The meaning of life, equality and eternity

Journal article

Abstract:: We present an analysis of a notion of the meaning of life, according to which our lives have meaning if we spend them intentionally producing what has value for ourselves or others. In this sense our lives can have meaning even if a science-inspired view of the world is correct, and they are only transient phenomena in a vast universe. Our lives are more or less meaningful in this sense due to the difference in value for ourselves and others we intentionally create while leading them. These inequalities are morally unjustifiable because they are ultimately due to factors beyond our responsibility and control. But from the point of view of eternity these differences in meaningfulness and value dwindle to insignificance, and this offers some consolation for the unjustifiable inequalities.

Files:: Persson-Savulescu2019_Article_TheMeaningOfLifeEqualityAndEte.pdf

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Keywords:: meaning of life

Susan Wolf

from eternity

value of life

equality of
Pubs id:: pubs:1012012
UUID:: uuid:acc96fff-eff8-4da7-ba56-75d7519ec2e5
Local pid:: pubs:1012012
Source identifiers:: 1012012
Deposit date:: 2019-06-12
ARK identifier:: ark:/29072/ora_acc96fffeff84da7ba5675d7519ec2e5

Copyright holder:: Persson, I and Savulescu, J
Notes:: © The Author(s) 2019. Open Access. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.

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