Julian Baggini (1968 – ) is a British philosopher, author of several books about philosophy written for a general audience, and co-founder and editor-in-chief of The Philosophers’ Magazine. He was awarded his Ph.D. in 1996 from University College London. His recent book, What’s It All About?: Philosophy and the Meaning of Life is a secular and non-hubristic inquiry into the question of the meaning of life. Baggini presupposes that we can’t know if religion is true and that there is no secret answer to the question of the meaning of life, for were there such an answer we would probably have discovered it by now. Baggini begins by looking at some of the proposed answers.
Can living life forward give life meaning? Why not look to some future goal, like avenging your brother’s death for meaning? The problem with this answer is that we can always ask of this future, or any future, why bring it about? And that question leads to the quest for some final end. In short, any why/because series can be extended infinitely into either the past or future and never definitively puts an end to our questions. Other problems with looking to the future include: 1) we might die before we reach our goal; 2) even if we are immortal this does not solve our problem since meaning would always be in our future; and 3) if we do reach our goal, then what?
The main problem with a future-oriented life is that it locates meaning in a specific moment in time. This raises an obvious question: shouldn’t we expect some meaning from the present too? It seems then that meaning involves something enduring, something about which no further why questions need be asked, and this something must exist now. In other words, the key to meaning must be found in something that is an end in itself.
Baggini now turns to the notion that gods or an afterlife give life meaning. While believing in a god is no answer to the question of the meaning of life, we could stop worrying and accept that the gods provide meaning. However, this is to give up the search for meaning. In this case, you don’t know the meaning of life, you just stop asking the question. As for an afterlife, is there such a thing? The evidence suggests there is no afterlife, and even if there were what would be the meaning of it? The more important question is whether life can be meaningful without this assumption.
To fully answer our question we need to find a way that life can be meaningful that is not derived from the gods, or the past or the future, but from within us now. Baggini proceeds to investigate six ways (helping others, serving humanity, being happy, becoming successful, enjoying each day, and freeing your mind) that might provide life with meaning. He concludes that all of them may be part of a good or meaningful life, but they aren’t all of it. They don’t guarantee that our lives are meaningful because, of any of them, we can still ask: is such a life meaningful?
What all this means is that we are threatened with meaninglessness. It seems we must choose among the following: 1) life is meaningless; 2) the question is meaningless; or 3) meaning is impossible to discover. Regarding 1—while life is not meaningful in an objective sense, it can still be subjectively meaningful. Regarding 2—while the question may be meaningless, life can still have meaning for the person living it. Regarding 3—although we can’t know the meaning of life with certainty, we can still find our lives meaningful by living them. One might say that such a life isn’t sufficiently examined and thus not worth living, but that is mere intellectual snobbery. Unexamined lives can be worth living if the people living them find them worthwhile. So a life can be subjectively meaningful despite the lack of any objective meaning.
Baggini admits, “This kind of rationalistic-humanistic approach leaves many unsatisfied.”[i] A fundamental objection to such an approach is that it separates morality from meaning. Can human values really be enough to ground value? In response Baggini says: 1) we might say that certain people have meaningful but immoral lives; or 2) we could say that subjective meaning is a necessary but not sufficient condition for meaningful life—the life must also be moral. He prefers this second option. As to the charge that this second response is ad hoc, Baggini reminds the reader that life is meaningful only if it is worth living. All humans have an equal claim to a good life, and to make someone’s life go worse is a moral wrong. Still simply because life has to have value in itself and for the person living it “does not … mean that the only person able to judge the value is the person living the life…”[ii] Individuals may be mistaken about the value of their lives.
Another objection to a humanistic account of meaning says that we should accept and be attuned to the mystery in life, and that the rationalistic humanistic account doesn’t do this. Baggini responds that this is merely a plea from those who like mystery. He has not said that there are no gods, or that people can’t get meaning from them; he just doesn’t think there are good reasons to believe in gods, and he finds his meaning elsewhere. Furthermore, there is plenty of mystery about how to have meaningful lives; discovering what is meaningful is mysterious. Being attuned to the fact that we are alive at all is a to be in touch with the mystery. In fact, this is a more noble kind of mystery than believing in the mystery of gods or afterlife, for fear motivates the latter beliefs.
The tragedy and fragility of life suggest that love, a topic on which philosophers are notoriously silent, is the answer to the problem of human existence. The desire to do good things is motivated, not by reason, but by love. What then of love and happiness? They are connected but they aren’t identical. Love persists thru unhappiness, and its object is the beloved. Love shows the value we place in authenticity since we want to be loved for who we are. Love provides insight into true success, the kind that makes life meaningful. Love requires us to seize the day, otherwise, we might let it pass us by. Love shows that we can have meaningful lives without philosophy, without a careful examination of our lives.
Philosophy is not good at examining love or the non-rational components of human life. The rational-humanistic approach is not misguided, rather it shows the limits of our ability to understand life, and it reveals the limit and fragility of love. “Sadly, it is not true that all you need is love. Love, like life, is valuable, but fragile and subject to no guarantees. It is fraught with risk and disappointment, as well as being the source of great elation and joy.”[iii] In the end the humanist accepts that morality, mystery, meaning, and love exist without transcendental support. This is a sign of one’s ability to confront and accept the limits of life. “The transcendentalist’s desire for something more is understandable, but the humanist’s refusal to succumb is, I believe, a sign of her ability to confront and accept the limits of human understanding and, ultimately, human existence.”[iv]
Baggini concludes his deflationary account of meaning by saying that the meaning of life is available to all, not only to the guardians who claim a monopoly on it. His view challenges the power of those who would control us and gives us the responsibility of determining meaning for ourselves. But knowing about the meaning of life doesn’t provide a recipe for living it. It is hard to live meaningfully, it is an ongoing project, and one is never finished with the task. Baggini concedes that his is not the last word on the subject, that we need more than philosophers to work the problem out, and that no book is ever the final word on the subject. Also, people are different, so we cannot offer an instruction manual for all—we can only suggest a framework within which persons might live meaningfully.
In the end, the meaning of life is not that mysterious, it is something within our grasp, and we can live meaningfully. Hope rather than despair is called for since there are many ways to live meaningful lives. We can recognize all the good and bad things in life, and still see that there are many ways to live meaningful lives. To find meaning then,
We can see the value of happiness … We can learn to appreciate the pleasures of life … We can see the value of success … We can see the value of seizing the day … We can appreciate the value in helping others lead meaningful lives … And finally, we can recognize the value of love, as perhaps the most powerful motivator to do anything at all.[v]
Summary – We can give our lives meaning by doing meaningful things and recognizing the value of love.
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[i] Julian Baggini, What’s It All About: Philosophy & The Meaning of Life (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 174.
[ii] Baggini, What’s It All About: Philosophy & The Meaning of Life, 177-78.
[iii] Baggini, What’s It All About: Philosophy & The Meaning of Life, 184.
[iv] Baggini, What’s It All About: Philosophy & The Meaning of Life, 184.
[v] Baggini, What’s It All About: Philosophy & The Meaning of Life, 188.
