Abstract
What, if anything, makes a life meaningful? This question is obviously
important but has not received much attention from normative theorists.
Although there is relatively little philosophical literature on life’s
meaning, there is more than most readers are probably aware. And this
literature has reached a point at which it would be useful to reflect on
where it stands and where it needs to go.
In this article, I survey a particular subset of recent work on the
meaning of life. First, I am concerned with writings that take a meaningful
life to be one desirable facet of a person’s existence.1 I set aside those
that treat a meaningful life as a purely descriptive property or that discuss
the meaning of anything supraindividual such as the human race or the
universe.2 Furthermore, I concentrate on the Anglo-American philosophical
literature; I do not address the insights to be found in works of fiction,
psychology, religion, or, say, Continental philosophy.3 In addition, I disregard
pieces devoted to applied issues in favor of those with a decidedly theoretical focus.4 Finally, I focus on literature that has appeared since 1980.