Question

What is your assessment of Susan Wolf account of meaningfulness? Be sure to explain and argue for your position

Answer 1

• For Wolf the concept of meaningfulness is important because it allows her to define a class ofactions that is neither configured by our own (selfish) interests and well-being, nor by the(impartial) demands of morality. Not everything we don’t do for others we do for ourselves;not everything we don’t do because it is good for others we do because it is good for us.Some things we do neither for our own happiness nor out of duty, but out of love. Those are the things that give meaning to our life.
• This is something which is associated with the value of being moral in life.Mother Teresa,for instance,dedicated all her life to help people,this indicates tha her life was meaningful precisely because she was moral, i.e., dedicated to the well-being of others.
• We do various things for the people we love because sometimes that gives us satisfaction that we did something good not only for the people we might be knowing but sometimes even strangers as well.It makes us feel good about ourselves,to be showing a side of humanity and love,which is immensely needed in our world today.
• Without love,for something that lies outside of ourselves, or more precisely the active engagement with something that we love, or that we love engaging with, our lives lackmeaning. However, Wolf points out, not everything we do for love makes our lifemeaningful. There are some things we do for love that we shouldn’t really be doing at all. In those cases our love is misplaced.
• We love something that we shouldn’t love, see value insomething that in fact doesn’t have any value. Meaningful is our loving engagement only if what we engage with deserves the love and attention that we bestow on it.I do agree with,meaningfulness and happiness only comes when we show love towards things which are important and mean something to us.
• I believe if you assess you life to be meaningful,something which you can be proud of and admire it then thats all that matters.It doesnt if others thing your life is meaningless,what matters is your objective analysis about your life and actions.Your deeds make your life good or bad but it depends upon your own personal assessment not what others think.