Susan Wolf has developed a promising answer to the problem of the meaning of – or better in – life’. Wolf’s hybrid-view of meaning in life can be briefly summarized by the catchphrase: ‘meaning arises when subjective attraction meets objective attractiveness’. Accordingly, on her account, both an objective and a subjective element are needed for a life to be meaningful. For the objective element at least four characteristics can be identified in Wolf’s writings: the element must be subject-independent (independency claim), (...) it must ground the subject’s fulfilment (grounding claim), the subject must be able to recognize it as source of fulfilment (possibility of recognition claim) and the subject can be fallible regarding this recognition (possibility of fallibility claim). Apart from this, Wolf is silent about objectivity. This is a gap in her account. Additionally, objectivity seems to be a highly metaphysically burdened category. Therefore, searching for an alternative account might be worthwhile. I argue that objectivity should be replaced by rationality. Judgments about meaning in life are evaluative judgments. It is argued that evaluations are expressions of pro- or con-attitudes and that these expressions can be rational. If one has a pro-attitude towards a certain project of one’s life, and if it is rational to have it, then there is to that extent meaning in life. So, meaning arises when subjective attraction meets rational attractiveness. (shrink)

David Benatar and Thomas Nagel are both claiming that life is meaningless if judged from a cosmic perspective and both are claiming that our life is absurd. However, they understand ‘the absurdity of life’ in different ways. Benatar’s understanding of absurdity refers to the impossibility to transcend our limits from the cosmic perspective. This is strictly tied to a negative evaluation of our life. According to Benatar we have therefore a reason to regret our existence. Again, Nagel’s absurdity arises from (...) a clash of attitudes we have when we evaluate our life from the subjective and the objective perspective. Absurdity results from the incompatibility of our attitudes regarding our own life. We should therefore approach our lives with irony.I argue that neither regret nor irony are rationally recommended attitudes we should have to our life. I show that Benatar’s transcending-ones-limits approach to life’s meaning does not necessarily go hand in hand with a negative evaluation of our life. Although a transcending-ones-limits-approach of life’s meaning implies that our life is admittedly meaningless from a cosmic perspective it does not imply that it is to be judged as good or bad. However, the irony that Nagel advises is not recommended either, as subjective and objective attitude do not necessarily collide. As I read Nagel’s position the attitudes must collide because of a difference in evaluative certainty. I think this is not true because the evaluation of life is beset by doubts subjectively as well as objectively. (shrink)

Verbunden mit dem drohenden Verlust von kognitiven Kapazitäten und der Veränderung der eigenen Persönlichkeit, ist zu vermuten, dass bei Demenzerkrankungen ein Sinnverlust vom Erkrankten befürchtet wird. Es ist Aufgabe dieses Papers aufzuklären, was es mit einer solch meist diffus empfundenen Angst auf sich hat. Dazu wird ein Deutungsangebot gemacht, das auf die Sinnkonzeption Susan Wolfs zurückgreift. Es wird gezeigt, dass es möglich ist, bis zu einem gewissen Grad der Demenz ein sinnvolles Leben zu führen – ein Leben, bei dem subjektiv (...) Anziehendes und rational Wertvolles zusammengreifen müssen. Dies ist möglich, weil ein Mensch mit Demenz noch über entsprechende Fähigkeiten der Wertschätzung verfügt und eine Hilfsbedürftigkeit der Befähigung zu einem sinnvollen Leben nicht widerspricht. Bei einer sehr schweren Beeinträchtigung der kognitiven Kapazitäten wird es hingegen nicht mehr möglich sein, ein solches Leben zu leben; die solcherart erkrankte Person wird dies aber auch nicht mehr vermissen. Wenn das, was man mit der Demenzerkrankung zu verlieren befürchtet, durch das Sinnverständnis Wolfs getroffen ist, dann sollte man diese Überlegungen bei der Beurteilung einer empfundenen Angst berücksichtigen. (shrink)