul-centered theorists are seeking too high a standard for appraising the meaning of people's lives (Baier 1957, 124–29; Baier 1997, chs. 4–5; Trisel 2002; Trisel 2004). Appeals to a soul require perfection, whether it be, as above, a perfect object to honor, a perfectly just reward to enjoy, or a perfect being with which to commune. However, if indeed soul-centered theory ultimately relies on claims about meaning turning on perfection, such a view is attractive at least for being simple, and rival views have yet to specify in a principled and thoroughly defended way where to draw the line at less than perfection (perhaps a start is Metz 2013, ch. 8). What less than ideal amount of value is sufficient for a life to count as meaningful?

Critics of soul-based views maintain not merely that immortality is not necessary for meaning in life, but also that it is sufficient for a meaningless life. One influential argument is that an immortal life, whether spiritual or physical, could not avoid becoming boring, rendering life pointless (Williams 1973; Ellin 1995, 311–12; Belshaw 2005, 82–91; Smuts 2011). The most common reply is that immortality need not get boring (Fischer 1994; Wisnewski 2005; Bortolotti and Nagasawa 2009; Chappell 2009; Quigley and Harris 2009, 75–78). However, it might also be worth questioning whether boredom is truly sufficient for meaninglessness. Suppose, for instance, that one volunteers to be bored so that many others will not be bored; perhaps this would be a meaningful sacrifice to make.

Another argument that being immortal would be sufficient to make our lives insignificant is that persons who cannot die could not exhibit certain virtues (Nussbaum 1989; Kass 2001). For instance, they could not promote justice of any important sort, be benevolent to any significant degree, or exhibit courage of any kind that matters, since life and death issues would not be at stake. Critics reply that even if these virtues would not be possible, there are other virtues that could be. And of course it is not obvious that meaning-conferring justice, benevolence and courage would not be possible if we were immortal, perhaps if we were not always aware that we could not die or if our indestructible souls could still be harmed by virtue of intense pain, frustrated ends, and repetitive lives.

There are other, related arguments maintaining that awareness of immortality would have the effect of removing meaning from life, say, because our lives would lack a sense of preciousness and urgency (Lenman 1995; Kass 2001; James 2009) or because external rather than internal factors would then dictate their course (Wollheim 1984, 266). Note that the target here is belief in an eternal afterlife, and not immortality itself, and so I merely mention these rationales (for additional, revealing criticism, see Bortolotti 2010).

3. Naturalism

I now address views that even if there is no spiritual realm, meaning in life is possible, at least for many people. Among those who believe that a significant existence can be had in a purely physical world as known by science, there is debate about two things: the extent to which the human mind constitutes meaning and whether there are conditions of meaning that are invariant among human beings.

Subjectivists believe that there are no invariant standards of meaning because meaning is relative to the subject, i.e., depends on an individual's pro-attitudes such as desires, ends, and choices. Roughly, something is meaningful for a person if she believes it to be or seeks it out. Objectivists maintain, in contrast, that there are some invariant standards for meaning because meaning is (at least partly) mind-independent, i.e., is a real property that exists regardless of being the object of anyone's mental states. Here, something is meaningful (to some degree) in virtue of its intrinsic nature, independent of whether it is believed to be meaningful or sought.

There is logical space for an intersubjective theory according to which there are invariant standards of meaning for human beings that are constituted by what they would all agree upon from a certain communal standpoint (Darwall 1983, chs. 11–12). However, this orthogonal approach is not much of a player in the field and so I set it aside in what follows.

According to this view, meaning in life varies from person to person, depending on each one's variable mental states. Common instances are views that one's life is more meaningful, the more one gets what one happens to want strongly, the more one achieves one's highly ranked goals, or the more one does what one believes to be really important (Trisel 2002; Hooker 2008; Alexis 2011). Lately, one influential subjectivist has maintained that the relevant mental state is caring or loving, so that life is meaningful just to the extent that one cares about or loves something (Frankfurt 1982, 2002, 2004).

Subjectivism was dominant for much of the 20 th century when pragmatism, positivism, existentialism, noncognitivism, and Humeanism were quite influential (James 1900; Ayer 1947; Sartre 1948; Barnes 1967; Taylor 1970; Hare 1972; Williams 1976; Klemke 1981). However, in the last quarter of the 20 th century, “reflective equilibrium” became a widely accepted argumentative procedure, whereby more controversial normative claims are justified by virtue of entailing and explaining less controversial normative claims that do not command universal acceptance. Such a method has been used to defend the existence of objective value, and, as a result, subjectivism about meaning has lost its dominance.

Those who continue to hold subjectivism often are suspicious of attempts to justify beliefs about objective value (e.g., Frankfurt 2002, 250; Trisel 2002, 73, 79, 2004, 378–79). Theorists are primarily moved to accept subjectivism because the alternatives are unpalatable; they are sure that value in general and meaning in particular exists, but do not see how it could be grounded in something independent of the mind, whether it be the natural, the non-natural, or the supernatural. In contrast to these possibilities, it appears straightforward to account for what is meaningful in terms of what people find meaningful or what people want out of life. Wide-ranging meta-ethical debates in epistemology, metaphysics, and the philosophy of language are necessary to address this rationale for subjectivism.

There are two other, more circumscribed arguments for subjectivism. One is that subjectivism is plausible since it is reasonable to think that a meaningful life is an authentic one (Frankfurt 1982). If a person's life is significant insofar as she is true to herself or her deepest nature, then we have some reason to believe that meaning simply is a function of satisfying certain desires held by the individual or realizing certain ends of hers. Another argument is that meaning intuitively comes from losing oneself, i.e., in becoming absorbed in an activity or experience (Frankfurt 1982). Work that concentrates the mind and relationships that are engrossing seem central to meaning and to be so because of the subjective element involved, that is, because of the concentration and engrossment.

However, critics maintain that both of these arguments are vulnerable to a common objection: they neglect the role of objective value both in realizing oneself and in losing oneself (Taylor 1992, esp. ch. 4). One is not really being true to oneself if one intentionally harms others (Dahl 1987, 12), successfully maintains 3,732 hairs on one's head (Taylor 1992, 36), or, well, eats one's own excrement (Wielenberg 2005, 22), and one is also not losing oneself in a meaning-conferring way if one is consumed by these activities. There seem to be certain actions, relationships, states, and experiences that one ought to concentrate on or be engrossed in, if meaning is to accrue.

So says the objectivist, but many subjectivists also feel the pull of the point. Paralleling replies in the literature on well-being, subjectivists often respond by contending that no or very few individuals would desire to do such intuitively trivial things, at least after a certain idealized process of reflection (e.g., Griffin 1981). More promising, perhaps, is the attempt to ground value not in the responses of an individual valuer, but in those of a particular group (Brogaard and Smith 2005; Wong 2008). Would such an intersubjective move avoid the counterexamples? If so, would it do so more plausibly than an objective theory?

Objective naturalists believe that meaning is constituted (at least in part) by something physical independent of the mind about which we can have correct or incorrect beliefs. Obtaining the object of some variable pro-attitude is not sufficient for meaning, on this view. Instead, there are certain inherently worthwhile or finally valuable conditions that confer meaning for anyone, neither merely because they are wanted, chosen, or believed to be meaningful, nor because they somehow are grounded in God.

Morality and creativity are widely held instances of actions that confer meaning on life, while trimming toenails and eating snow (and the other counterexamples to subjectivism above) are not. Objectivism is thought to be the best explanation for these respective kinds of judgments: the former are actions that are meaningful regardless of whether any arbitrary agent (whether it be an individual,her society, or even God) judges them to be meaningful or seeks to engage in them, while the latter actions simply lack significance and cannot obtain it if someone believes them to have it or engages in them. To obtain meaning in one's life, one ought to pursue the former actions and avoid the latter ones. Of course, meta-ethical debates about the nature of value are again relevant here.

A “pure” objectivist thinks that being the object of a person's mental states plays no role in making that person's life meaningful. Relatively few objectivists are pure, so construed. That is, a large majority of them believe that a life is more meaningful not merely because of objective factors, but also in part because of subjective ones such as cognition, affection, and emotion. Most commonly held is the hybrid view captured by Susan Wolf's pithy slogan: “Meaning arises when subjective attraction meets objective attractiveness” (Wolf 1997a, 211; see also Hepburn 1965; Kekes 1986, 2000; Wiggins 1988; Wolf 1997b, 2002, 2010; Dworkin 2000, ch. 6; Raz 2001, ch. 1; Schmidtz 2001; Starkey 2006; Mintoff 2008). This theory implies that no meaning accrues to one's life if one believes in, is satisfied by, or cares about a project that is not worthwhile, or if one takes up a worthwhile project but fails to judge it important, be satisfied by it, care about it or otherwise identify with it. Different versions of this theory will have different accounts of the appropriate mental states and of worthwhileness.

Pure objectivists deny that subjective attraction plays any constitutive role in conferring meaning on life. For instance, utilitarians with respect to meaning (as opposed to morality) are pure objectivists, for they claim that certain actions confer meaning on life regardless of the agent's reactions to them. On this view, the more one benefits others, the more meaningful one's life, regardless of whether one enjoys benefiting them, believes they should be aided, etc. (Singer 1993, ch. 12, 1995, chs. 10–11; Singer 1996, ch. 4). Midway between pure objectivism and the hybrid theory is the view that having certain propositional attitudes toward finally good activities would enhance the meaning of life without being necessary for it (Audi 2005, 344). For instance, might a Mother Teresa who is bored by her substantial charity work have a significant existence because of it, even if she would have an even more significant existence if she were excited by it?

There have been several attempts to theoretically capture what all objectively attractive, inherently worthwhile, or finally valuable conditions have in common insofar as they bear on meaning. Some believe that they can all be captured as actions that are creative (Taylor 1987), while others maintain that they are exhibit rightness or virtue and perhaps also involve reward proportionate to morality (Kant 1791, pt. 2; cf. Pogge 1997). Most objectivists, however, deem these respective aesthetic and ethical theories to be too narrow, even if living a moral life is necessary for a meaningful one (Landau 2011). It seems to most in the field not only that creativity and morality are independent sources of meaning, but also that there are sources in addition to these two. For just a few examples, consider making an intellectual discovery, rearing children with love, playing music, and developing superior athletic ability.

So, in the literature one finds a variety of principles that aim to capture all these and other (apparent) objective grounds of meaning. One can read the perfectionist tradition as proffering objective theories of what a significant existence is, even if their proponents do not frequently use contemporary terminology to express this. Consider Aristotle's account of the good life for a human being as one that fulfills its natural purpose qua rational, Marx's vision of a distinctly human history characterized by less alienation and more autonomy, culture, and community, and Nietzsche's ideal of a being with a superlative degree of power, creativity, and complexity.

More recently, some have maintained that objectively meaningful conditions are just those that involve: transcending the limits of the self to connect with organic unity (Nozick 1981, ch. 6, 1989, chs. 15–16); realizing human excellence in oneself (Bond 1983, chs. 6, 8); maximally promoting non-hedonist goods such as friendship, beauty, and knowledge (Railton 1984); exercising or promoting rational nature in exceptional ways (Hurka 1993; Smith 1997, 179–221; Gewirth 1998, ch. 5); substantially improving the quality of life of people and animals (Singer 1993, ch. 12, 1995, chs. 10–11; Singer 1996, ch. 4); overcoming challenges that one recognizes to be important at one's stage of history (Dworkin 2000, ch. 6); constituting rewarding experiences in the life of the agent or the lives of others the agent affects (Audi 2005); making progress toward ends that in principle can never be completely realized because one's knowledge of them changes as one approaches them (Levy 2005); realizing goals that are transcendent for being long-lasting in duration and broad in scope (Mintoff 2008); or contouring intelligence toward fundamental conditions of human life (Metz 2013).

One major test of these theories is whether they capture all experiences, states, relationships, and actions that intuitively make life meaningful. The more counterexamples of apparently meaningful conditions that a principle entails lack meaning, the less justified the principle. There is as yet no convergence in the field on any one principle or even cluster as accounting for commonsensical judgments about meaning to an adequate, convincing degree. Indeed, some believe the search for such a principle to be pointless (Wolf 1997b, 12–13; Kekes 2000; Schmidtz 2001). Are these pluralists correct, or does the field have a good chance of discovering a single, basic property that grounds all the particular ways to acquire meaning in life?

Another important way to criticize these theories is more comprehensive: for all that has been said so far, the objective theories are aggregative or additive, objectionably reducing life to a “container” of meaningful conditions (Brännmark 2003, 330). As with the growth of “organic unity” views in the context of debates about intrinsic value, it is becoming common to think that life as a whole (or at least long stretches of it) can substantially affect its meaning apart from the amount of meaning in its parts.

For instance, a life that has lots of beneficent and otherwise intuitively meaning-conferring conditions but that is also extremely repetitive (à la the movie Groundhog Day ) is less than maximally meaningful (Taylor 1987). Furthermore, a life that not only avoids repetition but also ends with a substantial amount of meaningful parts seems to have more meaning overall than one that has the same amount of meaningful parts but ends with few or none of them (Kamm 2003, 210–14). And a life in which its meaningless parts cause its meaningful parts to come about through a process of personal growth seems meaningful in virtue of this causal pattern or being a “good life-story” (Velleman 1991; Fischer 2005).

Extreme versions of holism are also present in the literature. For example, some maintain that the only bearer of final value is life as a whole, which entails that there are strictly speaking no parts or segments of a life that can be meaningful in themselves (Tabensky 2003; Levinson 2004). For another example, some accept that both parts of a life and a life as a whole can be independent bearers of meaning, but maintain that the latter has something like a lexical priority over the former when it comes to what to pursue or otherwise to prize (Blumenfeld 2009).

What are the ultimate bearers of meaning? What are all the fundamentally different ways (if any) that holism can affect meaning? Are they all a function of narrativity, life-stories, and artistic self-expression (as per Kauppinen 2012), or are there holistic facets of life's meaning that are not a matter of such literary concepts? How much importance should they be accorded by an agent seeking meaning in her life?

So far, I have addressed theoretical accounts that have been naturally understood to be about what confers meaning on life, which obviously assumes that some lives are in fact meaningful. However, there are nihilistic perspectives that question this assumption. According to nihilism (or pessimism), what would make a life meaningful either cannot obtain or as a matter of fact simply never does.

One straightforward rationale for nihilism is the combination of supernaturalism about what makes life meaningful and atheism about whether God exists. If you believe that God or a soul is necessary for meaning in life, and if you believe that neither exists, then you are a nihilist, someone who denies that life has meaning. Albert Camus is famous for expressing this kind of perspective, suggesting that the lack of an afterlife and of a rational, divinely ordered universe undercuts the possibility of meaning (Camus 1955; cf. Ecclesiastes ).

Interestingly, the most common rationales for nihilism these days do not appeal to supernaturalism. The idea shared among many contemporary nihilists is that there is something inherent to the human condition that prevents meaning from arising, even granting that God exists. For instance, some nihilists make the Schopenhauerian claim that our lives lack meaning because we are invariably dissatisfied; either we have not yet obtained what we seek, or we have obtained it and are bored (Martin 1993). Critics tend to reply that at least a number of human lives do have the requisite amount of satisfaction required for meaning, supposing that some is (Blackburn 2001, 74–77).

Other nihilists claim that life would be meaningless if there were no invariant moral rules that could be fully justified—the world would be nonsensical if, in (allegedly) Dostoyevskian terms, “everything were permitted”—and that such rules cannot exist for persons who can always reasonably question a given claim (Murphy 1982, ch. 1). While a number of philosophers agree that a universally binding and warranted morality is necessary for meaning in life (Kant 1791; Tännsjö 1988; Jacquette 2001, ch. 1; Cottingham 2003, 2005, ch. 3), some do not (Margolis 1990; Ellin 1995, 325–27). Furthermore, contemporary rationalist and realist work in meta-ethics has led many to believe that such a moral system exists.

In the past 10 years, some interesting new defences of nihilism have arisen that merit careful consideration. According to one rationale, for our lives to matter, we must in a position to add value to the world, which we are not since the value of the world is already infinite (Smith 2003). The key premises for this view are that every bit of space-time (or at least the stars in the physical universe) have some positive value, that these values can be added up, and that space is infinite. If the physical world at present contains an infinite degree of value, nothing we do can make a difference in terms of meaning, for infinity plus any amount of value must be infinity.

One way to question this argument is to suggest that even if one cannot add to the value of the universe, meaning plausibly obtains merely by being the source of value. Consider that one does not merely want one's child to be reared with love, but wants to be the one who rears one's child with love. And this desire remains even knowing that others would have reared one's child with love in one's absence, so that one's actions are not increasing the goodness of the state of the universe relative to what it would have had without them. Similar remarks might apply to cases of meaning more generally (for additional, and technical, discussion of whether an infinite universe entails nihilism, see Almeida 2010; Vohánka and Vohánková n.d.).

Another fresh argument for nihilism is forthcoming from certain defenses of anti-natalism, the view that it is immoral to bring new people into existence because doing so would be a harm to them. There are now a variety of rationales for anti-natalism, but most relevant to debates about whether life is meaningful is probably the following argument from David Benatar (2006, 18–59). According to him, the bads of existing (e.g., pains) are real disadvantages relative to not existing, while the goods of existing (pleasures) are not real advantages relative to not existing, since there is in the latter state no one to be deprived of them. If indeed the state of not existing is no worse than that of experiencing the benefits of existence, then, since existing invariably brings harm in its wake, existing is always a net harm compared to not existing. Although this argument is about goods such as pleasures in the first instance, it seems generalizable to non-experiential goods, including that of meaning in life.

The criticisms of Benatar that promise to cut most deep are those that question his rationale for the above judgments of good and bad. He maintains that these appraisals best explain, e.g., why it would be wrong for one to create someone whom one knows would suffer a torturous existence, and why it would not be wrong for one not to create someone whom one knows would enjoy a wonderful existence. The former would be wrong and the latter would not be wrong, for Benatar, because no pain in non-existence is better than pain in existence, and because no pleasure in non-existence is no worse than pleasure in existence. Critics usually grant the judgments of wrongness, but provide explanations of them that do not invoke Benatar's judgments of good and bad that apparently lead to anti-natalism (e.g., Boonin 2012; Weinberg 2012).

This survey closes by discussing the most well-known rationale for nihilism, namely, Thomas Nagel's (1986) invocation of the external standpoint that purportedly reveals our lives to be unimportant (see also Hanfling 1987, 22–24; Benatar 2006, 60–92; cf. Dworkin 2000, ch. 6). According to Nagel, we are capable of comprehending the world from a variety of standpoints that are either internal or external. The most internal perspective would be a particular human being's desire at a given instant, with a somewhat less internal perspective being one's interests over a life-time, and an even less internal perspective being the interests of one's family or community. In contrast, the most external perspective, an encompassing standpoint utterly independent of one's particularity, would be, to use Henry Sidgwick's phrase, the “point of view of the universe,” that is, the standpoint that considers the interests of all sentient beings at all times and in all places. When one takes up this most external standpoint and views one's finite—and even downright puny—impact on the world, little of one's life appears to matter. What one does in a certain society on Earth over an approximately 75 years just does not amount to much, when considering the billions of years and likely trillions of beings that are a part of space-time.

Very few accept the authority of the (most) external standpoint (Ellin 1995, 316–17; Blackburn 2001, 79–80; Schmidtz 2001) or the implications that Nagel believes it has for the meaning of our lives (Quinn 2000, 65–66; Singer 1993, 333–34; Wolf 1997b, 19–21). However, the field could use much more discussion of this rationale, given its persistence in human thought. It is plausible to think, with Nagel, that part of what it is to be a person is to be able to take up an external standpoint. However, what precisely is a standpoint? Must we invariably adopt one standpoint or the other, or is it possible not to take one up at all? Is there a reliable way to ascertain which standpoint is normatively more authoritative than others? These and the other questions posed in this survey still lack conclusive answers, another respect in which the field of life's meaning is tantalizingly open for substantial contributions.

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How to cite this entry . Preview the PDF version of this entry at the Friends of the SEP Society . Look up this entry topic at the Internet Philosophy Ontology Project (InPhO). Enhanced bibliography for this entry at PhilPapers , with links to its database.

• Seachris, J., 2011, “ Meaning of Life: The Analytic Perspective ”, in Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy , J. Fieser and B. Dowden (eds.)
• Vohánka, V. and Vohánková, P., n.d., “ On Nihilism Driven by the Magnitude of the Universe ”.

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Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

The meaning of life: contemporary analytic perspectives.

Depending on whom one asks, the question, “What is the meaning of life?” is either the most profound question of human existence or else nothing more than a nonsensical request built on conceptual confusion, much like, “What does the color red taste like?” or “What is heavier than the heaviest object?” Ask a non-philosopher, “What do philosophers discuss?” and a likely answer will be, “The meaning of life.” Ask the same question of a philosopher within the analytic tradition, and you will rarely get this answer. The sources of suspicion about the question within analytic philosophy , especially in earlier periods, are varied. First, the question of life’s meaning is conceptually challenging because of terms like “the” “meaning” and “life,” and especially given the grammatical form in which they are arranged. Second, it is often asked with transcendent, spiritual, or religious assumptions at the fore about what the world “should” be like in order for there to be a meaning of life. In so far as the question is entangled with such ideas, the worry is that even if the concept of a meaning of life is coherent, there likely is not one.

Despite such suspicions and relative disinterest in the question of life’s meaning among analytic philosophers for a large part of the twentieth century, there is a growing body of work on the topic over roughly the last two decades. Much of this work focuses on developing and defending theories of meaning in life (see Section 2.d. for more on the distinction between meaning in life and the meaning of life) via conceptual analyses of the necessary and sufficient conditions for meaningful life. A smaller, though no less important, subset of work in this growing field focuses on why we even use “meaning” in the first place to voice our questions and concerns about central facets of the human condition.

This article surveys important trajectories in discussions of life’s meaning within contemporary analytic philosophy. It begins by introducing key aspects of the human context in which the question is asked. The article then investigates three ideas that illumine what meaning means in this context: sense-making, purpose, and significance. The article continues by surveying important topics that provide a greater understanding of what is involved in our requests for meaning. After briefly surveying theories of meaning in life, it concludes with discussions of death and futility, followed by important areas of research that remain under-investigated.

Table of Contents

• The Human Context
• Sense-Making
• Significance
• The Word “Life”
• The Definite Article
• Meaning of Life vs. Meaning in Life
• What is the Meaning of x?
• The Amalgam Approach
• The Single Question Approach
• Supernaturalism
• Subjective Naturalism
• Objective Naturalism
• Hybrid Naturalism
• Pessimistic Naturalism: Nihilism
• Structural Contours of Meaning in Life
• Death, Futility, and a Meaningful Life
• Underinvestigated Areas
• References and Further Reading

1. The Human Context

The human desire for meaning finds vivid expression in the stories we tell, diaries we keep, and in our deepest hopes and fears. According to twentieth century Freudian psychoanalyst Bruno Bettelheim, “our greatest need and most difficult achievement is to find meaning in our lives” (Bettelheim 1978: 3). Holocaust survivor and psychiatrist Viktor Frankl said that the human will to meaning comes prior to either our will to pleasure or will to power (Frankl 2006: 99).

Questions about meaning arise and take shape within varied contexts: when struggling to make an important decision about what to do with our lives, when trapped in a job we hate, when wondering if there is more to life than the daily hum-drum, when diagnosed with a terminal illness, when experiencing the loss of a loved one, when feeling small while looking up at the night sky, when wondering if this universe is all there is and why it is even here in the first place, when questioning whether life and love will have a lasting place in the universe or whether the whole show will end in utter and everlasting desolation and silence.

Lurking behind many of our questions about meaning is our capacity to get outside of ourselves, to view our lives from a wider standpoint, a standpoint from which to understand the setting for our lives and question the “why?” of what we do. Humans possess self-awareness, and can take an observational, self-reflective viewpoint on our lives. In this, we are able to shift from mere automatic engagement to observation and evaluation. We do more than simply respond to streams of stimuli. We step back and question who we are and what we do. Shifting our focus to the widest standpoint— sub specie aeternitatis (literally, from the perspective of eternity; a universal perspective)—we wonder how such infinitesimally small and fleeting creatures like ourselves fit in the grand scheme of things, within vast space and time. We worry about whether a reality of such staggering magnitude, at the deepest level, cares about us (for related discussions, see Fischer 1993; Kahane 2013; Landau 2011; Nagel 1971, 1989; and Seachris 2013).

That our concerns about meaning are often cosmically-focused is instructive. Despite the current theoretical emphasis in analytic philosophy on the more terrestrially-focused idea of meaning in life, questions about meaning are very often cosmic in scope. In the words of sociologist Peter Berger, in seeking life’s meaning, many are attempting to locate it “within a sacred and cosmic frame of reference” of trying to plumb the connection “between microcosm and macrocosm” (Berger 1967: 27). This is an important reason why God, transcendence, and other ideas embodied and expressed in religion are so often thought to be relevant to life’s meaning.

2. The Contemporary Analytic Context: Prolegomena

Relatively speaking, not too long ago many analytic philosophers were suspicious that the question of life’s meaning was incoherent. Such views found expression in popular culture too, for example, in Douglas Adams’ widely read book The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy . The story’s central characters visit the legendary planet Magrathea and learn about a race of hyper-intelligent beings who built a computer named Deep Thought. Deep Thought’s purpose was to answer the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything, that answer being a bewildering 42. Deep Thought explained that this answer was incomprehensible because the beings who designed it, though super-intelligent, did not really know what they were asking in the first place. Asking for life’s meaning might be like this, in which case 42 is as good of an answer as any other.

Some analytic philosophers in the twentieth century, in the wake of logical positivism , shared Deep Thought’s suspicion. They were particularly weary of the traditional formulation— What is the meaning of life? Meaning, it was thought, belongs in the linguistic realm. Words, sentences, and other linguistic constructions are the proper bearers of meaning, not objects, events, or states of affairs, and certainly not life itself. Some philosophers thought that in asking for life’s meaning, we use an ill-chosen expression to voice something real, perhaps an emotional response of awe or wonder at the staggering fact that anything exists at all. Yet, experiencing such feelings and asking a meaningful question are two different things altogether.

Asking what something means, though, need not be a strictly semantic activity. We ask for the meanings of all kinds of things and employ “meaning” in a wide variety of contexts in everyday life, only some of which are narrowly linguistic. Paying careful attention to the meanings of “meaning” provides important clues about what life’s meaning is all about. Three connotations in particular are instructive here: sense-making, purpose, and significance.

a. The Meanings of “Meaning”

Meaning-talk is common in everyday discourse. Most ordinary uses of “meaning” tend to cluster around three basic ideas: (1) sense-making (which can include the ideas of intelligibility , clarification , or coherence ), (2) purpose , and (3) significance (which can include the idea of value ). The following list of statements and questions captures the richly varied ways in which we employ the concept of meaning on a regular basis.

Meaning as Sense-Making

• What you said didn’t mean a thing.
• What did you mean by that statement?
• Do you know what I mean ?
• What did you mean by that face? (overlaps with purpose)
• What is the meaning of that book? ( what is it about?)
• What is the meaning of this? (for example, when asked upon returning home to find one’s house ransacked)

Meaning as Purpose

• What did you mean by that face? (overlaps with intelligibility)
• The tantrum is meant to catch his dad’s attention.
• What is the meaning of that book? ( why was it written?)
• I really mean it!
• I didn’t mean to do it. I promise!

Meaning as Significance

• That was such a meaningful
• This watch really means something to me.
• That is a highly meaningful event in the life of that city.
• What do his first six months in office mean for the country (likely overlaps with intelligibility)
• That is a meaningful
• That is a meaningless
• You mean nothing to me.

i. Sense-Making

This category is an important ordinary sense of meaning and connotes ideas like intelligibility, clarification, and coherence. Something has meaning if it makes sense; it lacks meaning if it does not. One way of understanding sense-making is through the idea of proper fit . Words, concepts, propositions, but also events and states of affairs, make sense and are meaningful if and when they fit together properly; if they lack such fit, they make no sense and are meaningless. This applies narrowly. For example, it makes no sense to ask, “What is brighter than the brightest light source?” It does not fit with the concept brightest to ask what is brighter, but it has a broader application too. We say things like:

• It does not make sense for the president to send in troops given the geopolitical situation in the region.
• Asking philosophy students to perform long-division on their midterm makes no sense.

In each of these situations, we perceive a lack of fit—a lack of fit between a decision and circumstances surrounding that decision or between reasonable expectations about what one will find on a philosophy exam and what one actually finds. There is a kind of absurdity here. Perceiving this weaker lack of fit will be a product of beliefs, norms, and other epistemic, evaluative, and social commitments. Therefore, determining whether or not something, in fact, involves a lack of fit in this broader sense often will be a messier task than in cases of narrow sense-making.

Ascertaining meaning, then, is often about fitting something into a larger context or whole: words into sentences, paragraphs, novels, or monographs; musical notes into measures, movements, and symphonies (i.e., the movement from mere sound to music), parts of a photograph within the entire photograph. Meaning is about intelligibility within a wider frame, about “inserting small parts into a larger, integrated context” (Svendsen 2005: 29). Similarly, we can plausibly view our requests for the meaning of life as attempts to secure the overarching context through which to make sense of our lives in the universe (see Thomson 2003: 132-138). Our focus here is on existentially weighty matters that define and depict the human condition: questions and concerns surrounding origins, purpose, significance, value, suffering, and death and destiny. We want answers to our questions about these matters, and want these answers to fit together in an existentially satisfying way. We want life to make sense, and when it does not, we are haunted by the specter of meaninglessness.

ii. Purpose

Requests for meaning are very often requests for purpose. We want to know whether we have a purpose(s) and if so, what it is. Many assume that there is a cosmic purpose around which to order our lives. A cosmic purpose likely would require transcendence or God. Someone must intend it all in order for there to be a purpose of it all. One might reject the idea of cosmic purpose, though, and still frame the question about life’s meaning as one largely about purpose. In this case, meaningful life (or meaning in life) is about ordering one’s life around self-determined purposes.

We also distinguish actions done on purpose from those done by accident. We use meaning (or meant ) to contrast willful from non-willful action. We say things like, “I really mean it” to indicate the ‘full’ operation of our will. Alternatively, our child might say, “I didn’t mean it, I promise!” to indicate that she did not intend to spill her glass of milk. This sense of “meant” is also relevant for life’s meaning. We want sufficient autonomy, and when it is absent or severely mitigated, we worry about the meaningfulness of our lives (see Mawson 2016; Sartre 1973). Most of us do not want to walk through life haphazardly, nor in a way that is largely determined apart from our own consent. Likely one aspect of meaningful life, then, is life lived with our wills sufficiently engaged, one lived on purpose . These two shades of purpose are probably related. We want to really mean it as we select and align our lives with aims that will provide the salient structural rhythms to our day-to-day existence. In other words, we do not want to be alienated from the purposes that guide our lives.

Purpose and sense-making often are connected. Purpose itself, via future-targeted goals that shape pre-goal activity, provide important aspects of the structure that serves as the framework through which life fits together and makes sense. Lives that fit together and make sense—meaningful lives—are those that are sufficiently teleological. Working to attain goals at various levels of life-centrality is likely a facet of life properly fitting together and therefore being meaningful. Teleological threads connecting discreet life episodes are then necessary for a robust kind of sense-making in life. Lives lacking this are threatened with a sort of unintelligibility that results from being insufficiently structured by a telos . In the words of philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre:

When someone complains…that his or her life is meaningless, he or she is often and perhaps characteristically complaining that the narrative of their life has become unintelligible to them, that it lacks any point, any movement toward a climax or a telos (MacIntyre 2007: 217).

iii. Significance

Meaning often conveys the idea of significance, and significance tracks a related cluster of notions like mattering, importance, impact, salience, being the object of care and concern, and value, depending on context. We contrast trivial discussions about the mundane with deep discussions about important matters, referring to the latter as meaningful or significant. Physical objects deeply enmeshed in our life stories are meaningful. We view actions and events that have salient implications as significant, and in cases where that significance has positive value, as meaningful (whether a person can lead a meaningful life in virtue of making large negative impacts is a growing topic of discussion as the field seeks to understand the connection between meaning and morality; see Campbell and Nyholm 2015). Finding the cure for that disease was meaningful because it had such a large positive impact within a certain frame of cares and concerns. This shade of meaning is also in view in cases where some piece or set of data crosses a threshold of salience against background information. That such a large percentage of the population living under certain conditions is getting a particular disease is statistically significant or statistically meaningful. In this way, sense-making and significance senses of meaning connect.

Alternatively, when something does not matter to us, we might say, “That means nothing to me.” It was just a meaningless conversation; it was inconsequential. That game did not matter because the playoffs were already set. The wrapping paper does not matter, what is on the inside of the package counts. That piece of information is not meaningful relevant to the aims and questions guiding one’s inquiry. Spending your life sitting on the couch and watching sitcom re-runs on Netflix is meaningless; you do nothing that matters, you do nothing of importance or value, and so on.

Something’s significance is often and largely gauged in relation to a perspective, horizon, or point of reference, all of which can be dynamic. Something that is significant from one vantage point may, and often does, lose its significance when viewed from a broader horizon. Scraping your knee at age four is significant, at least from a four-year old’s perspective. When looking back decades later, its significance wanes. Most events important enough to make it into local lore will not matter enough to be included in a national history, let alone world and, especially, cosmic history. One quickly sees resources available from which to generate pessimistic meaning of life concerns vis-à-vis human significance as one broadens horizons, eventually terminating in the widest cosmic perspective.

Significance is often distinctly normative and person-al. When we say that something is meaningful in the sense of being significant, important, or mattering, we make a kind of evaluative claim about what is good or valuable. Additionally, significance is often connected with being the object of a person’s evaluations, cares, and concerns. Things are, most naturally, significant to someone .

Insofar as meaning is thought to have an affective dimension, that dimension likely intersects with significance. If my grandmother’s necklace is meaningful to me, it has value, it matters, and affective states fitting a certain psychological profile, like being deeply stirred or moved, often accompany such assessments of value and mattering. Though this may not make such affective states a further type of meaning or constitutive of meaning, these states reliably track instances of significance or perceived significance.

Like sense-making and purpose, significance is relevant to life’s meaning. In broad terms, one way of construing meaningful life is as a life that matters and has positive value. This, of course, admits of various understandings of mattering that, at one level, might track the objective naturalist, subjective naturalist, hybrid naturalist, and supernaturalist debate (see Section 3 below): matters to whom and according to what standard? Additionally, some find it difficult to separate personal and cosmic concerns over significance. Cosmic concerns, for many, are also intensely personal. If the universe as a whole lacks significance, some worry that their individual lives lack significance, or at least the kind that they think a deeply meaningful life requires.

b. The Word “Life”

Understanding what life’s meaning is all about is complicated, not just because of the expansive semantic range of “meaning,” but also because it is not immediately clear how we should understand the word “life” in the question. In asking for life’s meaning, we are not, at least most of us, asking for the meaning of the word “life.” Neither are we asking about how being alive is different from being non-living or how being organic is different from being inorganic. What then are we asking, and what is the scope of that request? Our question(s) about life’s meaning likely range over the following options:

Life1 = individual human life (meaning of my life)

Life2 = humanity as a whole (meaning of human existence )

Life3 = all biological life (meaning of all living organisms collectively )

Life4 = all of space-time existence (meaning of it all )

Life5 = rough marker for those aspects of human life that have a kind of existential gravitas and are of immense concern and the subject of intense questioning by human beings (see Section 2.e. below)

Each of these options for understanding “life” in the traditional formulation tracks possible interpretations of the question. The targets of our questions and concerns about meaning are varied in scope. We ask questions about our own, personal existence as well as questions about the entire show, and one might think that questions about personal meaning are connected to questions about cosmic meaning. Life5 provides a way of bringing important aspects of each together (see Section 2.e.)

c. The Definite Article

Another thorny issue for the traditional formulation is its incorporation of the definite article— the . It implies that there is only one meaning of life, which violates common inclinations that meaning is the sort of thing that varies from person to person. What makes one life meaningful is different from what makes another meaningful. One person might derive large doses of meaning from her career, another through gardening. For this reason, many are suspicious of the definite article.

There is good reason, though, to question this suspicion. First, it might reveal confusion about what meaning even is in the first place. Indeed, one of the aims of those working in the field is to clarify just what meaning is. Here, it is worth noting that many plausible theories of meaning have an objective component, indicating that not just anything goes for meaning. However, even if meaning were solely a matter of, say, being fulfilled, notice that the following two claims are still consistent: (1) the meaning of life is about being fulfilled and (2) sources of fulfillment are exceedingly diverse. Life’s meaning in this case is about being fulfilled (consistent across persons), but sources of fulfillment vary from person to person.

Second, one might also reasonably think that there is a single meaning of life at the cosmic level that itself is consistent with a rich variety of ways to lead a meaningful life (meaning in life at the terrestrial, personal level). Thinking through possibilities like this will connect with claims about what is true about the world, for example, whether there is a God with a plan for the cosmos and whether there is an overarching meaning to it all. In a case like this, there might be a single meaning of life, but the sense of meaning in which there is a single meaning could be different from the sense of meaning in which there are varied meanings. Regardless of the complexities here, the point is that one should not too quickly dismiss the definite article as contributing to intractable theoretical and practical problems for thinking about life’s meaning.

d. Meaning of Life vs. Meaning in Life

In what has become a standard distinction in the field, philosophers distinguish two ideas: the meaning of life (M of L) and meaning in life (M in L). Claims like the following are prevalent, “one can find meaning in her life, even if there is no grand, cosmic meaning of life.” M of L is more global or cosmic in scope, and often is intertwined with ideas like God, transcendence, religion, or a spiritual, sacred realm. In asking for life’s meaning, one is often asking for some sort of cosmic meaning, though she may also be asking for the meaning of her individual life from the perspective of the cosmos since many think the meaning of their individual lives is tied to whether or not there is a meaning of it all.

M in L is focused on personal meaning; the meaning of our individual lives as located in the web of human endeavors and relationships sub specie humanitatis —within the frame of human cares and concerns. Many think that we can legitimately talk about life having meaning in this sense regardless of what is true about the meaning of the universe as a whole.

One can see how the various sense of meaning discussed earlier in this entry intersect at both levels—M of L and M in L. For example, if sense-making is in view at the cosmic level, we might ask questions like the following: “What’s it all about?” or “How does it all fit together?” At the terrestrial, personal level, our sense-making questions might, rather, take the following shape: “What is my life about?” “How does my life fit together?” or “Is my life coherent?” If significance is in view at the cosmic level, we might ask, “Do our lives really matter in the grand scheme of things?” whereas terrestrially, personally, we might ask, “Does my life matter to me, my family, friends, or my community?”

e. What is the Meaning of x?

The locution, “What is the meaning of x ?” need not be understood narrowly as the request for something semantic, say, for a definition or description. There are additional non-linguistic contexts in which this request makes perfect sense (see Nozick 1981). Some of them even share striking similarities to the question of life’s meaning. One in particular is especially relevant.

Sometimes we are confronted with circumstances that we do not yet sufficiently understand, in which case we might naturally respond by asking, “What’s this all about?” or “What’s going on here?” or “What happened?” or “What’s happening?” or “What does this mean?” or “What is the meaning of this?” In asking such questions, we are in search of sense-making and intelligibility. We walk in on our children fighting and demand: “What is the meaning of this?” Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James come to find a stone rolled away from a Roman guarded tomb. The burial linens are there, but Jesus’ body is nowhere to be found. One can imagine them thinking, “What is the meaning of this?”

We naturally invoke the formula “What is the meaning of x ?” in situations where x is some fact, event, phenomena, or cluster of such things, and about which we want to know, in the words of New Testament scholar and theologian, N. T. Wright, its “implication in the wider world within which this notion makes the sense it makes” (Wright 2003: 719). Such requests track our desire to make sense of a situation, to render it intelligible with the further aim of acting appropriately in response—a kind of epistemic map to aid in practical, normative navigation.

Taking our cue from these ordinary examples, to inquire about life’s meaning is plausibly understood as asking something similar to our requests for the meaning of our children’s scuffle or of Jesus’ empty tomb. Over the course of our existence, we encounter aspects of the world that have a kind of existential gravitas in virtue of their role in defining and depicting the human condition. They capture our attention in a unique way. The word “life,” then, is a rough marker for these existentially-weighty aspects (Life5 in Section 2.b. above), aspects of life that give rise to profound questions for which we seek an explanatory framework (perhaps even a narrative framework) in order to make sense of them. These aspects of the world are akin to the portion of the scuffle and empty tomb above to which we already have limited informational access: yelling and throwing in the case of the scuffle, and the various pieces and clues observed at the empty tomb. Like the parent or Mary Magdalene in those situations, we lack important parts of life’s context, and we desire to fill in these existentially relevant gaps in our knowledge, and then live accordingly. We are in search of life’s meaning, where that meaning is, at center, a kind of overarching sense-making framework for answering and fitting together answers to our questions about origins, purpose, significance, value, suffering, and destiny.

f. Interpretive Strategies

I. the amalgam approach.

The currently favored strategy for interpreting the traditional formulation of the question— What is the meaning of life? —is the amalgam approach. On this pluralist view, the question is not thought to be a single question at all, but rather an amalgam of numerous other questions, most of which share family resemblances. The question is, on this view, simply a place-holder (some think ill-conceived) for these other questions and is, itself, not capable of being answered in this form. Though it has no answer in this form, other questions about purpose, significance, value, worth, origins, and destiny might. We at least know what we ask when we ask them, so the thought goes. Suspicion of the traditional formulation often accompanies the amalgam view since that formulation makes use of the definite article (“the”), the word “meaning,” and the word “life,” which together in the grammatical form in which they are found contribute to a thorny interpretive challenge. Perhaps the best strategy according to many proponents of the amalgam interpretation, is simply to jettison the traditional formulation and focus on trying to answer some among this other cluster of questions that collectively embody what we are concerned about when we inquire into life’s meaning.

ii. The Single Question Approach

Though the amalgam interpretation is the most popular view among those writing on life’s meaning within analytic philosophy, a few others have favored an approach that views the traditional formulation as a single question capable of being answered in that form (see Seachris 2009, 2019; Thomson 2003). A promising strategy here is to prioritize the sense-making connotation of meaning. On this version of the interpretive approach, asking about the meaning of life is first about seeking a sense-making explanation (perhaps even narrative explanation) for our questions and concerns about origins, purpose, significance, value, suffering, and destiny. Contrary to the amalgam interpretation, on this view, the question of life’s meaning is asking for a single thing —a sense-making explanation. It is, of course, an explanation squarely focused on all this other meaning of life “stuff.”  This explanation can be thought of as a worldview or metanarrative. This approach is an organic interpretive strategy that seeks a single answer (e.g., narrative explanation) that unifies or integrates answers to all the sub-questions that define and depict the human condition. It provides the conceptual resources to account for both M of L and M in L. The cosmic and the personal, the epistemic and the normative, and the theoretical and the practical are inseparable in our search for meaning. The sense-making framework that we seek links all of this as we pursue meaningful lives in light of our place within the grand scheme of it all.

This version of the single-question approach, with its emphasis on sense-making, is closely related to the concept of worldview. Worldviews provide answers to the existentially weighty set of questions that brings into relief the human condition. As philosopher Milton Munitz notes:

. . . [people] may say that what they are looking for [when asking the question of life’s meaning] is an account of the “big picture” with whose aid they would be able to see not only their own individual personal lives, but the lives of everybody else, indeed of everything of a finite or limited sort, human or not. . . . The expression of such a concern involves, at bottom, the appeal to a “worldview” or “world picture.” This undertakes to give a description of the most inclusive setting within which human life is situated . . . (Munitz 1993: 30).

To offer a worldview, then, is to offer a putative meaning of life—a sense-making framework focused squarely on the set of questions and concerns surrounding origins, purpose, significance, value, suffering, and destiny.

Looking back further into the origin of the worldview concept strengthens the connection between worldview and life’s meaning, and offers important clues that a worldview provides a kind of sense-making meaning. Nineteenth century German historian and philosopher, Wilhelm Dilthey, spoke of a worldview as a concept that “. . . constitutes an overall perspective on life that sums up what we know about the world, how we evaluate it emotionally, and how we respond to it volitionally.” Worldviews possess three distinct yet interrelated dimensions: cognitive, affective, and practical. They address both M of L and M in L. A worldview is motivated out of a desire to answer what he calls the “riddle of existence:”

The riddle of existence faces all ages of mankind with the same mysterious countenance; we catch sight of its features, but we must guess at the soul behind it. This riddle is always bound up organically with that of the world itself and with the question what I am supposed to do in this world, why I am in it, and how my life in it will end. Where did I come from? Why do I exist? What will become of me? This is the most general question of all questions and the one that most concerns me (Dilthey 1980: 81-82).

Dilthey’s cluster of questions that motivate worldview construction are those same questions to which we want answers in seeking life’s meaning. In this way, life’s meaning might just be a sense-making framework. It is not a stretch to say that life’s meaning is that which worldview’s aim to provide.

3. Theories of Meaning in Life

Beyond important preliminary discussions over the nature of the question itself and its constituent parts, one will find competing theories of meaning in life. Here, the debate is over the question of what makes a person’s life meaningful, not over the question of whether there is a cosmic meaning of it all (though, again, some think the two cannot be so easily disentangled). The four most influential views of meaning in life are: (1) Supernaturalism, (2) Objective Naturalism, (3) Subjective Naturalism, and (4) Hybrid Naturalism. (5) Nihilism is not a theory of meaning, rather, it is the denial of meaning, whether cosmic or personal. Objective, subjective, and hybrid naturalism are all optimistic forms of naturalism. They allow for the possibility of a meaningful existence in a world devoid of finite and infinite spiritual realities. Pessimistic naturalism, or what is commonly called “nihilism,” is generally, though not always, thought to be an implication of an entirely naturalistic ontology, though vigorous debate exits about whether naturalism entails nihilism.

a. Supernaturalism

Roughly, supernaturalism maintains that God’s existence, along with “appropriately relating” to God, is necessary and sufficient for securing a meaningful life, although accounts diverge on the specifics. Among countless others, historic representatives of supernaturalism in the Near-Eastern ancient world and in subsequent history include Qoheleth (the one called “Teacher” in the Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes), Jesus, the Apostle Paul, Augustine , Aquinas , Jonathan Edwards, Blaise Pascal, Leo Tolstoy, C. S. Lewis, and many contemporary analytic philosophers.

Meaningful life, on supernaturalism, consists of claims along metaphysical, epistemological, and relational-axiological axes. Metaphysically, meaningful life requires God’s existence because, for example, conditions that ground properties necessary for meaning like objective value are thought to be most plausibly anchored in a being like God (See Cottingham 2005; Craig 2008). It also requires, at some level orthodoxy (right belief) and orthopraxy (right life and practice), though again, much debate exists on the details. In addition to God’s existence, meaning in life requires that a person be appropriately related to God, perhaps as expressed in one’s beliefs and especially in one’s devotion, worship, and the quality of her life lived with and among others as, for example, embodied in Jesus’ statement of the greatest commandments (cf. Matt. 22:34-40).

Pascal captures the spirit of supernaturalism in this passage from the Pensées :

What else does this craving, and this helplessness, proclaim but that there was once in man a true happiness, of which all that now remains is the empty print and trace? This he tries in vain to fill with everything around him, seeking in things that are not there the help he cannot find in those that are, though none can help, since this infinite abyss can be filled only with an infinite and immutable object; in other words by God himself (Pascal 1995: 45).

As does St. Augustine at the beginning of his Confessions :

. . . you have made us for yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in you (St. Augustine 1963: 17).

It is worth noting that there are versions of supernaturalism that do not view God as necessary for meaningful life, but nonetheless claim that God and relating to God in appropriate ways would significantly enhance meaning in life. This more moderate form of supernaturalism allows for the possibility of meaningful life, in some measure, on naturalism (see Metz 2019 for a helpful taxonomy of the conceptual space here).

Supernaturalist views, whether stronger or more moderate, connect with questions and concerns about the problem of evil, post-mortem survival, and ultimate justice. It is often thought that a being like God is needed to “author and direct” the narrative of the universe, and, in some sense, the narratives of our individual lives to a good and blessed ending (involving both closure and teleological senses of ending, though not an absolute termination sense; see Seachris 2011). Many worry that, on naturalism, life does not make sense or is absurd (a kind of sense-making meaning; see Section 2.a.i. above) if there is no ultimate justice and redemption for the ills of this world, and if the last word is death and dissolution, followed by silence, forever .

b. Subjective Naturalism

Subjective naturalism is an optimistic naturalistic view in claiming that life can be robustly meaningful even if there is no God, after-life, or transcendent realm. In this, it is like objective and hybrid forms of naturalism. According to subjective naturalism, what constitutes a meaningful life varies from person to person, and is a function of one getting what one strongly wants or by achieving self-established goals or through accomplishing what one believes to be really important. Caring about or loving something deeply has been thought by some to confer meaning in life (see Frankfurt 1988). Some subjectivist views focus on affective states of a certain psychological profile, like fulfillment or satisfaction for example, as constituting the essence of meaningful life (see Taylor 1967). Subjectivism is appealing to some in light of perceived failures to ground objective value, either naturally, non-naturally, or supernaturally, and in accounting for the widespread view that meaning and fulfillment are closely connected.

A worry for subjective naturalism, analogous to ethical worries about moral relativism, is that this view is too permissive, allowing for bizarre or even immoral activities to ground meaning in life. Many protest that surely deep care and love, by themselves, are not sufficient to confer meaningfulness in life. What if someone claims to find meaning by measuring and re-measuring blades of grass or memorizing the entire catalogue of Netflix shows or, worse, torturing people for fun? Can a life centering on such pursuits be meaningful? A strong, widespread intuition here inclines many towards requiring a condition of objective value or worth on meaning. Subjectivism still has thoughtful defenders, though, with some proposals moving towards grounding value inter-subjectively—in community and its shared values—as opposed to in the individual exclusively. It is also worth noting that one could be a subjectivist about meaning while being an objectivist about morality . In this way, a fulfilled torturer might lead a meaningful, though immoral life. Meaning and morality, on this view, are distinct values that can, in principle, come into conflict.

c. Objective Naturalism

  Objective naturalism, like subjective naturalism, posits that a meaningful life is possible in a purely physical world devoid of finite and infinite spiritual realities. It differs, though, in what is required for meaning in life. Objective naturalists claim that a meaningful life is a function of appropriately connecting with mind-independent realities of objective worth ( contra subjectivism), and that are entirely natural ( contra supernaturalism). Theories differ on the nature of this connection. Some require mere orientation around objective value, while others require a stronger causal connection with good outcomes (see Smuts 2013). Again, objective naturalism is distinguished from subjective naturalism by its emphasis on mind-independent, objective value . One way of putting the point is to say that wanting or choosing is insufficient for a meaningful life. For example, choosing to spend one’s waking hours memorizing the inventory of one’s local Target store, even if this activity results in fulfillment, is likely insufficient for meaning on objective naturalism. Rather, meaning is a function of linking one’s life to objectively valuable, mind-independent conditions that are not themselves the sole products of what one wants and chooses. On objective naturalism it is possible to be wrong about what confers meaning on life—something is meaningful, at least partly, in virtue of its intrinsic nature, irrespective of what is believed about it. This is why spending salient portions of one’s life memorizing department store inventories is not meaningful on objective naturalism, even if the person strongly desires to do this.

One worry for objective naturalism is that it may have a harder time accounting for cases of neural atypicality, for example, a person with ASD who is deeply fulfilled by activities that seem to lack intrinsic value or worth. Does a person who is not a plumber and for whom pipes and interactions with pipes provide salient goals, a kind of coherence to his life, and enjoyable experiences fail to acquire meaning because it all largely revolves around a fascination with pipes ? Might subjectivist views better account for the lives of those among us whose interests and interactions with the world are strikingly different, and for whom such interests are the result of neural atypicality?

Critics of objective naturalism might also press the point that proponents of this view conflate meaning and morality or at least conflate important aspects of these two putatively different kinds of value. One value might be objectively shaped, whereas the other might not.

d. Hybrid Naturalism

Many researchers think that there is something right about both objectivist and subjectivist views, but that each on its own is incomplete. Susan Wolf has developed what has come to be one of the more influential theories of meaning in life over the last decade or so, the fitting-fulfillment view. Her view includes both objective and subjective conditions, and is captured by the slogan, “Meaning arises when subjective attraction meets objective attractiveness” (Wolf 1997: 211). Meaning is not present in a life spent believing in, being fulfilled by, or caring about worthless projects, but neither is it present in a life spent engaging in worthwhile, objectively valuable projects without also believing in, being fulfilled by, or caring about them. Many think hybridist views capture what is best about objectivism and subjectivism while avoiding the pitfalls of each.

In their naturalistic forms, such theories of meaning are inconsistent with supernaturalism. However, one can imagine supernaturalist forms of each of these views. One might be a supernaturalist who thinks that meaning wholly or largely consists in subjective fulfillment in the Divine —a kind of subjectivism, or that meaning consists in orientation around objective value, again grounded in the Divine —a kind of objectivism. One could also formulate distinctly supernaturalist hybrid views.

e. Pessimistic Naturalism: Nihilism

In opposition to all optimistic views about the possibility of meaningful life, is pessimistic naturalism , more commonly called nihilism . Roughly, nihilism is the view that denies that a meaningful life is possible because, literally, nothing has any value. Nihilism may be understood as a combination of theses and assumptions drawn from both supernaturalism and naturalism: (i) God or some supernatural realm is likely necessary for value and a meaningful life, but (ii) no such entity or realm exists, and therefore (3) nothing is ultimately of  value and there is, therefore, no meaning. Other forms of nihilism focus on states like boredom or dissatisfaction, arguing that boredom sufficiently characterizes life so as to make it meaningless, or that human lives lack the requisite amount of satisfaction to confer meaning upon them.

f. Structural Contours of Meaning in Life

If meaning is a distinct kind of value that a life can have, and if the three senses of meaning above (see Section 2.a. above) capture the range of ideas encompassed by meaning, then these ideas can help illumine the conceptual shape of meaning in life. Each of the ordinary senses of “meaning” provides strategies for conceptualizing the broad structural contours of meaningful life.

Sense-making: An intelligible life; one that makes sense (broad sense-making), that fits together properly, and exhibits a kind of coherence (for example, relationally, vocationally, morally, spiritually, and so on), perhaps even narrative coherence.

Purpose: A life saliently oriented around purposes, goals, and aims, and lived on purpose in which the person’s autonomy is sufficiently engaged.

Significance: A life that matters (and has positive value)—intrinsically in virtue of the kind of life that it is and extrinsically in virtue of its implications and impacts, especially within the narrow (e.g., familial) and broad (e.g., cultural) relational webs of which the person is a part.

Though one can view these as largely different ways of thinking about what a meaningful life is, one might think that there is a more organic relationship between them. Here is one strategy through which all three senses of meaning might coalesce and bring into relief the full structural contours of meaningful life in a unified way:

Meaningful Life = A life that makes sense, that fits together properly ( sense-making ) in virtue of appropriate orientation around goals ( purpose ), other (atelic) activities (see Setiya 2017), and relationships that matter and have positive value ( significance ).

Philosophers may want to follow social scientists here in thinking more about this tripartite conception of meaning. Psychologists, for example, are increasingly using similar accounts in experimental design and testing. One prominent psychologist working in the area of meaning proposes a definition of meaning in life that incorporates a similar triad that prioritizes sense-making:

Meaning is the web of connections, understandings, and interpretations that help us comprehend our experience and formulate plans directing our energies to the achievement of our desired future. Meaning provides us with the sense that our lives matter, that they make sense, and that they are more than the sum of our seconds, days, and years (Steger 2012: 165).

4. Death, Futility, and a Meaningful Life

Life’s meaning is closely linked with a cluster of related issues including death, futility, and endings in general. These are important themes in the literature on meaning, and are found in a wide array of sources ranging from the Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes to Tolstoy to Camus to contemporary analytic writing on the topic. Worries that death, as conceived on naturalism, threatens meaning lead into discussions about futility. It is a commonly held view that life is futile if all we are and do eventually comes to nothing. If naturalism is true and death is the end . . . period . . . then life is futile, so the argument goes. Left undeveloped, it is not entirely clear what people mean by this, though the sentiment behind the idea is intense and prevalent.

In order to explore the worry further, it is important to get clearer on what is meant by futility . In ordinary cases, something is futile when the accomplishment or fulfillment of what is aimed at or desired is impossible . Examples of futility include:

It is futile for a human being to try to both exist and not exist at the same time and in the same sense.

It is futile to try and jump to Mars.

It is futile to try and write an entire, 300-page novel, from start to finish, in one hour.

On the preceding account of futility, the existential angst that accompanies some instance of futility is proportional to how one feels about what it is that is futile. The extent to which one is invested—for example, emotionally and relationally—in attempting to reach some desired end will affect how she responds to real or perceived futility (“perceived” because one could be wrong about whether or not something is, in fact, futile). Imagine that a person has a curiosity to experience flying as a falcon flies. It would be futile to attempt to fly as a falcon flies . Though this person might be minimally distressed as a result of not being able to experience this, it is doubtful he would experience soul-crushing angst. Contrast this with a situation where one has trained for years to run an ironman triathlon, but one week prior to the event, she is paralyzed from the neck down in a tragic automobile accident. To now try and compete in the triathlon without mechanical assistance would be futile. Given the importance of this goal in the person’s life, she would appropriately feel significant existential angst at not being able to compete. Years of training would be unrewarded. Deep hopes would be dashed. A central life goal is now forever unfulfilled. The level of existential angst accompanying futility, then, is proportional to the level of one’s investment in some desired end and the relative desirability of that end.

The preceding analysis is relevant to futility and life’s meaning. What might people have in mind when they say that life itself is futile if naturalism is true and death is the last word of our lives and the universe? The discrepancy here from which a sense of futility emerges is between central longings of the human heart and a world devoid of God and an afterlife, which is a world incapable of fulfilling such longings. There is a stark incongruity between what we really want (even what we might say we need ) and a completely and utterly silent universe that does not care. There is also a discrepancy between the final state of affairs where quite literally nothing matters, and the current state of affairs where many things seem to matter (e.g., relationships, personal and cultural achievements, and scientific advancements, among others). It seems hard to fathom that things with such existential gravitas are but a vapor in the grand scheme of things. We might also call this absurd , since absurdity and futility are connected, both of which are partly encapsulated in the idea of a profound incongruity or lack of fit.

Futility, in this way, connects to hope and expectations about fulfillment and longevity. In some circumstances, we are inclined to think that something is characterized by futility if it does not last as long as we think it should last given the kind of thing that it is. If you spend half a day building a snow fort and your children destroy it in five minutes, you will be inclined to think that your efforts were futile even though you accomplished your goal of building the fort. You will not, however, think your efforts were futile if the fort lasts a few days and provides you and your children with several fun adventures and a classic snowball fight. It needs to last long enough to serve its purpose .

Some say that an average human lifetime with average human experiences is sufficient to satiate core human longings and for us to accomplish central purposes (see Trisel 2004). Others, however, think that only eternity is long enough to do justice to those aspects of the human condition of superlative value, primarily and especially, happiness and love, the latter understood roughly as commitment to the true good or well-being of another. Some things are of such sublime character that for them to be extinguished, even after eons upon eons, is truly tragic, so the thinking goes. Anything less than forever is less than enough time, and leads to a sense of futility. We want the most important things in life—especially happiness, love and relationships— to last indefinitely . But if naturalism is true, all will be dissolved in the death of ourselves and the universe; it will be as if none of this ever happened. If the important stuff of life that we are so invested in lasts only a short while, many worry that life itself is deeply and ultimately futile.

Futility, then, is sometimes linked with how something ends. With life’s meaning in view, many worry that its meaning is jeopardized if, in the end, all comes indelibly to naught. Such worries have been articulated in what some call Final Outcome Arguments (see Wielenberg 2006). A final outcome argument is one whose conclusion is that life is somewhat or wholly meaningless or absurd or futile because of a “bad” ending. Such arguments can have weaker and stronger conclusions, ranging from a “bad” ending only slightly mitigating meaning all the way to completely destroying meaning. What they all have in common, however, is that they give the ending an important say in evaluating life’s meaning.

Why think that endings have such power? Many have argued that giving them this power arbitrarily privileges the future over the past. Thomas Nagel once said that “. . . it does not matter now that in a million years nothing we do now will matter” (Nagel 1971: 716). Why should we think the future is more important than, or relevant at all to the past and the present? But perhaps Nagel is mistaken. There may, in fact, be good reasons to think that how life ends is relevant for evaluating its meaning (see Seachris 2011). Whichever conclusion one adopts, principled reasons must be offered to settle the question of which viewpoint—the distant future or the immediate present —takes priority in appraisals of life’s meaning.

5. Underinvestigated Areas

Within value theory, an under-investigated area is how meaning fits within the overall normative landscape. How is it connected, if at all, with ethical, aesthetic, and eudaimonistic value, for example? What sorts of relationships, conceptual, causal or otherwise, exist between the various values? Do some reduce to others? Can profoundly unethical lives still count as meaningful? What about profoundly unhappy lives? These and other questions are on the table as a growing number of researchers investigate them.

Another area in need of increased attention is the relationship between meaning and suffering. Suffering intersects with our attempts to make sense of our lives in this universe, motivates our questions about why we are here, and gives rise to our concerns about whether or not we ultimately matter. We wonder if there is an intelligible, existentially satisfying narrative in which to locate—make sense of—our visceral experience of suffering, and to give us solace and hope. Evil in a meaningful universe does not cease from being evil, but it can be more bearable within these hospitable conditions. Perhaps the problem of meaning is more fundamental than the problem of evil. Also relevant is what can be called the eschatological dimension of the problem of evil—is there any hope in the face of pain, suffering, and death, and if so, in what does this hope consist? Addressing future-oriented considerations of suffering will naturally link to perennial meaning of life topics like death and futility. Additionally, it will motivate further discussion over whether the inherent human desire for a felicitous ending to life’s narrative, including, for example, post-mortem survival and enjoyment of the beatific vision or some other blessed state is mere wishful thinking or a cousin to our desire for water, and thus, a truly natural desire that points to an object capable of fulfilling it.

Equally under-investigated is how the concept of narrative (and meta-narrative ) might shed light on the meaning of life, and especially what talk of life’s meaning is often all about. Historically, most of the satisfying narratives that in some way narrated the meaning of life were also religious or quasi-religious. Additionally, many of these narratives count as narratives in the paradigmatic sense as opposed to non-narrative modes of discourse. However, with the rise of naturalism in the West, these narratives and the religious or quasi-religious worldviews embedded within them, began to lose traction in certain sectors. Out of this milieu emerged more angst-laden questioning of life’s meaning accompanied by the fear that a naturalistic meta-narrative of the universe fails to be existentially satisfying. More work is needed by cognitive scientists, theologians, and philosophers on our narrative proclivities as human beings, and how these proclivities shape and illumine our pursuit of meaning.

Finally, a number of pressing practical and ethical questions, especially focusing on marginalized populations, deserve more careful attention. For example, how might the actual lives and experiences of persons with disabilities inform and constrain theories of meaning in life? Do their lives call into question certain theories of meaning? What does the practice of solitary confinement reveal about the human need of meaning? Does the profound lack of meaning in such circumstances provide a reason to impose stricter limitations on its use? How might the human need for meaning (see Bettelhiem 1978; Frankl 2006) be leveraged to understand and then address systemic societal issues like homelessness and opioid addiction? How can understanding seemingly pathological expressions of our yearning for meaning help make sense of and respond to nationalism and terrorism?

Analytic philosophy, once deeply skeptical of and indifferent to the meaning of life, is now the source of important and interesting new theorization on the topic. There is even something of a subfield emerging, consisting of researchers devoting significant time and energy to understanding conceptual and practical aspects of life’s meaning. The topic is being approached with an analytic rigor that is leading to progress and opening exciting avenues for promising new breakthroughs. The philosophical waters, though still murky, are clearing.

6. References and Further Reading

• Adams, E. M. “The Meaning of Life.” International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 51 (April 2002): 71-81.
• Antony, Louise M., ed. Philosophers Without Gods: Meditations on Atheism and the Secular Life. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.
• Audi, Robert. “Intrinsic Value and Meaningful Life.” Philosophical Papers 34 (2005): 331-55.
• Augustine. The Confessions of St. Augustine. Trans. by Rex Warner. New York: Mentor, 1963.
• Baggini, Julian. What’s It All About? Philosophy & the Meaning Of Life. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004.
• Baumeister, Roy F. Meanings of Life. New York: The Guilford Press, 1991.
• Baumeister, Roy F., Kathleen D. Vohs, Jennifer Aaker, and Emily N. Garbinsky. “Some Key Difference between a Happy Life and a Meaningful Life.” Journal of Positive Psychology 8:6 (2013): 505-516.
• Benatar, David. Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming into Existence. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.
• Benatar, David. The Human Predicament: A Candid Guide to Life’s Biggest Questions. New York: Oxford University Press, 2017.
• Benatar, David, ed. Life, Death & Meaning: Key Philosophical Readings on the Big Questions. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2004.
• Berger, Peter. The Sacred Canopy. New York: Doubleday, 1967.
• Bernstein, J. M. “Grand Narratives.” in Paul Ricouer: Narrative and Interpretation, ed. David Wood, 102-23. London: Routledge, 1991.
• Bettelheim, Bruno. The Uses of Enchantment. New York: Knopf, 1978.
• Bielskis, Andrius. Existence, Meaning, Excellence: Aristotelian Reflections on the Meaning of Life. London: Routledge, 2017.
• Blessing, Kimberly A. “Atheism and the Meaningfulness of Life.” in The Oxford Handbook of Atheism. New York: Oxford University Press, 2013: 104-118.
• Bortolotti, Lisa, ed. Philosophy and Happiness. Hampshire, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009.
• Bradley, Ben. “Existential Terror.” Journal of Ethics 19 (2015): 409-18.
• Britton, Karl. Philosophy and the Meaning of Life. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969.
• Calhoun, Cheshire. “Geographies of Meaningful Living.” Journal of Applied Philosophy 32:1 (2015): 15-34.
• Campbell, Stephen M., and Sven Nyholm. “Anti-Meaning and Why It Matters.” Journal of the American Philosophical Association 1:4 (Winter 2015): 694-711.
• Camus, Albert. The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays. Translated by Justin O’Brien. New York: Vintage International, 1983.
• Chappell, Timothy. “Infinity Goes Up On Trial: Must Immortality Be Meaningless?” European Journal of Philosophy 17 (March 2009): 30-44.
• Cottingham, John. On the Meaning of Life. London: Routledge, 2003.
• Cottingham, John. The Spiritual Dimension: Religion, Philosophy and Human Value. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.
• Craig, William Lane. “The Absurdity of Life Without God.” in Reasonable Faith: Christian Truth and Apologetics, 3rd Ed., 65-90. Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2008.
• Crane, Tim. The Meaning of Belief: Religion from an Atheist’s Point of View. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2017.
• Davis, William H. “The Meaning of Life.” Metaphilosophy 18 (July/October 1987): 288-305.
• Dilthey, Wilhelm. Gesammelte Schriften, 8:208-9, quoted by Theodore Plantinga, Historical Understanding in the Thought of Willhelm Dilthey. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1980.
• Eagleton, Terry. The Meaning of Life. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.
• The Book of Ecclesiastes.
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• Edwards, Paul. “Why.” in The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Vols. 7 & 8, ed. Paul Edwards, 296-302. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1972.
• Flew, Antony. “Tolstoi and the Meaning of Life.” Ethics 73 (January 1963): 110-18.
• Fischer, John Martin. “Free Will, Death, and Immortality: The Role of Narrative.” Philosophical Papers 34 (November 2005): 379-403.
• Fischer, John Martin. “Recent Work on Death and the Meaning of Life.” Philosophical Books 34 (April 1993): 65-74.
• Fischer, John Martin. “Why Immortality is Not So Bad.” International Journal of Philosophical Studies 2 (September 1994): 257-70.
• Flanagan, Owen. The Really Hard Problem: Meaning in a Material World. Cambridge, MA: MIT, 2007.
• Ford, David. The Search for Meaning: A Short History. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2007.
• Frankfurt, Harry. The Importance of What We Care About. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988.
• Frankl, Viktor. Man’s Search for Meaning. Boston: Beacon Press, 2006.
• Friend, David, and the Editors of LIFE. More Reflections on The Meaning of Life. Boston: Little Brown and Company, 1992.
• Froese, Paul. On Purpose: How We Create the Meaning of Life. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016.
• Gillespie, Ryan. “Cosmic Meaning, Awe, and Absurdity in the Secular Age: A Critique of Religious Non-Theism.” Harvard Theological Review 111:4 (2018): 461-487.
• Goetz, Stewart. The Purpose of Life: A Theistic Perspective. London: Continuum, 2012.
• Goetz, Stewart, and Joshua W. Seachris. What is This Thing Called The Meaning of Life? New York: Routledge, 2020.
• Goldman, Alan H. Life’s Values: Pleasure, Happiness, Well-Being, & Meaning. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018.
• Goodenough, Ursula W. “The Religious Dimensions of the Biological Narrative.” Zygon 29 (December 1994): 603-18.
• Gordon, Jeffrey. “Is the Existence of God Relevant to the Meaning of Life?” Modern Schoolman 60 (May 1983): 227-46.
• Gordon, Jeffrey. “Nagel or Camus on the Absurd?” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 45 (September 1984): 15-28.
• Haldane, John. Seeking Meaning and Making Sense. Exeter, UK: Imprint Academic, 2008.
• Hamilton, Christopher. Living Philosophy: Reflections on Life, Meaning and Morality. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2009.
• Haught, John F. Is Nature Enough? Meaning and Truth in the Age of Science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006.
• Hepburn, R. W. “Questions about the Meaning of Life.” Religious Studies 1 (April 1966): 125-40.
• Himmelmann, Beatrix, ed. On Meaning in Life. Boston: De Gruyter, 2013.
• Holland, Alan. “Darwin and the Meaning of Life.” Environmental Values 18:4 (2009): 503-518.
• Holley, David M. Meaning and Mystery: What it Means to Believe in God. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010.
• Kahane, Guy. “Our Cosmic Insignificance,” Noûs (2013): 1-28.
• Karlsson, Niklas, George Loewenstein, and Jane McCafferty. “The Economics of Meaning.” Nordic Journal of Political Economy 30:1: 61-75.
• Kauppinen, Antti. “Meaningfulness and Time.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 84 (2012): 345-77.
• Kekes, John. “The Meaning of Life.” Midwest Studies in Philosophy 24 (2000): 17-34.
• Kekes, John. The Human Condition. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010.
• King, Laura A., Samantha J. Heintzelman, and Sarah J. Ward, “Beyond the Search for Meaning: A Contemporary Science of the Experience of Meaning in Life,” Current Directions in Psychological Science, 25:4 (2016): 211-216.
• Klemke, E. D., and Steven M. Cahn, eds. The Meaning of Life. 4th edn. New York: Oxford University Press, 2017.
• Kraay, Klaas J. Does God Matter? Essays on the Axiological Consequences of Theism. New York: Routledge, 2018.
• Lacey, Alen. “The Meaning of Life,” in The Oxford Companion to Philosophy, 2nd ed., ed. Ted Honderich. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.
• Landau, Iddo. Finding Meaning in an Imperfect World. New York: Oxford University Press, 2017.
• Landau, Iddo. “Life, Meaning of” in The International Encyclopedia of Ethics. Wiley-Blackwell, 2013: 3043-3047.
• Landau, Iddo. “The Meaning of Life Sub Specie Aeternitatis.” Australasian Journal of Philosophy 89:4 (2011): 727-734.
• Law, Stephen. “The Meaning of Life.” Think 11 (2012): 25-38.
• Leach, Stephen, and James Tartaglia, eds. The Meaning of Life and the Great Philosophers. London: Routledge, 2018.
• Levine, Michael. “What Does Death Have to Do with the Meaning of Life?” Religious Studies 23(1987): 457-65.
• Levy, Neil. “Downshifting and Meaning in Life.” Ratio 18 (June 2005): 176-89.
• Lewis, C. S. “De Futilitate.” in Christian Reflections. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1995.
• Lewis, C. S. “On Living in an Atomic Age,” in Present Concerns. San Diego: Harcourt, Inc., 1986.
• Luper-Foy, Stephen. “The Absurdity of Life.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 52 (1992): 85-101.
• Lurie, Yuval. Tracking the Meaning of Life: A Philosophical Journey. Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press, 2006.
• MacIntyre, Alasdair. After Virtue, 3rd Edn. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2007.
• Makkreel, Rudolf A. “Dilthey, Wilhelm,” in The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, ed. Robert Audi. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001.
• Markus, Arjan. “Assessing Views of Life: A Subjective Affair?” Religious Studies 39 (2003): 125-43.
• Martela, Frank, and Michael F. Steger, “The Three Meanings of Meaning in Life: Distinguishing Coherence, Purpose, and Significance,” The Journal of Positive Psychology, 11:5 (2016): 531-45.
• Martin, Michael. Atheism, Morality, and Meaning. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2002.
• Mawson, Timothy. God and the Meanings of Life: What God Could and Couldn’t do to Make Our Lives More Meaningful. London: Bloomsbury, 2016.
• Mawson, Timothy. “Recent Work on the Meaning of Life and Philosophy of Religion.” Philosophy Compass 8 (2013): 1138-1146.
• Mawson, Timothy. “Sources of Dissatisfaction with Answers to the Question of the Meaning of Life.” European Journal for Philosophy of Religion 2 (Autumn 2010): 19-41.
• May, Todd. A Significant Life: Human Meaning in a Silent Universe. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016.
• McDermott, John J. “Why Bother: Is Life Worth Living?” The Journal of Philosophy 88 (November 1991): 677-83.
• McGrath, Alister E. Surprised by Meaning. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2011.
• Metz, Thaddeus. “The Concept of a Meaningful Life.” American Philosophical Quarterly 38 (April 2001): 137-53.
• Metz. Thaddeus. “Could God’s Purpose be the Source of Life’s Meaning?” Religious Studies 36 (2000): 293-313.
• Metz, Thaddeus. “God’s Purpose as Irrelevant to Life’s Meaning: Reply to Affolter.” Religious Studies 43 (December 2007): 457-64.
• Metz, Thaddeus. God, Soul and the Meaning of Life (Elements in the Philosophy of Religion). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019.
• Metz, Thaddeus. “The Immortality Requirement for Life’s Meaning.” Ratio 16 (June 2003): 161-77.
• Metz, Thaddeus. Meaning in Life. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016.
• Metz, Thaddeus. “The Meaning of Life,” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2007 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.).
• Metz, Thaddeus. “New Developments in the Meaning of Life.” Philosophy Compass 2 (2007): 196-217.
• Metz, Thaddeus. “Recent Work on the Meaning of Life,” Ethics 112 (July 2002): 781-814.
• Metz, Thaddeus. “Utilitarianism and the Meaning of Life.” Utilitas 15 (March 2003): 50-70.
• Morris, Thomas V. Making Sense of It All: Pascal and the Meaning of Life (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2002.
• Moser, Paul K. “Divine Hiddenness, Death, and Meaning,” in Philosophy of Religion: Classic and Contemporary Issues, ed. Paul Copan and Chad Meister, 215-27. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 2008.
• Munitz, Milton K. Does Life Have A Meaning? Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books, 1993.
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• Nagel, Thomas. Secular Philosophy and the Religious Temperament: Essays 2002-2008. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010.
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• Oliva, Mirela. “Hermeneutics and the Meaning of Life.” Epoché 22:2 (Spring 2018): 523-39.
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• Rosenberg, Alex, and Tamler Sommers. “Darwin’s Nihilistic Idea.” Biology and Philosophy 18 (2003): 653-68.
• Ruse, Michael. A Meaning to Life. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019.
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Joshua Seachris Email: [email protected] University of Notre Dame U. S. A.

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Question of the Month

What is life, the following answers to this fundamental question each win a random book..

Life is the aspect of existence that processes, acts, reacts, evaluates, and evolves through growth (reproduction and metabolism). The crucial difference between life and non-life (or non-living things) is that life uses energy for physical and conscious development. Life is anything that grows and eventually dies, i.e., ceases to proliferate and be cognizant. Can we say that viruses, for example, are cognizant? Yes, insofar as they react to stimuli; but they are alive essentially because they reproduce and grow. Computers are non-living because even though they can cognize, they do not develop biologically (grow), and cannot produce offspring. It is not cognition that determines life, then: it is rather proliferation and maturation towards a state of death; and death occurs only to living substances.

Or is the question, ‘What is the meaning (purpose) of life?’ That’s a real tough one. But I think that the meaning of life is the ideals we impose upon it, what we demand of it. I’ve come to reaffirm my Boy Scout motto, give or take a few words, that the meaning of life is to: Do good, Be Good, but also to Receive Good. The foggy term in this advice, of course, is ‘good’; but I leave that to the intuitive powers that we all share.

There are, of course, many intuitively clear examples of Doing Good: by retrieving a crying baby from a dumpster; by trying to rescue someone who’s drowning. Most of us would avoid murdering; and most of us would refrain from other acts we find intuitively wrong. So our natural intuitions determine the meaning of life for us; and it seems for other species as well, for those intuitions resonate through much of life and give it its purpose.

Tom Baranski, Somerset, New Jersey

The ceramic artist Edmund de Waal places an object in front of him and begins to tell a story. Even if the patina, chips and signs of repair of the inanimate object hint at its history, the story is told by a living observer. A living thing is an object that contains its story within itself. Life’s story is held in the genome, based in DNA. Maybe other ways for memorising the story may be discovered, but in environments subject to common chemical processes, common methods are likely to emerge.

Although we have only the example of the Earth, it shows that life will evolve to fill every usable niche, and to secure and further diversify those niches. This should not be thought of as purposeful. Life embodies a ‘plan’, but one that does not specify ends, only methods acquired iteratively. Inanimate processes can be cyclic but not iterative: they do not learn from past mistakes.

Life exists at many levels. Life is also a process through which energy and materials are transformed; but so is non-life. The difference is that the process of life is intimately linked to story it contains, whereas non-life is indifferent to the story we impose upon it. Yet life is only a story, so it can act only through matter. Therefore life is by nature a toolmaker. Its tools are potentially everything that exists, and its workshop is potentially the whole universe. So why do humans risk undermining the life of which they are part? Because they try to impose upon it a story of their own making. Yet humans, the ‘tool-making animals’, are themselves tools of life, in an unplanned experiment.

Nicholas Taylor, Little Sandhurst, Berkshire

First the technical definition. Life is self-organising chemistry which reproduces itself and passes on its evolved characteristics, encoded in DNA. In thermodynamics terms, it has the ability to reduce local entropy or disorganisation, thus locally contravening the third law of thermodynamics.

But what is life really about , if anything? The two possibilities are, life is either a meaningless accident arising from the laws of physics operating in a meaningless universe, or it is a step in a planned ‘experiment’. I say ‘step’, because this cannot be the end. The current state of life is as yet too unstable and undeveloped for it to be the end. And I say ‘experiment’ because the evolutionary nature of life suggests that its future is not known. If therefore the universe itself has a purpose, it seems most likely to be to explore what the outcome of the evolutionary experiment would be.

But what will be the outcome? If, as many physicists now believe, the universe is only information, then harnessing all the resources of the universe in one giant evolutionary process could plausibly provide a useful outcome for a species clever enough to create the universe in the first place. On this interpretation, life will ultimately organise all the physical resources of the universe into a single self-conscious intelligence, which in turn will then be able to interact with its creator(s).

Dr Harry Fuchs, Flecknoe, Warwickshire

Life is the embodiment of selfishness! Life is selfish because it is for itself in two ways: it is for its own survival, and it is for its own reproduction. This desire is embodied in an adaptive autocatalytic chemical system, forming life’s embodied mind.

Anything that is not itself is the other; and the collection of others constitute its environment. The organism must destructively use the other to satisfy its reproductive desire, but on achieving this, it produces an additional other – but now one that also embodies its own selfish aim and the means to satisfy this aim. Therefore, even by an organism satisfying its desire, it makes the continuing satisfaction of its desires ever more difficult to achieve. A partial solution to this dilemma is for genetically-related entities to form a cooperating society.

The underlying mechanism of evolution is therefore the iteration of the embodied desire within an ever more complex competitive and social environment. Over vast numbers of iterations, this process forces some life-forms along a pathway that solves the desire for survival and reproduction by developing ever more complex and adaptable minds. This is achieved by supplementing their underlying cellular embodied chemistry with a specialist organ (although still based on chemistry) that we call its brain, able to rapidly process electrical signals. Advanced minds can collect and process vast inputs of data by ‘projecting’ the derived output back onto its environmental source, that is by acting. However advanced it might be, an organism is still driven by the same basic needs for survival and reproduction. The creative process, however, leads the organism towards an increasingly aesthetic experience of the world. This is why for us the world we experience is both rich and beautiful.

Dr Steve Brewer, St Ives, Cornwall

In our scientific age, we look to the biologists to define ‘life’ for us. After all, it is their subject matter. I believe they have yet to reach consensus, but a biological definition would be something like, ‘Life is an arrangement of molecules with qualities of self-sustenance and self-replication’. This kind of definition might serve the purposes of biologists, but for me, it has five deficiencies. First, any definition of life by biologists would have little utility outside biology because of its necessary inclusiveness. We humans would find ourselves in a class of beings that included the amoeba. ‘Life’ would be the limited common properties of all organisms, including the lowest. Second, the scientific definition of life is necessarily an external one. I think that knowing what life is, as opposed to defining it, requires knowing it from within. Non-sentient organisms live, but they do not know life. Third, in the scientific definition, there is no place for life having value. However, many would say that life has value in its own right – that it is not simply that we humans value life and so give it value, but that it has value intrinsically. Fourth, there is the question of life as a whole having a purpose or goal. This notion is not scientific, but one wonders if the tools of science are fit to detect any evolutionary purpose, if there is one. Fifth, for the scientists, life is a set of biological conditions and processes. However, everywhere and always, people have conceived of a life after biological death, a life of spirit not necessarily dependent on the physical for existence.

The scientific definition of life is valid in its context, but otherwise I find it impoverished. I believe there is a hierarchy of living beings from the non-sentient, to the sentient, to humans, and perhaps up to God. When I ask, ‘What is life? I want to know what life is at its highest form. I believe life at its best is spirit: it is active, sentient, feeling, thinking, purposive, valuing, social, other-respecting, relating, and caring.

John Talley, Rutherfordton, NC

I listen enthralled to scientific debate on what, how, when and where life was created. However, questions remain which may never be resolved. In this vacuum, philosophers and religious thinkers have attempted to give meaning to life by suggesting goals: Plato suggested the acquisition of knowledge, Aristotle to practice virtue, and the Stoics, mental fortitude and self-control. Today’s philosophers echo the existentialist view that life is full of absurdity, although they also tell us that we must put meaning into life by making our own values in an indifferent world. But if life is just a journey from womb to tomb, will such ‘meaning’ be sufficient to allow the traveller at journey’s end to feel that it was worthwhile?

Perhaps the hypothesis upon which Ivan Tyrrell and Joe Griffin have based their therapy could help (see Human Givens , 2003). They describe that we are born with evolved needs that seek satisfaction from our environment. These are physical and emotional needs, which, when enough of them are met, ensure the health of the individual, maximising his or her ability to achieve meaning in life. Griffin and Tyrrell have proven empirically that when sufficient needs are met an individual will enjoy mental and physical health, unless there is damage or toxicity in the environment. Some of these needs were identified by Maslow in his ‘Hierarchy of Needs’ in his 1943 paper ‘A Theory of Human Motivation’, Psychological Review , 50 (4), but Griffin and Tyrrell focus more clearly on emotional needs such as:

• To achieve, and to feel competent

• To fulfil our sense of autonomy and control

• To be emotionally connected to other people and part of a larger community

• To have a sense of status within social groupings

• For privacy and rest, to reflect and consolidate learning

• And yes – to have meaning in one’s life

Meaning becomes difficult, if not impossible, to achieve if these needs are insufficiently satisfied. Unfortunately, modern society seeks meaning to life through materialism, to the detriment of our biological needs, leading to dissatisfaction and a consequent inability to find meaning. The result is an exponential increase in mental ill-health. Sadly, then, many of us will not experience the satisfaction of a meaningful life journey.

Caryl A. Fuchs, Flecknoe, Warwickshire

Life is the eternal and unbroken flow of infinite rippling simultaneous events that by a fortuitous chain has led to this universe of elements we are all suspended in, that has somehow led to this present experience of sentient existence. Animal life (excluding that of humans) shows that life is a simple matter of being, by means of a modest routine of eating, sleeping and reproducing. Animals balance their days between these necessities, doing only what their bodies ask of them. The life of vegetation is not far from that of animals. They eat and sleep and reproduce in their own way, for the same result. So life is a beautiful and naturally harmonious borrowing of energy.

Yet we have taken it for granted. We have lost the power to simply be happy eating, sleeping, reproducing, believing we need a reason to be alive, a purpose and a goal to reach, so that on our deathbeds (something we have been made to fear) we can look back and tell ourselves we have done something with our lives. Life has lost its purpose because we have tried to give it one. The truth is that we are no more significant than the sand by the sea or the clouds in the sky. No more significant. But as significant.

No matter what your race, religion or gender, when you first step outside your door in the morning and feel the fresh air in your lungs and the morning sun on your face, you close your eyes and smile. In that moment you are feeling life as it should be. No defining, no understanding, no thinking. Just that feeling of pure bliss. For that is what life is.

Courtney Walsh, Farnborough, Hampshire

Of all Webster’s definitions of ‘life’, the one for me that best covers it is, “the sequence of physical and mental experiences that make up the existence of an individual.” Indeed, life is a continuum of accomplishment, failure, discovery, dilemma, challenge, boredom, sadness, disappointment, appreciation, the giving and receipt of grace, empathy, peace, and our reactions to all sorts of stimuli – touch, love, friendship, loss… One can either merely exist or try to achieve, working through the difficult times, perhaps learning a thing or two. Everyone has a story. I’ve been surprised when learning something new about an acquaintance or friend that must have been very difficult to manage or survive; but there they are in front of me. It’s how you come out on the other side of those challenging times that is important. How you land, get on with it, and keep on truckin’.

Life cannot be planned: there’s fate, and there’s simple bad luck. Failure can bring crushing disappointment, or you can try and make a new plan. A person can waste an inordinate amount of time mourning what they don’t have, or plans that don’t work out. But who wants to waste that much time regretting?

Life has happy surprises, small moments to cherish. It’s a matter of weighing the good and bad times – the challenge is to balance both, ending up with a life looked back on that was worth the mighty effort. I’m not meaning to sound like a Pollyanna – I assure you I’m not – it’s just more pleasant to strive for a modicum of equilibrium. If I can manage that, I’m good.

Cheryl Anderson, Kenilworth, Illinois

“Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player, That struts and frets his hour upon the stage And then is heard no more. It is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.” ( Macbeth , Act V, Scene V)

These words of Shakespeare’s Macbeth summarize interesting ideas about the nature of life. The first line expresses two of the three marks of existence as per Buddhist thinking, Anicca , impermanence, and Anatta , non-self: a “walking shadow” is as insubstantial and impermanent as anything imaginable; a “poor player” neither creates nor directs his role, and the character being played only exists because of an author. Macbeth’s entire statement, particularly the last sentence, expresses the third Buddhist mark of existence: Dukkha , dissatisfaction.

The stage metaphor in the second line represents boundaries or limits. Scientific research into the nature of life often focuses on the material, energetic, and temporal limitations within which life can exist. The temporal limit of life is known as death. In the spirit of this interpretation, the idea of being “heard no more” could imply that life constantly evolves new forms while discarding older ones.

Macbeth hints at the wisdom of mystery traditions while anticipating the revelations of genetic science by stating that life “is a tale”. Now, this refers to the language-based, or code-based, nature of life. Readers may consider this in relation to DNA and RNA, and also in relation to John’s Gospel: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” (The implications of the phrase “told by an idiot” exceed the scope of this inquiry.)

In five concise and poetic lines, Shakespeare defined life as an impermanent, non-self-directed, unsatisfactory, limited, ever-changing, and ultimately insignificant code.

Devon Hall, Albuquerque, New Mexico

Life is the realisation of its own contingency. But that’s not the end of it; it’s merely the means towards the creation of meaning. Life is thus a constant process of becoming, through creating values and meaning. Life is therefore perpetual transcendence, always moving into the future, creating the present. Life is also acceptance: the acceptance of finitude; acceptance of one’s responsibilities; acceptance of other human beings’ existence and choices. Life is neither fixed nor absolute, it is ambiguous; life is the possibilities entailed by existence. Life is the consciousness of humanity; it is perception of the world and the universe. So life is sadness; life is death. Life is suffering and destruction. But life is also happiness; life is living. Life is joy and creativity. Life is finding a cause to survive, a reason not to die – not yet. It is youth and old age, with everything in between. Overall, life is beautiful – ugliness is fleeting. Corpses and skeletons are lugubrious; living flesh is resplendent, all bodies are statuesque. Human life is love and hate, but it can only be life when we are with others. Life as fear and hatred is not real life at all. For some, life is God. We would all then be His children. We are nevertheless the spawn of the Earth.

Human existence is freedom – an edifice of plurality.

Greg Chatterton, Cupar, Fife

If the ancients could do philosophy in the marketplace, maybe I can too. So I employed some modern technology by texting the question ‘What is Life?’ to all my contacts. I didn’t explain the context of the question, to avoid lyrical waxing. Here are a sample of replies. Life is: being conscious of yourself and others; a being with a soul; experience; what you make it; your chance to be a success; family; living as long as you can; not being dead; greater than the sum of its parts; complex chemical organisation; different things to different people; a mystery; a journey; don’t know; a quote from a song, “baby don’t hurt me”; life begins after death. I asked a regular in my favourite café. They said, “man’s chief end is to glorify God and enjoy him forever.” A person suffering from a degenerative disease answered: “life is sh** then you die.” Another with the same illness interviewed in our local newspaper said, “My life is a mission to help other sufferers.” A colleague said “some would want to shoot themselves if they had my life, but I’m happy.” I posed the question at my art club and we did no painting that day…

I was surprised to find that I had no immediate definition of life myself (hence the idea to ask) and that there is no consensus (only one reply was repeated), but then, that also is life.

I sometimes catch myself considering life when I arrive at the turning point on my evening walk. It’s a dark spot which makes stargazing easier, and the heavens are a good place to start, since life as we know it began there (the heavier atoms like carbon which make up our bodies initially formed in dying Red Giant stars). This makes me feel two things about my life: it’s a dot because the cosmos is immense; but it’s an important dot in the cosmos because I can consider it.

Kristine Kerr, Gourock, Renfrewshire

Next Question of the Month

Now we know what life is, the next question is, How Should I Live? Please give and justify your ethical advice in less than 400 words. The prize is a semi-random book from our book mountain. Subject lines or envelopes should be marked ‘Question of the Month’, and must be received by 9th June. If you want a chance of getting a book, please include your physical address. Submission implies permission to reproduce your answer physically and electronically. Thank you.

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In This Article Expand or collapse the "in this article" section The Meaning of Life

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• Precursors to the Contemporary Debate
• The Meaning of “Meaning”
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The Meaning of Life by Thaddeus Metz LAST REVIEWED: 10 May 2010 LAST MODIFIED: 10 May 2010 DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780195396577-0070

For millennia, thinkers have addressed the question of what, if anything, makes a life meaningful in some form or other. This article concentrates nearly exclusively on approaches to the question taken by analytic philosophers in the postwar era, by and large omitting reference to prewar Anglo-American works, texts from other traditions such as Continental or African philosophy, and writings from nonphilosophical but related fields such as religion and psychology. Much of the contemporary analytic discussion has sought to articulate and evaluate theories of meaning in life, i.e., general and fundamental principles of what all meaningful conditions have in common as distinct from meaningless ones. This entry accordingly focuses largely on these theories, which are distinguished according to the kind of property that is held to constitute meaning in life (see Supernaturalism , Naturalism , and Non-Naturalism ).

These texts are more introductory or have been written in a way that would likely be accessible to those not thoroughly trained in analytic philosophy. Baggini 2004 and Eagleton 2007 are pitched at a very wide, popular audience; Thomson 2003 and Belshaw 2005 would be best for undergraduate philosophy majors; and Belliotti 2001 , Martin 2002 , and Cottingham 2003 are probably most apt for those with some kind of university education or other intellectual development, not necessarily in Anglo-American philosophy.

Baggini, Julian. What’s It All About? Philosophy and the Meaning of Life . London: Granta, 2004.

Defends the view that meaning in life is largely a function of love; addresses approaches or maxims (e.g., Carpe diem ) more than it does principles.

Belliotti, Raymond Angelo. What Is the Meaning of Human Life? Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2001.

A thoughtful treatment of a variety of issues; defends an objective naturalist approach to meaning in the context of critical discussion of classic thinkers such as Aristotle, Nietzsche, and Schopenhauer.

Belshaw, Christopher. Ten Good Questions about Life and Death . Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2005.

Engagingly written, analytic treatments of several key “life and death” issues, many of which bear on meaningfulness, which the author cashes out objectively in terms of relationships and projects.

Cottingham, John. On the Meaning of Life . Thinking in Action. London: Routledge, 2003.

An elegantly written book that defends an Aristotelian, God-based (but not soul-based) approach to meaning in life.

Eagleton, Terry. The Meaning of Life: A Very Short Introduction . Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.

A light and lively essay on a variety of facets of the question of life’s meaning, often addressing linguistic and literary themes. Rejects subjective or “postmodern” approaches to meaning in favor of a need for harmonious or loving relationships.

Martin, Michael. Atheism, Morality, and Meaning . Amherst, NY: Prometheus, 2002.

A vigorous defense of a naturalist approach to morality, in the first half of the book, and to meaning, in the second. Very critical of Christian approaches to both.

Thomson, Garrett. On the Meaning of Life . London: Thompson/Wadsworth, 2003.

Argues that nine common views on meaning in life (e.g., that an infinite being is necessary for meaning or that meaning is exhausted by happiness) are flawed. Emphasizes that meaning must reside largely in activities we engage in, lest our lives be reduced to “tools” for the sake of ends beyond us.

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The Oxford Handbook of Meaning in Life

Iddo Landau is a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Haifa, Israel. His publications include ‘The Meaning of Life sub specie aeternitatis ’ ( Australasian Journal of Philosophy , 2011) and Finding Meaning in an Imperfect World (Oxford University Press, 2017).

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This volume presents thirty-two essays on a wide array of topics in modern philosophical meaning in life research. The essays are organized into six parts. Part I, Understanding Meaning in Life, focuses on various ways of conceptualizing meaning in life. Among other issues, it discusses whether meaning in life should be understood objectively or subjectively, the relation between importance and meaningfulness, and whether meaningful lives should be understood narratively. Part II, Meaning in Life, Science, and Metaphysics, presents opposing views on whether neuroscience sheds light on life’s meaning, inquires whether hard determinists must see life as meaningless, and explores the relation between time, personal identity, and meaning. Part III, Meaning in Life and Religion, examines the relation between meaningfulness, mysticism, and transcendence, and considers life’s meaning from both atheist and theist perspectives. Part IV, Ethics and Meaning in Life, examines (among other issues) whether meaningful lives must be moral, how important forgiveness is for meaning, the relation between life’s meaningfulness (or meaninglessness) and procreation ethics, and whether animals have meaningful lives. Part V, Philosophical Psychology and Meaning in Life, compares philosophical and psychological research on life’s meaning, explores the experience of meaningfulness, and discusses the relation between meaningfulness and desire, love, and gratitude. Part VI, Living Meaningfully: Challenges and Prospects, elaborates on topics such as suicide, suffering, education, optimism and pessimism, and their relation to life’s meaning.

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1000-Word Philosophy: An Introductory Anthology

Philosophy, One Thousand Words at a Time

Meaning in Life: What Makes Our Lives Meaningful?

Author: Matthew Pianalto Category: Ethics ,   Phenomenology and Existentialism ,   Philosophy of Religion Word Count: 997

Editors’ note: this essay and its companion essay, The Meaning of Life: What’s the Point? both explore the concept of meaning in relation to human life. This essay focuses on meaning in individual human lives, whereas the other addresses the meaning of life as a whole.

Imagine becoming so fed up with your job and home life that you decide to give it all up. Now you spend your days lounging on a beach.

One day, your friend Alex finds you on the beach and questions your new lifestyle: “You’re wasting your life!” says Alex. You tell Alex that you were unhappy and explain that you are much happier now.

However, Alex responds: “There’s more to life than happiness. You aren’t doing anything meaningful with your life!” [1]

But what is a meaningful life?

Here we will review some influential answers to this question.

1. Cosmic Pessimism vs. Everyday Meaning

Pessimists might say that life has no ultimate or cosmic meaning and thus that a beach bum’s life is no more or less meaningful—in the grand scheme of things—than the lives of Beethoven, Martin Luther King, Jr., or Marie Curie. [2]

However, many philosophers argue that even if there is no ultimate meaning of life, there can be meaning in life. Our lives can be meaningful in ordinary ways, ways that don’t require that we play a special role in some kind of grand cosmic narrative. Call this everyday meaning . [3] What might give our lives this kind of meaning?

2. Subjectivism

Subjectivists say that someone’s life is meaningful if it is deeply fulfilling, engaging, or satisfying. [4] And different people find different things meaningful; a challenging career might be engaging and fulfilling for others, but boring and unsatisfying to you: you may find life on a beach much more fulfilling.

Some subjectivists distinguish between the judgment that one is fulfilled and actually being fulfilled. Fulfillment feels good, but it seems possible to be mistaken about whether we are fulfilled. Perhaps, as you lounge on the beach, you confuse being merely content with fulfillment. [5] If you tried other things like writing poetry, volunteering, or starting a business, they might end up being more fulfilling, and hence more meaningful for you. [6]

Subjectivism, however, has counterintuitive implications. Suppose someone found it fulfilling to spend all their time gazing at the sand. This may seem too bizarre, aimless, or trivial to credit as meaningful. And what if someone found meaning in ethically monstrous activities, like torturing babies or puppies? Vicious projects like these don’t seem to add positive meaning to someone’s life. [7]

Someone would have to be a rather atypical sort of human being to be truly fulfilled by sand-gazing or puppy-torturing. Could such strange lives count as meaningful? Subjectivists may say yes, but many would reject that answer and conclude that subjectivism is false.

3. Objective Meaning

Objective accounts hold that meaningful lives involve projects of positive value, such as improving our character, exercising our creativity, and making the world a better place by pursuing and promoting truth, justice, and beauty. [8]

Being a beach bum doesn’t really make the world worse , but it doesn’t make much of a positive contribution either. Your friend Alex is concerned that you are squandering your potential and thereby failing to make something meaningful of your life.

However, your decision to become a beach bum could be a way of rebelling against the “rat race” of a workaholic and overly competitive society. Perhaps you are choosing to cultivate a life of mindfulness and aesthetic contemplation of natural beauty, in protest against superficial or soul-crushing social norms. Framed that way, your life seems to align with important, enduring, objective values.

Objective accounts of meaning, however, must explain why some activities are objectively more meaningful than others.

The difficulty is that what seems frivolous or pointless from one point of view may seem valuable and worthwhile from another. For some, climbing Mount Everest might count as an admirable exercise of physical and mental endurance, an inspiring achievement. Others may think it is stupid to climb big rocks, risking death and wasting resources that could be directed toward other more valuable causes.

But perhaps such people are just being narrow-minded. The meaningfulness of being a beach bum, a mountain-climber, or anything else might depend on our motives or options and not just on what the activity involves. [9]

4. Hybrid Theory

The hybrid theory of meaning in life combines insights from subjectivism and objective accounts: a meaningful life provides fulfillment and does so through devotion to objectively valuable projects. [10]

Hybrid theory differs from objective accounts because it insists that a meaningful life must also be fulfilling for the person living it. There are many such projects available to us, since there are many fulfilling ways, given our distinctive personalities and abilities, that we can engage with values like truth, justice, and beauty.

However, just as a subjectively fulfilling life might seem trivial or despicable, perhaps a meaningful life doesn’t always feel fulfilling. [11]

Consider George Bailey in the classic film It’s a Wonderful Life . [12] George thinks his life has been wasted and wishes that he’d never been born. Luckily, his guardian angel Clarence rescues George from a suicide attempt and helps George understand how meaningful his life choices have been. Hybrid theory implies that George’s life now becomes meaningful because he is finally fulfilled by all his good works, but objective accounts suggest that George’s life was meaningful all along even though he didn’t realize it! [13]

Recall the opening scenario: did you ditch a meaningful (but sometimes frustrating) life for the beach?

5. Conclusion

The psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl held that the search for meaning is the fundamental human drive. [14] He claimed that a sense of meaning in life gives people the strength to persevere and even thrive despite the adversity and injustice we must sometimes confront. [15]

Questions about meaning in life often arise when we suspect that something is missing from our lives. Despite their differences, the theories surveyed above seem to agree that there are many things we might do—or try—that would be meaningful. Talking about it with your friend Alex may be a good place to start. [16] Why? Because good relationships frequently rank as important sources of meaning: perhaps meaning is often made—or discovered—together.

[1] Emily Esfahani Smith (2017) uses this distinction between happiness and meaning in life in her survey of psychological research on meaning in life. See also her TED Talk, “There’s More to Life Than Being Happy.”

[2] See, e.g., Benatar (2017) and Weinberg (2021) for defenses of the pessimistic outlook. At least one theist agrees with the pessimists that if life has no divine meaning or purpose, then nothing we do or become has any lasting significance and that our lives are all equally absurd: see Craig (2013).

[3] Many philosophers who propose theories of meaning in life are either agnostic or skeptical of the idea that life as a whole has any divine meaning or purpose. See, e.g., Wolf (2010). Of course, if one does think life as a whole has divine meaning or purpose, then having meaning in one’s life might well involve living in accord with the supernatural point of existence. Some of the accounts of meaning in life are consistent with religious ideas about the meaning of life; I leave it as an exercise to the reader to work out which views will or will not cohere with their own religious convictions.

[4] This idea is developed in the final chapter of Taylor (2000).

[5] John Stuart Mill issues a similar warning against conflating happiness and contentment in Utilitarianism , Chapter 2.

[6] This point is developed in more sophisticated subjectivist accounts of meaning in life. See, e.g. Calhoun (2015) and Parmer (2021).

[7] See Campbell and Nyholm (2015) or their contribution in Landau (2022) for discussion of “anti-meaning”: activities, projects, and lives that have negative and destructive significance.

[8] See Metz (2013) for discussion of several different accounts of this sort; Metz defends his own version in the final chapter. On creativity, see Taylor (1987) and Matheson (2018).

[9] Examples like the beach bum are often under-described–including in this essay! It is worth taking such examples and considering variations of intentions, motives, circumstances, and so forth in order to consider how changes in these various elements may alter our assessment of the meaningfulness of the life or activity. Whole lives are usually, if not always, more complex than these brief examples. Philosophers who endorse narrative theories of meaning in life would suggest that the focus on particular activities and roles fails to consider that a meaningful life might also need to make holistic sense as a meaningful story. See Kauppinen (2012).

[10] The term “project” here includes not just completable activities like painting a picture but also open-ended activities such as maintaining strong relationships with friends and family. This approach is developed by Susan Wolf in Meaning in Life and Why It Matters , and in three essays collected in Wolf (2014): see the essays in Part II: “The Meanings of Lives,” “Happiness and Meaning: Two Aspects of the Good Life,” and “Happiness and Morality.” The text of Meaning in Life and Why It Matters is available at the Tanner Lectures website. See the print edition for excellent commentaries on Wolf’s position and a response by Wolf. A similar view is developed by Peter Singer in How Are We to Live? (1993), Chapter 10.

[11] Another potential problem is that while hybrid theory aims to take the attractive features of subjective fulfillment and objective accounts of meaning in life, it inherits the possible problems with both views, too. Furthermore, if subjective and objective accounts contradict each other, hybrid theory might be inconsistent.

[12] This point is developed, using the example of George Bailey, in Smuts (2013).

[13] For a similar study in a life that seems very meaningful from the outside (a successful career, prosperity, and a happy family), but is wracked by unhappiness, existential dread, and moral guilt within, see Leo Tolstoy’s My Confession (2005). Tolstoy’s crisis of meaning is often discussed in the literature on meaning in life, both for the gripping way in which he describes his fear of death and his feeling that life is meaningless, and for his discussion of the solution to the problem to be found in religious faith.

[14] Frankl (2006).

[15] Of course, this does not justify the actions of those who have put others in despicable situations. For Frankl, the point is about motivation rather than justification. Revolting against oppressors, for example, may be a highly meaningful project for those who are oppressed. See also Camus (2018).

[16] On relationships and other sources of meaning in life, see Smith (2017). Further recommended reading: Landau (2017), Landau (2022), and Singer (2009). For discussion of how ordinary “folk” intuitions about meaning relate to various philosophical theories of meaning in life, see Fuhrer and Cova (2022).

Benatar, David (2017). The Human Predicament . Oxford University Press.

Calhoun, Cheshire (2015). “Geographies of Meaningful Living,” Journal of Applied Philosophy 32(1): 15-34.

Campbell, Stephen M. and Sven Nyholm (2015). “Anti-Meaning and Why It Matters,” Journal of the American Philosophical Association 1(4): 694-711.

Camus, Albert (2018). The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays . Trans. Justin O’Brien. Vintage.

Craig, William Lane (2013). “The Absurdity of Life Without God.” In: Jason Seachris, ed. Exploring the Meaning of Life . Wiley-Blackwell: 153-172.

Frankl, Viktor E. (2006). Man’s Search for Meaning . Beacon Press. Originally published in 1946.

Fuhrer, Joffrey and Florian Cova (2022). “What makes a life meaningful? Folk intuitions about the content and shape of meaningful lives,” Philosophical Psychology.

Kauppinen, Antti (2012). “Meaningfulness and Time,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 84(2): 345-377.

Landau, Iddo (2017). Finding Meaning in an Imperfect World . Oxford University Press.

Landau, Iddo (2022). The Oxford Handbook of Meaning in Life . Oxford University Press.

Metz, Thaddeus (2013). Meaning in Life . Oxford University Press

Mill, John Stuart (1863). Utilitarianism .

Parmer, W. Jared (2021). “Meaning in Life and Becoming More Fulfilled,” Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy 20(1): 1-29.

Singer, Irving (2009). Meaning in Life, Vol. 1: The Creation of Value . MIT Press.

Singer, Peter (1993). How Are We to Live? Ethics in an Age of Self-Interest . Prometheus.

Smith, Emily E. (2017). The Power of Meaning . Crown.

Smith, Emily E. (2017). “There’s More to Life Than Being Happy.” TED.com.

Smuts, Aaron (2013). “The Good Cause Account of the Meaning of Life,” The Southern Journal of Philosophy 41(4): 536-562.

Taylor, Richard (2000). Good and Evil . Prometheus. Originally published in 1970.

Taylor, Richard (1987). “Time and Life’s Meaning,” The Review of Metaphysics 40(4): 675-686.

Tolstoy, Leo (2005). My Confession . Translated by Aylmer Maude. Originally published in Russian in 1882.

Weinberg, Rivka (2021).  “Ultimate Meaning: We Don’t Have It, We Can’t Get It, and We Should Be Very, Very Sad,” Journal of Controversial Ideas 1(1), 4.

Wolf, Susan (2010). Meaning in Life and Why It Matters . Princeton University Press. ( Wolf’s lecture is also available at the Tanner Lecture Series website ).

— (2014). The Variety of Values . Oxford University Press.

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Matthew Pianalto is a Professor of Philosophy at Eastern Kentucky University. He is the author of On Patience (2016) and numerous articles and book chapters on ethics. philosophy.eku.edu/pianalto

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The Meaning of Life: Philosophical Approaches Essay

The meaning of life is one of the questions that have attracted the attention of many philosophers as well as writers. Two different views on this issue are expressed by Richard Taylor and Susan Wolf.

According to Richard Taylor, a person can subjectively determine whether his/her life is meaningful. In this case, perceived enjoyment and satisfaction can be the main criteria that an individual should consider. In contrast, Susan Wolf disagrees with this statement and calls for a more objective interpretation of meaningfulness. So, it is necessary to compare and evaluate these approaches.

Richard Taylor believes that a certain activity can be called meaningful if a person finds it satisfying or engaging. Additionally, an individual should focus on his/her subjective experiences in order to evaluate the quality of his/her life. In order to illustrate this argument, the author refers to the famous myth of Sisyphus, who perpetually rolls a stone up the hill. To a great extent, this myth symbolizes meaningless and endless labor, which does not bring any results.

However, this interpretation can change dramatically if one assumes that Sisyphus finds this activity satisfying or desirable in any way (Taylor 323). Additionally, the author urges the readers to remember that in many cases, people’s lives can be compared to the labor of Sisyphus. For example, one can speak about people who designed and constructed ancient temples or palaces that eventually turned into ruins (Taylor 332). It is rather difficult to suppose that they perceived their lives as something meaningless.

More likely, they assumed that they created paragons of beauty, and the meaningfulness of their actions could hardly be questioned. In this way, the author wants to show that the source of meaning lies within the individual perception of a person. These are the main details that can be distinguished.

In turn, Susan Wolf adopts a different approach to this question. According to her, a person’s life can be called meaningful if he/she actively and successfully engages in projects that promote “positive values” (Wolf 8). In this context, the word “project” can be described as any goal-directed behavior (Wolf 8). In turn, the word

“positive” implies that a certain value is recognized and accepted by other people (Wolf 10). In other words, the activities of a person should bring certain benefits to other people.

Therefore, unlike Richard Taylor, Susan Wolf believes that one should look for a more objective evaluation of a person’s life. Additionally, according to her interpretation, meaningfulness does not necessarily imply that an individual is happy. Moreover, in many cases, his/her actions can be questioned from an ethical viewpoint. These are the main elements of her approach.

Overall, I tend to support Richard Taylor’s views on this issue. In my opinion, the meaningfulness of a person’s life should be based on subjective interpretation. At first, it is important to mention that in many cases, a person can suffer from frustration and depression provided that his/her behavior does not reach the accepted standards of success. This is one of the problems that originate from Susan Wolf’s approach. Admittedly, people should be engaged in activities that promote the welfare of other individuals.

In this way, a person can make his/her life much more fulfilling. Nevertheless, it is not permissible to set the standards of meaningfulness. The approach developed by Susan Wolf is based on the premise that a person can accurately estimate the effects of his/her actions. This task is critical for determining if a certain activity promotes positive values. However, sometimes, a person cannot easily do it. Furthermore, other people may fail to appreciate the value of a person’s work.

For example, the attempts to develop non-Euclidian geometry were deemed to be useless at the least at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Furthermore, mathematicians engaged in such activities were often regarded as insane because very few people could see the implications of their work (Restivo 103). If they tried to follow the line of reasoning proposed by Susan Wolf, they would have come to the conclusion that their life and work had been meaningless.

However, later, it turned out that hyperbolic geometry could benefit various areas of science, especially physics. Apart from that, the approach adopted by Susan Wolf does not include such a notion as happiness, which seems to be critical for the meaningfulness of any life. This is another reason why Richard Taylor’s interpretation seems to be more plausible. Finally, such a notion as success is often subjective, and it is difficult to measure it.

On the whole, this discussion shows that there are different approaches to the questions about the meaning of life. It is more appropriate to consider the subjective interpretation of this issue because this approach helps a person discover happiness. Admittedly, other people may not agree with this subjective assessment.

However, this evaluation has to be accepted if a person’s activities do not adversely affect the lives of other individuals. In contrast, Susan Wolf’s approach implies that there are certain objective standards. However, there are many cases when these standards are not applicable. These are the main aspects that can be singled out.

Works Cited

Restivo, Sal. Red, Black, and Objective: Science, Sociology, and Anarchism , New York: Ashgate Publishin, 2011. Print.

Taylor, Richard. Good and Evil , New York: Prometheus Books, 2000. Print.

Wolf, Susan. “The Meaning of Lives.” Philosophy UMass . Web.

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What Makes Life Meaningful?

Age, routines, and a sense of purpose may help foster the belief that life means something..

By Devon Frye published August 10, 2020 - last reviewed on September 6, 2020

A sense that life has meaning doesn’t just offer philosophical benefit; it’s also tied to improved physical and mental health. What factors, apart from close relationships and personal accomplishments, foster a belief in a meaningful life? Three recent studies highlight some potential mechanisms of meaning.

What Really Matters

Researchers who study meaning in life have broken the concept into three facets: coherence (the feeling that life makes sense), purpose (having and working toward goals ), and mattering (the sense that one’s life has value and makes a difference). University of Sussex psychologist Vlad Costin argues the last factor, mattering, may be the most crucial. In three experiments , participants’ sense of mattering most reliably predicted whether they saw life as meaningful one month later. Though it wasn’t known why participants felt their lives mattered, Costin thinks that it could have resulted from their “believing in God, contributing to others, or leaving some form of legacy.”

Confidence in life’s meaningfulness may be greatest around age 60, on average, a recent study suggests. Using data from 1,042 U.S. adults , University of California, San Diego, researchers found that the presence of meaning in life followed a curve over the lifespan, reaching its peak at approximately 60 before declining again. The search for meaning, on the other hand, followed the opposite trajectory, reaching a low point at 60 before climbing. Regardless of age, physical and mental well-being were both strongly correlated with a belief in life’s meaning.

Everything in Its Place

Many seek meaning through extraordinary experiences—but they may also find it in ordinary, daily acts. New research found that a preference for routines was correlated with a greater sense of meaning. Students tracked for a week reported somewhat greater meaning, on average, when engaging in everyday acts such as studying or commuting—perhaps, the authors note, because routines build a coherent sense of self. Study co-author and Rutgers University psychologist Samantha Heintzelman observes: “Moments that make sense and feel right can make life meaningful, too.”

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Essays About Life: Top 5 Examples Plus 7 Prompts

Life envelops various meanings; if you are writing essays about life, discover our comprehensive guide with examples and prompts to help you with your essay.

What is life? You can ask anyone; I assure you, no two people will have the same answer. How we define life relies on our beliefs and priorities. One can say that life is the capacity for growth or the time between birth and death. Others can share that life is the constant pursuit of purpose and fulfillment. Life is a broad topic that inspires scholars, poets, and many others. It stimulates discussions that encourage diverse perspectives and interpretations. 

5 Essay Examples

1. essay on life by anonymous on toppr.com, 2. the theme of life, existence and consciousness by anonymous on gradesfixer.com, 3. compassion can save life by anonymous on papersowl.com, 4. a life of consumption vs. a life of self-realization by anonymous on ivypanda.com, 5. you only live once: a motto for life by anonymous on gradesfixer.com, 1. what is the true meaning of life, 2. my life purpose, 3. what makes life special, 4. how to appreciate life, 5. books about life, 6. how to live a healthy life, 7. my idea of a perfect life.

“…quality of Life carries huge importance. Above all, the ultimate purpose should be to live a meaningful life. A meaningful life is one which allows us to connect with our deeper self.”

The author defines life as something that differentiates man from inorganic matter. It’s an aspect that processes and examines a person’s actions that develop through growth. For some, life is a pain because of failures and struggles, but it’s temporary. For the writer, life’s challenges help us move forward, be strong, and live to the fullest. You can also check out these essays about utopia .

“… Kafka defines the dangers of depending on art for life. The hunger artist expresses his dissatisfaction with the world by using himself and not an external canvas to create his artwork, forcing a lack of separation between the artist and his art. Therefore, instead of the art depending on the audience, the artist depends on the audience, meaning when the audience’s appreciation for work dwindles, their appreciation for the artist diminishes as well, leading to the hunger artist’s death.”

The essay talks about “ A Hunger Artist ” by Franz Kafka, who describes his views on life through art. The author analyzes Kafka’s fictional main character and his anxieties and frustrations about life and the world. This perception shows how much he suffered as an artist and how unhappy he was. Through the essay, the writer effectively explains Kafka’s conclusion that artists’ survival should not depend on their art.

“Compassion is that feeling that we’ve all experienced at some point in our lives. When we know that there is someone that really cares for us. Compassion comes from that moment when we can see the world through another person’s eyes.”

The author is a nurse who believes that to be professional, they need to be compassionate and treat their patients with respect, empathy, and dignity. One can show compassion through small actions such as talking and listening to patients’ grievances. In conclusion, compassion can save a person’s life by accepting everyone regardless of race, gender, etc.

“… A life of self-realization is more preferable and beneficial in comparison with a life on consumption. At the same time, this statement may be objected as person’s consumption leads to his or her happiness.”

The author examines Jon Elster’s theory to find out what makes a person happy and what people should think and feel about their material belongings. The essay mentions a list of common activities that make us feel happy and satisfied, such as buying new things. The writer explains that Elster’s statement about the prevalence of self-realization in consumption will always trigger intense debate.

“Appreciate the moment you’ve been given and appreciate the people you’ve been given to spend it with, because no matter how beautiful or tragic a moment is, it always ends. So hold on a little tighter, smile a little bigger, cry a little harder, laugh a little louder, forgive a little quicker, and love a whole lot deeper because these are the moments you will remember when you’re old and wishing you could rewind time.”

This essay explains that some things and events only happen once in a person’s life. The author encourages teenagers to enjoy the little things in their life and do what they love as much as they can. When they turn into adults, they will no longer have the luxury to do whatever they want.

The author suggests doing something meaningful as a stress reliever, trusting people, refusing to give up on the things that make you happy, and dying with beautiful memories. For help with your essays, check out our round-up of the best essay checkers .

7 Prompts for Essays About Life

Life encompasses many values and depends on one’s perception. For most, life is about reaching achievements to make themselves feel alive. Use this prompt to compile different meanings of life and provide a background on why a person defines life as they do.

Take Joseph Campbell’s, “Life has no meaning. Each of us has meaning, and we bring it to life. It is a waste to be asking the question when you are the answer,” for example. This quote pertains to his belief that an individual is responsible for giving life meaning. 

For this prompt, share with your readers your current purpose in life. It can be as simple as helping your siblings graduate or something grand, such as changing a national law to make a better world. You can ask others about their life purpose to include in your essay and give your opinion on why your answers are different or similar.

Life is a fascinating subject, as each person has a unique concept. How someone lives depends on many factors, such as opportunities, upbringing, and philosophies. All of these elements affect what we consider “special.”

Share what you think makes life special. For instance, talk about your relationships, such as your close-knit family or best friends. Write about the times when you thought life was worth living. You might also be interested in these essays about yourself .

Life in itself is a gift. However, most of us follow a routine of “wake up, work (or study), sleep, repeat.” Our constant need to survive makes us take things for granted. When we endlessly repeat a routine, life becomes mundane. For this prompt, offer tips on how to avoid a monotonous life, such as keeping a gratitude journal or traveling.

Many literary pieces use life as their subject. If you have a favorite book about life, recommend it to your readers by summarizing the content and sharing how the book influenced your outlook on life. You can suggest more than one book and explain why everyone should read them.

For example, Paulo Coelho’s “The Alchemist” reminds its readers to live in the moment and never fear failure.

To be healthy doesn’t only pertain to our physical condition. It also refers to our mental, spiritual, and emotional well-being. To live a happy and full life, individuals must strive to be healthy in all areas. For this prompt, list ways to achieve a healthy life. Section your essay and present activities to improve health, such as eating healthy foods, talking with friends, etc.

No one has a perfect life, but describe what it’ll be like if you do. Start with the material things, such as your house, clothes, etc. Then, move to how you connect with others. In your conclusion, answer whether you’re willing to exchange your current life for the “perfect life” you described and why.  See our essay writing tips to learn more!

Maria Caballero is a freelance writer who has been writing since high school. She believes that to be a writer doesn't only refer to excellent syntax and semantics but also knowing how to weave words together to communicate to any reader effectively.

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The Meaning of Life, Essay Example

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The meaning of life is one of the fundamental questions of philosophy. But what are the presuppositions that frame this question? On the one hand, the very question “what is the meaning of life?” means that life poses us with a problem about its meaning. This is to say that even if we accept a nihilistic position and state that life has no meaning, there is still the appearance of this question of meaning within a meaningless existence. This ties into a second presupposition at stake in this question: what do we intend by the concept of meaning and what do we intend by the concept of life? It would seem that on an intuitive level, when we talk about life, we are talking about any living thing. But is a living thing only something material, or can we consider immaterial phenomena, such as souls, as also living? From another perspective, when we talk about the meaning of life, are we therefore talking about the meaning of all life, such as plants and animals, or are we just talking about human beings? Are we discussing a multitude of meanings, for example, a specific meaning for a plant and a specific meaning for a human being, or are we discussing a singular meaning to which we belong?

In order to provide an entrance-way into these questions, I would like to use this opening discussion to set the framework for my approach: I would like to use the scientific tool of Ockham’s razor to minimize the number of propositions. When we are talking about meaning, therefore, we are talking about a singular meaning for everything. To say that everyone has their own meaning, in other words, is a rejection of the concept of meaning, because it takes on so many possible definitions that the particularity of the concept loses its force. At the same time, when we use the term life, I would like to mention all forms of life, human, plant, animal, and even possible immaterial forms of life, such as the soul. In other words, the meaning of life is one of the big questions of philosophy and therefore should have a universal answer, precisely because the extent of this question itself is one that is universal: in other words, the very power of this question lies in its apparent universality. My meaning of life cannot be different from your meaning of life, in other words, for the question to not merely be trivial: we need to think about a common meaning for all life to avoid this problem of triviality.

The question of meaning is often related to purpose. Why are we here? There is a reason for this presupposed in the question. From one perspective, I would like to believe that there is a purpose and a meaning, precisely for the reason stated above: even if we accept a nihilistic world in which there is no meaning and there is no purpose, we still have to accept that the question of meaning and purpose exists. In other words, if life is meaningless, where does the question of the meaning of life even come from? Is it merely an error of our consciousness? Is it merely a linguistic mistake, an illusion? If we cannot explain how the question emerges against a meaningless backdrop of nihilism, I think then we have to assume that the meaningless backdrop is flawed, and we have to pursue the question of meaning itself.

If our concept of the question of meaning and purpose therefore infers a meaning or purpose because of the very possibility of asking the question, and, furthermore, if this question must be universal, considering the totality of life, for the question itself to have any meaning, we must look for equally universal answers to this question. Here, I believe that the concept of happiness can play an important role. Happiness, of course, is also a notoriously difficult term to define. But we can approach it from its negative element: there are people who are unhappy, who are suffering. Certainly, there may be also some people who think they are happy but are not – in this case, they may be happy because they live in an illusion. But if we accept that the meaning of life is the same for all, that it is universal, then we can also make the proposition that happiness is also universal – namely, if unhappiness exists in the world and the meaning of life is universal then life as a whole must be driven towards happiness as opposed to the happiness of individuals.

This helps elucidate a possible definition of the meaning and purpose of life. We accept that we all have the same purpose and meaning for this question itself to have any meaning. Therefore, the concept of meaning holds for us all. Happiness is something desired, but not possessed by all. Accordingly, the meaning of life would be the movement to this universal happiness, the happiness of the creation as a whole. This is not an absurd idea and finds analogues in religious and secular thought. For example, in Christian philosophy as well as Islamic philosophy, we find the idea of the resurrection of the world and the justice for all. In Marxist philosophy, we find the common task of eliminating inequality in the world to create a happiness for all. In other words, our meaning of life is a process, a type of goal that we move towards that must be universal in its scope, since it addresses the fate of the universe as such and an attempt to improve life in all its forms.

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Home — Essay Samples — Philosophy — Philosophical Concepts — Meaning of Life

Essays on Meaning of Life

The first step in crafting an exceptional essay is to understand the essay prompt. Often, students underestimate the importance of this initial phase. Think of the prompt as your guiding star, leading you towards clarity and focus in your writing. Let's break it down:

Sample Prompts for a "Meaning of Life" Essay:

"Explore the philosophical, psychological, and cultural dimensions of the question: What is the meaning of life?"

"Discuss how different historical figures and philosophers have approached the concept of the meaning of life. Analyze their views and present your perspective."

"Examine the impact of personal beliefs, experiences, and cultural backgrounds on one's perception of the meaning of life."

"Reflect on the role of purpose and fulfillment in human existence. How can individuals find meaning in their lives?"

Once you've dissected the prompt, you'll have a clear idea of what is expected of you. This understanding will guide you in the next crucial steps of essay writing.

2. Brainstorming and Selecting the Perfect Topic

Now that you're well-acquainted with the essay prompt, it's time to brainstorm and choose an engaging and unique topic. Remember, the "meaning of life" is a profound and broad subject, and your topic should reflect your perspective and interests. Here's how to do it:

Brainstorming Techniques:

Free writing: Set a timer and jot down your thoughts and associations related to the topic without judgment. You might uncover unique angles during this process.

Mind mapping: Create a visual representation of your ideas, connecting related concepts and themes.

Research: Read articles, books, and essays by philosophers, scientists, and thinkers to gain inspiration and identify areas of interest.

Choosing a Unique Essay Topic:

Avoid clichéd or overused topics like "The Pursuit of Happiness" or "The Search for Meaning." Instead, consider exploring specific aspects or questions that intrigue you, such as:

"The Role of Suffering in Discovering Life's Purpose"

"Eastern vs. Western Philosophies on the Meaning of Life"

"Existentialism in the Modern World: Navigating Nihilism and Absurdity"

"The Influence of Technology on our Perception of Life's Meaning"

Choosing a unique topic will set your essay apart and make it more interesting for both you and your readers.

3. A Curated List of Inspiring Essay Topics

If you're still searching for the perfect essay topic, here's a list of compelling ideas that go beyond the ordinary:

"The Meaning of Life in the Age of Artificial Intelligence: Exploring Humanity's Role in a Technological World."

"The Connection between Nature and the Meaning of Life: Ecological Philosophy in Modern Society."

"Finding Purpose in the Mundane: A Deep Dive into Everyday Existence."

"The Impact of Near-Death Experiences on One's Perception of Life's Purpose."

"The Pursuit of Meaning in the Arts: A Study of Creativity, Expression, and Identity."

Feel free to modify these topics or use them as a springboard for your own unique ideas.

4. Crafting Compelling Paragraphs and Phrases: Inspire Your Readers

Finally, let's focus on writing your "meaning of life" essay. The key to captivating your readers lies in the power of your words and the structure of your essay. Here are some sample paragraphs and SEO-optimized phrases that will keep your readers engaged:

Sample Opening Paragraph:

"In the quest for the meaning of life, humanity has embarked on a timeless journey through philosophy, spirituality, and self-reflection. This essay delves into the depths of existential thought, exploring the very essence of our existence and the intricate tapestry of meaning that we weave in our lives."

Sample Paragraph on Existentialism:

"Existentialism, a philosophical movement that gained prominence in the 20th century, offers profound insights into the meaning of life. Existentialist thinkers like Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus contend that life lacks inherent meaning, and individuals must create their own purpose through choice and action."

Sample Closing Paragraph:

"As we conclude this exploration of life's meaning, we find that the answers are as diverse as the individuals who seek them. The search for purpose is a deeply personal and evolving journey. Ultimately, it is through introspection, empathy, and our connection to the world around us that we continue to unravel the enigma of existence."

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Where Americans find meaning in life has changed over the past four years

Many things have changed in the United States in the past four years, from a new administration in Washington to the COVID-19 pandemic, which has disrupted work, financial security, family structures and even the ability to move around freely – to say nothing of its impact on public health.

Alongside these shifts, Americans have evolved in where they find meaning in their lives, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of surveys conducted in September 2017 and February 2021. In both years, the Center asked a representative sample of U.S. adults to answer the following question in their own words: “What about your life do you currently find meaningful, fulfilling or satisfying? What keeps you going and why?”

Based on these surveys, here are six facts about where Americans find meaning in life and how those responses have shifted over the past four years. The analysis also examines how attitudes in the U.S. compare with those in 16 other advanced economies surveyed by the Center in 2021 .

This Pew Research Center analysis examines Americans’ responses to an open-ended question about what gives them meaning in life and explores how responses in the United States have changed over time as well as how they differ from those elsewhere in the world. Details about the over-time analysis can be found in the Methodology for comparing 2017 and 2021 U.S. surveys on the meaning of life.

For this analysis, we conducted nationally representative surveys of 4,867 U.S. adults from Sept. 14 to 28, 2017, and 2,596 U.S. adults from Feb. 1 to 7, 2021. Everyone who took part in both surveys is a member of the Center’s American Trends Panel (ATP), an online survey panel that is recruited through national, random sampling of residential addresses. This way nearly all adults have a chance of selection. The surveys were weighted to be representative of the U.S. adult population by gender, race, ethnicity, partisan affiliation, education and other categories.

In both surveys, respondents were asked to answer the following open-ended question: “We’re interested in exploring what it means to live a satisfying life. Please take a moment to reflect on your life and what makes it feel worthwhile – then answer the question below as thoughtfully as you can. What about your life do you currently find meaningful, fulfilling or satisfying? What keeps you going and why?”

We also conducted nationally representative surveys of 16,254 adults from March 12 to May 26, 2021, in 16 advanced economies. All surveys were conducted over the phone with adults in Canada, Belgium, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom, Australia, Japan, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan. Responses are weighted to be representative of the adult population in each public. Respondents in these publics were asked a shorter version of the question asked in the U.S.: “We’re interested in exploring what it means to live a satisfying life. What aspects of your life do you currently find meaningful, fulfilling or satisfying?” Responses were transcribed by interviewers in the language in which the interviews were conducted.

Researchers examined random samples of English responses, machine-translated non-English responses and responses translated by a professional translation firm to inductively develop a codebook for the main sources of meaning mentioned across the 17 publics. The codebook was iteratively improved via practice coding and calculations of intercoder reliability until a final selection of 20 codes was formally adopted ( read Appendix C of the full report ).

To apply the codebook to the full collection of 18,850 responses, a team of Pew Research Center coders and professional translators were trained to code English and non-English responses, respectively. Coders in both groups coded random samples and were evaluated for consistency and accuracy. They were asked to independently code responses only after reaching an acceptable threshold for intercoder reliability. (For more on this, read Appendix A of the full report .)

Here is the question used for this analysis, along with the coded responses for each public. Open-ended responses included in the analysis and in the accompanying interactive have been lightly edited for clarity (and, in some cases, translated into English by a professional firm). Here are more details about our international survey methodology and country-specific sample designs. For respondents in the U.S., read more about the ATP’s methodology .

Americans have become more likely to mention society as a source of meaning in life, but much of this emphasis is negative. The share of Americans who mention society, places and institutions – which includes references to one’s local area, as well as to broader notions of the U.S., the government and social services – grew from 8% in 2017 to 14% in 2021. The increase was especially pronounced among those ages 65 and older (24% this year, up from 10%) and those without full-time jobs (17%, up from 8%).

As was the case in 2017, about half of adults who mention society (49%) bring up something negative, such as personal frustrations or difficulties. The nature of these complaints ranges widely, from economic concerns, distrust of government and partisan animosity to more general fears about the direction of the country. As one woman put it while reflecting on what she views as growing political extremism in America, “My hope is dimming because I see no light at the end of the tunnel.”

The U.S. stands out as one of only three publics surveyed in 2021 where mentions of society significantly coincide with greater negativity. The other two are Italy and Spain, but in neither of them is the relationship between society and negativity as strong as it is in the U.S.

Americans – especially Republicans – have become more likely to mention freedom and independence as a source of meaning in life. Among Americans overall, 9% now mention issues such as freedom, independence and their ability to do what they want to do, including financial independence, having free time or a good work-life balance, or political freedoms like freedom of speech. This is up from 5% in 2017.

Much of this increase has occurred among Republicans and independents who lean toward the Republican Party. This year, 12% of Republicans mention freedom or independence, up from 5% in 2017. There has been no significant change among Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents during this period (6% this year vs. 5% in 2017).

While Republicans in the U.S. are much more likely than Democrats to mention freedom or independence as a source of meaning in life, similar ideological divides are not evident elsewhere in the world. Mentions of freedom are not associated with right-leaning ideological views in any of the other 16 publics surveyed in 2021; in fact, in two other publics (Italy and Spain), such mentions are more common among those on the ideological left .

Mentions of freedom in the U.S. have become more common among other demographic groups, too. For example, while just 4% of parents mentioned the topic in 2017, 9% do so in 2021, matching the share of non-parents who currently mention freedom or independence as a source of meaning in life. Similarly, Americans without a college degree have become more likely to refer to the subject, now mentioning it at roughly the same rate as those with a college degree (9%).

Compared with 2017, fewer Americans now mention spouses or romantic partners as a source of meaning in life. Around one-in-ten U.S. adults (9%) now mention their spouse or romantic partner or their romantic or dating life, down from 20% in 2017. This represents one of the largest decreases across all of the sources of meaning coded as part of this project. While both married and unmarried people are now less likely to mention partners or romance, the decline has been greatest among married adults. Just 13% of married adults mention their spouse in 2021, down from nearly a third (31%) in 2017.

Despite the decline, Americans are among the most likely to mention their spouse or partner among all 17 places surveyed. Outside of the U.S., mentions of romantic partners are most common in the Netherlands (8%) and Italy (7%). But no more than 5% of adults in most other places mention their spouse or partner.

Fewer Americans now mention finances, jobs or travel as a source of meaning in life than in 2017. The share of U.S. adults who bring up their material well-being – including references to feeling safe, secure, able to cover the basics, living comfortably or being well-off – has dropped from 29% to 18% over the past four years. This decline has been concentrated among two groups in particular: married adults and White Americans. In 2017, both groups were among the most likely to point to material well-being as a source of meaning.

The share of adults who mention their job, occupation or career as a source of meaning has declined from 24% to 17% since 2017, perhaps reflecting the fact that many Americans’ working lives have been upended during the coronavirus pandemic. While Americans with higher incomes and those with a college degree remain the most likely to bring up their jobs, both groups have become less likely to do so, with a decline from 37% to 27% among those in the upper-income tier and a decline from 39% to 26% among the college-educated.

The widespread travel restrictions in response to the pandemic may have also affected the share of Americans who derive meaning from travel, which declined from 6% in 2017 to 3% in 2021. But the topic of travel remains more common among college graduates and those with a total family income of $100,000 or more per year.

Older Americans have grown less likely to mention their physical or mental health as a source of meaning in life. The overall share of Americans who mention their physical or mental health or wellness fell from 19% in 2017 to 11% in 2021. And this shift has been especially pronounced among older Americans. This year, only 12% of those ages 65 and older mention their health as a source of meaning, down from 30% in 2017.

The emphasis on health has also fallen significantly among White Americans, who now mention the topic at a similar rate as Black and Hispanic Americans. In 2017, by contrast, White adults were more likely than Black and Hispanic adults to mention their health.

Most Americans are no more likely to mention difficulties or challenges than they were four years ago, although older adults are an exception. Between 2017 and 2021, the share of Americans who mention some sort of negative circumstance or difficulty when describing where they find meaning in life has remained stable – 17% of all adults. But older Americans have become more likely to mention difficulties or challenges when answering this question. Roughly a quarter of those 65 and older (27%) mention a difficulty or challenge in 2021 – more than any other age group and more than the 20% who did so in 2017. This pattern does not appear to be unique to the U.S.: In many of the other publics where the Center asked the same question in 2021, older people are also more likely to mention these kinds of difficulties.

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Patrick van Kessel is a former senior data former scientist at Pew Research Center

Laura Silver is an associate director focusing on global attitudes at Pew Research Center

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This essay about the practical application of ethics in daily life highlights how ethical considerations influence both monumental decisions and everyday choices. It discusses the philosophical underpinnings of ethics, referencing theories from Aristotle and Kant, which advocate for virtues and duty-based actions, respectively. The essay then explores how these philosophical principles manifest in the modern world, such as in corporate ethics, where businesses strive for transparency and fairness. Additionally, it looks at personal ethics in everyday scenarios, like making purchasing decisions or interacting with others, emphasizing how these actions shape personal character and societal norms. Furthermore, it touches on the evolving nature of ethics in response to technological advancements and global challenges, pointing out the importance of adapting ethical standards to current realities. The essay underscores ethics as a guiding force in making balanced, considerate decisions that promote a just society.

How it works

Ethics is often envisioned as a lofty collection of principles that govern major life decisions and professional conduct. However, it’s also deeply woven into the fabric of everyday life, influencing choices in subtle yet profound ways. This exploration sheds light on how ethical considerations are not just academic concepts but practical guides that shape our daily interactions and personal growth.

The foundation of ethics lies in the age-old debate about what constitutes right and wrong. Philosophical giants from various eras have tackled this, proposing theories that still resonate today.

For example, Aristotle’s notion of virtue ethics centers on developing moral virtues through habitual actions, suggesting that living well involves cultivating attributes such as kindness and prudence. On the other hand, Immanuel Kant introduced a framework based on duty and the adherence to universal laws, advocating for actions that can be universally applied as moral laws, irrespective of personal gain.

In the modern world, these philosophical principles translate into real-world applications that impact both individuals and organizations. For instance, corporate ethics govern business practices, influencing how companies manage everything from environmental responsibilities to consumer relations. An ethically-run business not only adheres to regulations but also operates transparently and treats its stakeholders with fairness. These practices build trust and sustain the business in the long term.

On a personal level, ethics molds our everyday decisions. It plays a role when we choose products at the grocery store, considering if they are sustainably sourced, or when we interact with others, deciding how to respond to conflict or temptation. These decisions might seem small, but they cumulatively define our character and the quality of our relationships.

Furthermore, the evolution of ethical standards reflects societal changes. As new technologies and global challenges emerge, ethical norms are reevaluated to fit new contexts. Digital ethics, for example, now questions how we protect personal privacy online, manage artificial intelligence, and ensure that technological advancements benefit society without causing harm.

In essence, ethics is a dynamic, omnipresent force that shapes how we navigate the world. It informs both monumental life choices and the minutiae of everyday actions, guiding us toward a balanced and considered existence. By continuously engaging with ethical questions, we ensure that our decisions are grounded in a consideration of fairness, respect, and responsibility.

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What is ADHD?

Signs and symptoms.

• Managing Symptoms

ADHD in Adults

More information.

ADHD is one of the most common neurodevelopmental disorders of childhood. It is usually first diagnosed in childhood and often lasts into adulthood. Children with ADHD may have trouble paying attention, controlling impulsive behaviors (may act without thinking about what the result will be), or be overly active.

It is normal for children to have trouble focusing and behaving at one time or another. However, children with ADHD do not just grow out of these behaviors. The symptoms continue, can be severe, and can cause difficulty at school, at home, or with friends.

A child with ADHD might:

• daydream a lot
• forget or lose things a lot
• squirm or fidget
• talk too much
• make careless mistakes or take unnecessary risks
• have a hard time resisting temptation
• have trouble taking turns
• have difficulty getting along with others

Learn more about signs and symptoms

Get information and support from the National Resource Center on ADHD

There are three different ways ADHD presents itself, depending on which types of symptoms are strongest in the individual:

• Predominantly Inattentive Presentation: It is hard for the individual to organize or finish a task, to pay attention to details, or to follow instructions or conversations. The person is easily distracted or forgets details of daily routines.
• Predominantly Hyperactive-Impulsive Presentation: The person fidgets and talks a lot. It is hard to sit still for long (e.g., for a meal or while doing homework). Smaller children may run, jump or climb constantly. The individual feels restless and has trouble with impulsivity. Someone who is impulsive may interrupt others a lot, grab things from people, or speak at inappropriate times. It is hard for the person to wait their turn or listen to directions. A person with impulsiveness may have more accidents and injuries than others.
• Combined Presentation: Symptoms of the above two types are equally present in the person.

Because symptoms can change over time, the presentation may change over time as well.

 Learn about symptoms of ADHD, how ADHD is diagnosed, and treatment recommendations including behavior therapy, medication, and school support.

Causes of ADHD

Scientists are studying cause(s) and risk factors in an effort to find better ways to manage and reduce the chances of a person having ADHD. The cause(s) and risk factors for ADHD are unknown, but current research shows that genetics plays an important role. Recent studies link genetic factors with ADHD. 1

In addition to genetics, scientists are studying other possible causes and risk factors including:

• Brain injury
• Exposure to environmental risks (e.g., lead) during pregnancy or at a young age
• Alcohol and tobacco use during pregnancy
• Premature delivery
• Low birth weight

Research does not support the popularly held views that ADHD is caused by eating too much sugar, watching too much television, parenting, or social and environmental factors such as poverty or family chaos. Of course, many things, including these, might make symptoms worse, especially in certain people. But the evidence is not strong enough to conclude that they are the main causes of ADHD.

Download and Print this fact sheet [PDF – 473 KB]

Deciding if a child has ADHD is a process with several steps. There is no single test to diagnose ADHD, and many other problems, like anxiety, depression, sleep problems, and certain types of learning disabilities, can have similar symptoms. One step of the process involves having a medical exam, including hearing and vision tests , to rule out other problems with symptoms like ADHD. Diagnosing ADHD usually includes a checklist for rating ADHD symptoms and taking a history of the child from parents, teachers, and sometimes, the child.

Learn more about the criteria for diagnosing ADHD

In most cases, ADHD is best treated with a combination of behavior therapy and medication. For preschool-aged children (4-5 years of age) with ADHD, behavior therapy, particularly training for parents, is recommended as the first line of treatment before medication is tried. What works best can depend on the child and family. Good treatment plans will include close monitoring, follow-ups, and making changes, if needed, along the way.

Learn more about treatments

Managing Symptoms: Staying Healthy

Being healthy is important for all children and can be especially important for children with ADHD. In addition to behavioral therapy and medication, having a healthy lifestyle can make it easier for your child to deal with ADHD symptoms. Here are some healthy behaviors that may help:

• Developing healthy eating habits  such as eating plenty of fruits, vegetables, and whole grains and choosing lean protein sources
• Participating in daily  physical activity based on age
• Limiting the amount of daily screen time from TVs, computers, phones, and other electronics
• Getting the recommended amount of sleep each night based on age

If you or your doctor has concerns about ADHD, you can take your child to a specialist such as a child psychologist, child psychiatrist, or developmental pediatrician, or you can contact your local early intervention agency (for children under 3) or public school (for children 3 and older).

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) funds the National Resource Center on ADHD , a program of CHADD – Children and Adults with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder. Their website has links to information for people with ADHD and their families. The National Resource Center operates a call center (1-866-200-8098) with trained staff to answer questions about ADHD.

For more information on services for children with special needs, visit the Center for Parent Information and Resources.  To find the Parent Center near you, you can visit this website.

ADHD can last into adulthood. Some adults have ADHD but have never been diagnosed. The symptoms can cause difficulty at work, at home, or with relationships. Symptoms may look different at older ages, for example, hyperactivity may appear as extreme restlessness. Symptoms can become more severe when the demands of adulthood increase. For more information about diagnosis and treatment throughout the lifespan, please visit the websites of the National Resource Center on ADHD  and the National Institutes of Mental Health .

• National Resource Center on ADHD
• National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)
• Faraone, S. V., Banaschewski, T., Coghill, D., Zheng, Y., Biederman, J., Bellgrove, M. A., . . . Wang, Y. (2021). The World Federation of ADHD International Consensus Statement: 208 evidence-based conclusions about the disorder. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews. doi:10.1016/j.neubiorev.2021.01.022

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6 Common Leadership Styles — and How to Decide Which to Use When

• Rebecca Knight

Being a great leader means recognizing that different circumstances call for different approaches.

Research suggests that the most effective leaders adapt their style to different circumstances — be it a change in setting, a shift in organizational dynamics, or a turn in the business cycle. But what if you feel like you’re not equipped to take on a new and different leadership style — let alone more than one? In this article, the author outlines the six leadership styles Daniel Goleman first introduced in his 2000 HBR article, “Leadership That Gets Results,” and explains when to use each one. The good news is that personality is not destiny. Even if you’re naturally introverted or you tend to be driven by data and analysis rather than emotion, you can still learn how to adapt different leadership styles to organize, motivate, and direct your team.

Much has been written about common leadership styles and how to identify the right style for you, whether it’s transactional or transformational, bureaucratic or laissez-faire. But according to Daniel Goleman, a psychologist best known for his work on emotional intelligence, “Being a great leader means recognizing that different circumstances may call for different approaches.”

• RK Rebecca Knight is a journalist who writes about all things related to the changing nature of careers and the workplace. Her essays and reported stories have been featured in The Boston Globe, Business Insider, The New York Times, BBC, and The Christian Science Monitor. She was shortlisted as a Reuters Institute Fellow at Oxford University in 2023. Earlier in her career, she spent a decade as an editor and reporter at the Financial Times in New York, London, and Boston.

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Opinion It’s not so ‘terribly strange to be 70’

I turned 70 today, a young age for an older person to be, but it is the oldest I have ever been by a long shot. It has been well over six decades since I learned in arithmetic how to carry the one, and the rest has sped by like microfiche.

One big juicy, messy, hard, joyful, quiet life. That’s what my 70 years have bequeathed me.

In my teens, already drinking and drugging, I didn’t expect to see 21, and at 21, out of control, I didn’t expect to see 30. At 30, I had published three books but, as a sober friend put it, was deteriorating faster than I could lower my standards.

Then at 32, I got clean and sober, the miracle of my life from which all other blessings flow. My son was born three years later. The apple fell close to the tree: My son went off the rails, too. He and his partner had a baby at 19, which had not been in my specific plans for him, but you know the old line: If you want to make God laugh, tell Her your plans.

The baby, soon to get his learner’s permit, turned out to be the gift of a lifetime. My son got clean and sober 13 years ago, and the three of us grew up together. Then after a long search, I met this brilliant, kind writer guy and, three days after I started getting Social Security, I married him. Yesterday, I published my 20th book, called “Somehow.” Today, when I woke up, I was 70. Seventy!

I think that I am only 57, but the paperwork does not back this up. I don’t feel old, because your inside self doesn’t age. When younger people ask me when I graduated from high school and I say 1971, there’s a moment’s pause, as if this is inconceivable and I might as well have said 20 B.C. That’s when I feel my age. But I smile winsomely because, while I would like to have their skin, hearing, vision, memory, balance, stamina and focus, I would not go back even one year.

My older friends and I know a thing or two.

In general, though, I know how little I know. This is a big relief.

I know that my lifelong belief, that to be beyond reproach offers shelter and protection, is a lie. Shelter is an inside job, protection an illusion. We are as vulnerable as kittens. Love fends off the worst of it.

I know now that everyone is screwed up to some degree, and that everyone screws up. Phew. I thought for decades it was just me, that all of you had been issued owner’s manuals in second grade, the day I was home with measles. We are all figuring it out as we go. Aging is grad school.

I know a very little bit about God, or goodness, or good orderly direction. I am a believer, but I don’t trouble myself about ultimate reality, the triune nature of the deity or who shot the Holy Ghost. I say help a lot, and thanks, and are You kidding me??? Have You been drinking again, Friend?

I know about something I will call cloak hope, most obvious to me in the people who swooped in and helped me get sober in 1986, and swooped down again in 2012 for my child. In my case, an elderly sober woman named Ruby saw me in my utter, trembly hopelessness — afraid, smelly and arrogant; she swept in and took me under her wing. She wrapped her cloak around me and was the counternarrative to all I believed at 32, i.e., that I needed to figure things out, especially myself, and who to blame.

I know the beauty of shadows. Shadows show us how life can gleam in contrast. Sunshine might be dancing outside the window, but the wonder is in the variegation, with fat white clouds bunched up on the right casting shadows on the hills and gardens, and brushstrokes of gray clouds on the left and — most magical — the long narrow shawl of fog right across the top of the ridge. The day is saying, Who knows how the weather will morph, but meanwhile so much is possible. And that is life asserting itself.

I know life will assert itself. Knowing this means I have a shot at some measure of pliability, like a willow tree that is maybe having an iffy day.

I know everything is in flux, that all things will turn into other things. I am uncomfortable with this but less so than in younger years. Michael Pollan wrote, “Look into a flower, and what do you see? Into the very heart of nature’s double nature — that is, the contending energies of creation and dissolution, the spiring toward complex form and the tidal pull away from it.” So I don’t sweat feeling a little disoriented some days.

I have grown mostly unafraid of my own death, except late at night when I head to WebMD and learn that my symptoms are probably cancer.

I know and am constantly aware of how much we have all lost and are in danger of losing — I am not going to name names — and am awash with gratitude for lovely, funny things that are still here and still work.

I know how to let go now, mostly, although it is not a lovely Hallmark process, and when well-wishers from my spiritual community exhort me to let go and let God, I want to Taser them. But I know that when I finally tell a best friend of my thistly stuckness, the telling is the beginning of release. You have to learn to let go. Otherwise, you get dragged, or you become George Costanza’s father pounding the table and shouting, “Serenity now!”

I know that people and pets I adore will keep dying, and it will never be okay, and then it will, sort of, mostly. I know the cycle is life, death, new life, and I think this is a bad system, but it is the one currently in place.

I know I will space out and screw up right and left as I head out on this book tour, say things I wish I could take back, forget things, sometimes onstage, and lose things. I just will.

I recently went to Costa Rica, where my husband was giving a spiritual retreat, and I forgot my pants. My pants! And last month, I went to give a talk at a theater two states away and forgot to bring any makeup. I am quite pale, almost light blue in some places — think of someone from “Game of Thrones” with a head cold — and ghostly under bright lights. When I discovered this omission, I was wearing only tinted moisturizer, powder on my nose and light pink lip gloss.

I gave myself an inspiring pep talk on my inner beauty, the light within. And then I had a moment of clarity: I asked the person driving me to the venue to stop at CVS, where I bought blush and a lipstick that was accidentally brighter and glossier than I usually wear. I looked fabulous. Age is just a number when you still know how to shine. And I shone.

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Earth Day: How a senator’s idea more than 50 years ago got people fighting for their planet

FILE - Climate activists hold a rally to protest the use of fossil fuels on Earth Day at Freedom Plaza, April 22, 2023, in Washington. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File)

FILE - Activists display prints replicating solar panels during a rally to mark Earth Day at Lafayette Square, Washington, April 23, 2022. (AP Photo/Gemunu Amarasinghe, File)

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Millions of people around the world will pause on Monday, at least for a moment, to mark Earth Day. It’s an annual event founded by people who hoped to stir activism to clean up and preserve a planet that is now home to some 8 billion humans and assorted trillions of other organisms.

Here are answers to some common questions about Earth Day and how it came to be:

WHY DO WE CELEBRATE EARTH DAY?

Earth Day has its roots in growing concern over pollution in the 1960s, when author Rachel Carson’s 1962 book “Silent Spring,” about the pesticide DDT and its damaging effects on the food chain, hit bestseller lists and raised awareness about nature’s delicate balance.

But it was a senator from Wisconsin, Democrat Gaylord Nelson, who had the idea that would become Earth Day. Nelson had long been concerned about the environment when a massive offshore oil spill sent millions of gallons onto the southern California coast in 1969. Nelson, after touring the spill site, had the idea of doing a national “teach-in” on the environment, similar to teach-ins being held on some college campuses at the time to oppose the war in Vietnam.

Nelson and others, including activist Denis Hayes, worked to expand the idea beyond college campuses, with events all around the country, and came up with the Earth Day name.

WHY WAS APRIL 22 CHOSEN FOR EARTH DAY?

A history of the movement by EarthDay.org, where Hayes remains board chair emeritus, says the date of the first Earth Day — April 22, 1970 — was chosen because it fell on a weekday between spring break and final exams and the aim was to attract as many students as possible.

IS EARTH DAY A REAL HOLIDAY?

It’s not a federal holiday. But many groups use the day to put together volunteer events with the environment in mind, such as cleanups of natural areas. You can see a list of events worldwide , or register your own event, at EarthDay.org.

HAS IT HAD AN IMPACT?

It has. The overwhelming public response to the first Earth Day is credited with adding pressure for the U.S. Congress to do more to address pollution, and it did, passing landmark legislation including the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act. More broadly, it’s seen as the birth of the modern environmental movement. In later years, Earth Day expanded to become a truly global event. It now claims to have motivated action in more than 192 countries.

In 2000, Earth Day began taking aim at climate change, a problem that has grown rapidly more urgent in recent years.

WHAT’S THE THEME THIS YEAR?

This year’s Earth Day is focusing on the threat that plastics pose to our environment, with a call to end all single-use plastic and find replacements for their use so they can quickly be phased down.

The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org .