Subjective vs Objective Meaning: Taylor, Wiggins & Schopenhauer

Taylor on Subjective Meaning in Life

Taylor uses a paradigmatic example... it lies outside him.

Our life is like... We wonder what the point of it all is. If “the point of any living thing’s life is, evidently, nothing but life itself,” then why do we do anything at all? So then Taylor introduces the concept of impulses...

This is the “subjective meaning”: what makes our life meaningful depends upon one having the desire to do the activities that make up one's life. Taylor states that although we cannot have an objective meaning of life, we can still have subjective meaning...

Wiggins' Critique of Taylor's View

Wiggins thinks that Taylor’s position is incoherent. On Wiggins' view, a purpose has no permanence, and even if it did, its point would be negated by infinite boredom. Thus, we need to alleviate meaninglessness by appealing to “our deep...

Non-Cognitivism and Taylor

According to Wiggins, Taylor is a non-cognitivist: the intellect supplies factual perception...

The intellect goes about apprehending objective facts. Meanwhile, the will introduces purpose or value into the world. So, the intellect can tell you the most efficient way to roll stones up a hill (objective). But the will can make rolling stones up the hill something valuable. Our wills create values (subjective).

The Incoherence Argument

According to the non-cognitivist, from the external point of view, there is no meaning to life. But subjectively, we can give our life any meaning. Wiggins claims the non-cognitive theory is inconsistent with our experience of finding meaning in our lives.

On the non-cognitive account, life is objectively meaningless. So, by the non-cognitivist’s lights, it must appear that whatever the will chooses to treat as a good reason to engage itself is a good reason. But the will itself craves objective reasons. Thus, the non-cognitivist position is incoherent, and so is Taylor's: “life is objectively meaningless, but I find it meaningful”.

Wiggins' Point and Taylor's Potential Rebuttal

Wiggins’s argument is persuasive because he goes one step further than Taylor. Wiggins agrees with (...) But, (...) making it somehow objective. In brief, if we think that our lives lack any kind of objective meaning, then we cannot think of them as meaningful to us. This would be like thinking, “It’s not really raining outside, but it is raining to me.” On Taylor’s behalf, we can say that the “outcome” Wiggins talks about to find meaningfulness is irrelevant because even if there were an outcome, it would disappear, break down, or be forgotten, so the point is not that it culminates in something.

Schopenhauer: Desire, Suffering, and Meaninglessness

In Ellis’s paper (...), both agree that a meaningless life has what she calls an “on and on” structure. Schopenhauer states that we are, by nature, desire-driven individuals and that it belongs to...

Desires, for Schopenhauer, always involve suffering in the person who desires... In this sense, it is hard to see how life could have any meaning at all.

Ellis on Schopenhauer and Types of Desire

According to Ellis, Schopenhauer conceives only egoistic desires (...). For example, Levinas’s “metaphysical desire”:...

These desires do not follow the “on and on” structure presented earlier...

Nozick on Pleasure and Motivation

Nozick assumes pleasure... In his paper... experiences possible. Nozick’s argument states... is false.

All in all, he believes that pleasurable experiences aren’t the only things that motivate us; ...