The Meaning of Life - Essay
Every time someone mentions or has mentioned the words “meaning” and “life” in the same sentence, the first thing that pops to mind is: “Why are we here? What’s life all about? Is God really real? Or is there some doubt? Well, tonight, we are going to sort it all out. For tonight is the meaning of life.” If there is no recognition as to what I am referring to, it is the song “Meaning Of Life” in Monty Python’s “The Meaning of Life”. The movie is a satirical exploration of the existential question that has perplexed humanity for centuries: “What is the meaning of life?”. And though it is not a well-structured philosophy paper that uses elegant examples like Sisyphus – instead, we see fish with human heads swimming endlessly in a fish tank in a restaurant, observing how their fish friend Howard gets eaten – it does, in a way, result in the same thing. It makes you think.
The song I referred to poses to be more valuable than one might think as they essentially capture Richard Taylor’s view in his book “The Meaning of Life”. “Meaning Of Life” (the movie) represents Monty Python’s comedic take on the fundamental human pursuit of finding meaning and purpose in existence. Like much of Monty Python’s work, “Meaning Of Life” does not shy away from satirising rigid institutions and societal expectations. Through its unique fusion of cleverness and irreverence, the song challenges the authority of traditional establishments and satirises the absurdities of societal customs. The lyrics serve as a biting commentary on the self-imposed restrictions and expectations imposed by society. By exposing and ridiculing the absurdity of these norms, Monty Python challenges individuals to question their own beliefs, encouraging a departure from conformity and instead a pursuit of personal fulfilment.
This pursuit of personal fulfilment seems similar to Richard Taylor’s conception of a meaningful existence. In Taylor’s “The Meaning of Life”, he examines the notion of a meaningless existence to contrast it with a meaningful one. As an archetypical of meaninglessness, Taylor refers to the myth of Sisyphus. “Sisyphus, it will be remembered, betrayed divine secrets to mortals, and for this he was condemned by the gods to roll a stone to the top of a hill, the stone then immediately to roll back down, again to be pushed to the top by Sisyphus, to roll down once more, and so on again and again, forever. Now in this we have the picture of meaningless, pointless toil, of a meaningless existence that is absolutely never redeemed. … Nothing ever comes of what he is doing, except simply, more of the same. …” (Norton Introductions, p. 977). In the original myth, the stone is so large that Sisyphus never quite gets it to the top and must groan under every step so that his enormous labour amounts to nothing. However, Taylor states that what truly horrifies us is not the futility of his great effort but the lack of meaning in his very existence. Even if we assume that the stone is merely a tiny pebble that can be easily carried, it does not imbue Sisyphus's life with any significance. It is not the unending nature of his labour that renders it meaningless, but rather the fact that it ultimately leads to nothing. The subjective meaninglessness of Sisyphus’ activity would be eliminated if the Gods placed within him “a compulsive impulse to roll stones” (Norton Introductions, p. 978). Implanted with such desires, the gods provide him the arena to fulfil them. While we may still view Sisyphus’ toil as meaningless from the outside – for externally, the situation has not changed—we can now see that satisfying this desire would fulfil Sisyphus from the inside. For now, he is doing what he wants – forever. And meaning establishes itself in life through doing this – “namely, our own wills, our deep interest in what we find ourselves doing” (Norton Introductions, p. 981).
For Taylor, this intrinsic sense of fulfilment one gets from fulfilling one’s desires is enough to render a life meaningful. However, Susan Wolf disagrees with this. She believes that, even though Sisyphus feels fulfilled by rolling a stone up the hill, this feeling alone would not render his life as meaningful. For Wolf, “a person’s life can be meaningful only if she cares fairly deeply about some thing or things, only if she is gripped, excited, interested, engaged, or, as I earlier put it, if she loves something…” (Norton Introductions, p. 985) in which she specifies that “the relationship between the subject and the object of her attraction must be an active one.” (Norton Introductions, p. 985). Her conception of a meaningful life is the merging of two views when considering the meaning of life.
The first view emphasises a subjective element, urging individuals to identify and pursue their passions. Wolf refers to this view as the Fulfilment view. It postulates that engaging in activities one is passionate about and deeply cares for endows one with a sense of joy in life that would otherwise be unattainable. The rationale behind advocating the pursuit of these passions is that they generate a distinct good feeling in an individual. “Let us refer to the feelings one has when one is doing what one loves, or when one is engaging in activities by which one is gripped or excited, as feelings of fulfillment” (Norton Introductions, p. 986). The fulfilment view suggests that the only thing that matters is the subjective quality of one’s life. Therefore, the activities that lead to that fulfilment should not be a factor in our evaluations of potential lives. However, when considering lives that are equally fulfilling but differ significantly in the activities that produce that fulfilment, the validity of this perspective is subject to question. For instance, consider an individual whose life is shaped by activities that most people deem worthless, but such activities bring fulfilment to that individual. Does this life, from the perspective of self-interest, represent the best possible outcome? The example of Sisyphus is used to explore this question. Many individuals assert that Sisyphus' life is far from desirable. “Something desirable seems missing from his life despite his fulfilment experience” (Norton Introductions, p. 988). What seems missing is not a subjective matter, though, as we may assume that Sisyphus’s life seems meaningful to him from the inside. Instead, “we must look for an objective feature that characterizes what is lacking.” (Norton Introductions, p. 988). This is where the second view comes into play.
This view tells us that the best sort of life is involved in, or contributes to, something “larger than oneself”. She (very originally) calls this view the “Larger-than-Oneself View”. Wolf interprets this view more metaphorically, in the way of “gesturing toward the aim of participating in or contributing to something whose value is independent of oneself” and not necessarily referring to the “size of the group or the object one wants to benefit or be involved” (Norton Introductions, p. 989). In this understanding, the purpose is not to suggest engaging with something bigger than oneself but rather with something that is not oneself. This means engaging with something whose worth is not dependent on oneself and originates from outside oneself.
We can address the issue of finding fulfilment in Sisyphus' life by combining the Fulfillment View with the idea of getting involved in something bigger than oneself. This creates a Bipartite View that proposes two necessary conditions for a meaningful life: the subject must find it fulfilling, and it must contribute to something outside of the self. If one gets involved in something whose value is (in part) independent of oneself, and it happens that one finds that involvement fulfilling, then one’s life will both be and seem meaningful. However, if the involvement does not bring any rewards, it may not contribute to a meaningful life. The example of Sisyphus portrayed above showed us that a life that meets only the subjective condition is insufficient in constituting a meaningful life if it lacks an objective connection to something or someone beyond the individual.
Wolf argues that the plausibility of each of these views increases when they are used together. She calls this conjunction the “Fitting Fulfilment Theory”. The experience of fulfilment from a subjective perspective is undoubtedly attractive. However, even if Sisyphus finds the task of rolling a stone up a hill fulfilling, his life lacks meaning. Similarly, if Sisyphus’s stone rolling were to “scare away vultures who would otherwise attack a nearby community and spread terror and disease” (Norton Introductions, p. 990), something significant would be missing if Sisyphus, in this case, is entirely unaware of this effect. Sisyphus would be doing something morally correct. But he would not be living well. So, Wolf suggests that we explicitly combine these two views: “On this conception [i.e., the Fitting Fulfillment view], meaning in life arises when subjective attraction meets objective attractiveness” (Norton Introductions, p. 891).
In light of the Fitting Fulfillment view, I want to focus more on what precisely “objective attractiveness” means. According to Wolf’s interpretation of the “Larger Than Oneself View”, that objective element would be to get involved with “something whose value is independent of and has its source outside of oneself”. Confusion arises when we try to establish how we establish this value of things. One interpretation might suggest that Wolf has a mind-independent conception of this objective element: “Things are ultimately valuable in a way that is robustly independent of our valuing them” (Norton Introductions, p. 909). It could also be interpreted via the mind-dependent conception: “…there are no independent truths about what is valuable. Rather, if something is valuable, then this is ultimately in virtue of our evaluative attitudes toward the thing” (Norton Introductions, p. 909). So, in this case, it would mean that something has value if an outside source also believes it has value. An example would be that something you consider holding value is only valuable if others believe and view it similarly. If multiple people believe something to be of value, then multiple outside sources support your claim, independent of yourself. But these external sources administer these values according to their own passions, their own conceptions of value. This means that those outside sources, even though they are technically independent of oneself, are not independent, for they all include values administered by their own conception of value. They then all depend on each other. Let us visualise this concept more clearly:
| Argument A | Argument B |
|---|---|
| 1. A thinks B has value | 1. C thinks B has value |
| 2. B having value is supported by C thinking B has value | 2. B having value is supported by A thinking B has value |
| 3.Thus, B has value | 3.Thus, B has value |
So, we can see here that your conception of a thing having value contributes as an outside source for another person, but that person, in return, also contributes as an outside source to you, so value cannot be independent of oneself, meaning that this interpretation of objective elements is invalid.
From this, it seems that her view on the meaning of life supposes “evaluative realism”. However, if her view does suppose this, it leads to difficulties when put into practice. The first question that pops to mind is whether we, as humans, would agree with mind-independent value ordering. This essentially asks if our own administration of value to things corresponds with the intrinsic values those things hold. If it is the case that it corresponds, then Wolf’s view would prove plausible. In light of Sisyphus, it would mean that our supposition that rolling rocks up a hill does not hold value is correct, for our administration corresponds with the intrinsic values, and thus rolling a rock up a hill is non-valuable, and hence Sisyphus’ existence is meaningless. However, what happens if the opposite is the case? What happens when that mind-independent value ordering is the opposite of what we perceive as valuable? If this were the case, then situations where humans seek to live a meaningful life, the criteria for which are a life that (1) the subject finds fulfilling and (2) contributes to something whose value is independent of and has its source outside of oneself, there exists a chance that criterion 2 is not met. An example of this can be seen when someone does something thought to have value, but it just so happens that, according to mind-independent value ordering, that thing holds no value. Thus, their life does not have meaning, even when it seems to do.
So, if Wolf’s view does suppose “evaluative realism”, the view is invalid, for it is impossible to know whether criterion 2 has been met. Nor does her view suppose a mind-dependent conception, for we have seen that if that is the case, value cannot be independent of oneself, and criterion 2 is again impossible to meet. Thus, a complex problem arises: how do we know which things hold “value independent of and having its source outside of oneself” (Norton Introductions, p. 989)? The simple answer is this: we cannot know. There is no tangible way of knowing which things hold value, so the best thing to do in this case is to take a guess. I recommend doing the things you are passionate about, even if others (probably including me) consider them worthless.