Loving what is worth loving

Meaning as the meeting of the subjective and the objective; subjective attraction meets objective attractiveness

Susan Wolf born 1952A life is meaningful when one loves what is worthy of love and engages with it actively.

What it claims

Meaning arises when subjective attraction meets objective attractiveness: a life is meaningful if, and only if, it loves what is worth loving and engages with it actively.

Why

A life has meaning when one is actively engaged with something that truly deserves to be loved.

The same idea through history

Susan Wolf1997Wolf presents earlier formulations of her thesis in "Meaningful Lives in a Meaningless World" (Quaestiones Infinitae, 1997), which she herself cites in her note 12. Her article "Happiness and Meaning: Two Aspects of the Good Life" (Social Philosophy and Policy, 1997) could not be consulted for this page.

Susan Wolf2007"The Meanings of Lives" (2007): a meaningful life is one actively and at least somewhat successfully engaged in projects of positive value. The 2007 Princeton lectures became the 2010 book.

In short

"Loving what is worth loving" is an argument by Susan Wolf (Meaning in Life and Why It Matters, 2010, 1997) on the question "Does life have a meaning?" (answer: a given meaning). Its claim: Meaning arises when subjective attraction meets objective attractiveness: a life is meaningful if, and only if, it loves what is worth loving and engages with it actively. According to AskPhilosophy's logic check (Z3 solver), the argument is valid only if one grants a premise the author leaves unstated (P4). AskPhilosophy presents 3 objections, 3 of them with a documented reply, and the original text behind each premise, checked word for word.

Meaning in Life and Why It Matters, 2010

Valid with an implicit premise

Is it enough to feel that one's life has a meaning for it to have one? For the American philosopher Susan Wolf, no. Imagine someone who spends his days smoking or doing crossword puzzles and loves it: he is fulfilled, but his life is not full of meaning. Conversely, someone who achieves things of great value without ever caring about them, out of mere routine, also misses out. Wolf therefore proposes to combine the two demands: one must love something, and that something must be worth loving. A meaning does not come from us alone; it presupposes a value that exists outside. Finally, one must engage with it actively: create it, protect it, honour it.

click a premise to reject it

If you accept every premise, logic forces you to accept the conclusion. So the debate is about the premises.

Checked by a logic solver: the premises cannot all be true while the conclusion is false.
Without the implicit premise: Without P4, the computer finds a case where a person loves a valuable object and engages with it actively, yet her life still has no meaning: for example a valuable project that fails completely and leaves nothing behind.

Valid with P4. P1, P2 and P3 give three necessary conditions: without any one of them, no meaning. The conclusion also says that the three together are sufficient. That is the role of P4, which Wolf sets by saying that meaning "arises" from this meeting. Without P4, one can grant that each condition is necessary and refuse that they suffice: a fourth condition might be missing (success, or a certain duration), which Wolf herself mentions elsewhere.

Analogy. For a seed to become a tree, you need a living seed, good soil, and water. A seed alone does not grow, nor does soil alone. Wolf says meaning is like the tree: it needs a person who loves (the seed), an object worth it (the soil), and an engagement that brings them together (the water).

Objections

Each objection is a conversation: click to see who replies and where the debate stands.

Richard Taylor, Good and Evil, ch. 18 1970 · attacks premise 2

Taylor imagines the gods giving Sisyphus, condemned to roll a stone in vain, a desire: "His one desire in life is to roll stones, and he is absolutely guaranteed its endless fulfillment." His life is then full of meaning for him. Taylor admits this meaning would be irrational, since the desire comes only from the drug, but concludes: "a meaning nevertheless". For him, meaning comes from within ("from within us"), and no outside value is required.

Wolf replies

Wolf Wolf (2010) on "Sisyphus Fulfilled"

Wolf writes that something desirable seems missing from Sisyphus's life, despite his experience of fulfillment.

The debate goes on (our summary) Taylor died in 2003: he does not answer Wolf, who discusses precisely his case. Wolf argues that what is missing is not subjective (from the inside, all is well) and that an objective criterion is therefore needed: Sisyphus's task remains futile, and "the pointlessness of what he is doing doesn't change". Taylor, for his part, writes that the meaning of life is "from within us". The disagreement is clear: is a perfectly fulfilled life directed at nothing worthwhile full of meaning (Taylor) or not (Wolf)? Another argument on the site treats Taylor's position.

An objection Wolf states herself: "who is to decide?" 2007 · attacks premise 2

If meaning requires an object with real worth, who decides what has it? Wolf asks the question herself: "who is to decide which projects have positive value, or even to guarantee that there is such a thing?" Without a judge, the demand for objective value protects against nothing: anyone could say that his object is worthy, or that it is not. And if a judge exists, who appointed him?

Wolf replies

Wolf Wolf, "The Meanings of Lives" (2007)

Wolf answers that her concept of meaning tracks whatever we think of as having positive value, without building a theory of value. If one is wrong about what has positive value, one will also be wrong about what contributes to a meaningful life.

The debate goes on (our summary) This reply leaves the question open: it says one can be wrong, not how to know. Wolf admits this at the end of her first 2010 lecture: she will not offer "a theory of objective value, much less a foolproof procedure for determining which things have it" (p. 33). Yet she does judge lives: in the 2007 text, some people around her lead lives that are "paradigms of meaning" while others "would score quite low on the meaningfulness scale" (p. 3 of the typescript). That is the gesture an accusation of elitism targets: who is she to rank lives?

An objection Wolf examines herself: "bourgeois" interests 2010 · attacks the conclusion

Wolf writes that one might suspect that the interests she describes are "bourgeois interests, commonly of concern only to persons from a certain place, time, and social class". Looking for a meaning worthy of the name would be a luxury of those who have time to ask the question. And measuring lives against an objective value would amount to imposing the hierarchy of the most cultivated.

Wolf replies

Wolf Wolf, Meaning in Life and Why It Matters (2010)

Wolf answers that an interest in a meaningful life may not surface until one's more basic needs are met, but that this is no reason to dismiss its importance.

The debate goes on (our summary) Wolf answers about the importance of the need for meaning, not about the part "imposing a hierarchy": she does not say who sets the criteria. She goes on to say that someone whose life is meaningful may never think about it (p. 31): meaning is therefore, for her, distinct from what the person thinks of it, which feeds the suspicion of an external judgment. The debate remains open: can one tell someone that his passion is worth nothing without claiming superiority?