Conditions for a Theory of Meaning of Life: Susan Wolf's Perspective

In recent decades, analytical philosophers have argued for the ‘meaning of life’ as a normative, independent category and hence have criticized the reductionist approaches based on two normative categories of ethics and happiness. Presenting the subjective and objective conditions, Susan Wolf attempts to offer a novel theory of ‘meaning of life’ that dismantles the simplified relationship between this concept and two notions of ethics and happiness. She claims that to theorize the ‘meaning of life’ we require to establish a set of particular values that allow a given individual human to go beyond her own narrow values and therefore generate a sense of satisfaction for herself. According to her, this establishment of empowering values is a necessary condition for a theory of ‘meaning of life’ to be autonomous from existing theories of ethics and happiness. She subsequently reviews and brings into question some of the criteria developed to capture and identify the objective, meaningful values, such as subject-independence, judgment from the third person’s perspective, developing a person's abilities, and a competent judge. Thus, she concludes that there is no definitive standard to assess such values. Instead of having a specific theory, she alternatively seeks a direct and active engagement with personal experiences to distinguish between meaningful actions and ethical, joyful ones. While Wolf’s conception of a meaningful life has some deficiencies, such as the impossibility of recognizing the meaning-giving actions in the absence of any theory, her conceptual development of ‘meaning of life’ has been influential in liberating this concept from notions of ethics and happiness.