Abstract
Tim Mawson is that rather rare character, an Oxford philosopher who is a theist and who has a sense of humour. His book is a philosophically acute and thorough exploration of what might be meant by asking what ‘the meaning of life’ might be. His major argument is that there are many meanings of the word ‘life’ in such a phrase – it could be biological life, or human life, or my life as a whole, or a bit of my life, or even the ultimate significance of everything. And people find meaning in many different ways. One great difference, which he explores in some detail and from various angles, is between people (like Sartre, for instance) who think that the meaning of life must be self-created and those who think that conformity to some external purpose (set by God, for instance) is needed to give life meaning.
Dr Mawson suggests that these are different senses of meaning, that they are incompatible, that each has both good and bad points, and that people differ as to which sense they prefer. His own position is that if there were a God who has an objectively good purpose which, given a life after death, one could pursue forever, this would give life a rich meaning. But it would also reduce the extent to which one could freely construct one’s own purposes, would make any real privacy in one’s life impossible and would make each meaningful element of one’s present life of only infinitesimal value when compared with an endlessly long life. So ‘even God’s existence is a mixed blessing’ (p. 132), though, he thinks, it has ‘deeper’ (more desirable) meaning overall than the sort of personally chosen but transitory meaning for which atheists might opt.
This is only one disagreement about what would constitute a meaningful life, and Dr Mawson helpfully considers a wide range of possibilities that can be found in the writings of modern philosophers. Among other valuable discussions, he considers the difference between those who think there are no objective values, and what one can most reasonably seek is a sense of ‘existential repletion’ or satisfaction, and those who think there are objective values, whether people acknowledge them or not. He considers the differences between there being a purpose for one’s life, knowing one has such a purpose and appropriating that purpose for oneself (the last being what theists should do with God’s purpose to prevent it being alienating). And he discusses what sort of afterlife God might have to arrange to make it really meaningful (God might have to get rid of eternal Hell). He argues for what he calls ‘amalgam pluralism’ – there are many different things that may give life meaning, but they do not form just a ‘rag-bag’ of alternatives. They fall into ‘clusters’, and though one cannot have all of them, there are some commonalities that make rational argument about them possible. His final view is that God is not the only thing that gives meaning to life, not all people would want the sort of meaning God does give and God actually makes some different senses of meaning (e.g. total autonomy) impossible, but it is reasonable to think that God gives a deeper overall meaning to life than any other conceivable thing would.
The book is very well and very closely argued, with an admirable use of modern philosophical resources, and it is written with humour and acuteness. Anyone who thinks about the meaning of life would have their thinking clarified and enriched by this excellent book.