Chapter 13 Exercises: The Meaning of Life

Exercise 13.1 — Framework Identification (Comprehension)

For each statement below, identify which philosophical framework about meaning it most closely represents. Choose from: religious teleology, existentialism (Sartre), absurdism (Camus), Buddhist no-self, Aristotelian flourishing, logotherapy (Frankl).

  1. "I find meaning in my job not because it makes me happy, but because I am genuinely using my best skills and contributing something real to the people I serve."
  2. "Nothing ultimately matters, and once I accepted that, I felt strangely free. I play music, I love my family, I know the boulder will roll back — and I keep going."
  3. "When I was diagnosed with a terminal illness, I realized that the only thing the disease couldn't take from me was how I chose to face it. That's where I found my dignity."
  4. "I don't think there's a fixed 'I' that needs a purpose. When I stop asking 'what is the meaning of MY life,' something opens up and I can just be present to what's here."
  5. "My choices aren't just personal — they're declarations about what kind of existence is worth living. Every decision I make is a choice for all of humanity."
  6. "Without God, meaning would just be a feeling — no more valid than any other feeling. The fact that I believe my life matters is grounded in the belief that God created me to matter."

Exercise 13.2 — The Euthyphro Dilemma in Your Own Words (Analysis)

The Euthyphro dilemma asks: Is something good because God commands it, or does God command it because it is good?

Part A: In your own words, explain why each horn of the dilemma creates a problem for the religious account of meaning.

Part B: A theist responds: "God doesn't command arbitrarily — God commands in accordance with his own perfectly good nature, and goodness is identical with God's nature." Does this response escape the dilemma? Why or why not? Write 200–300 words.

Exercise 13.3 — Bad Faith Audit (Application)

Sartre argued that "bad faith" — pretending you have no choices — is one of the most common ways we evade authentic existence.

Part A: List three situations in your own life (or the life of someone you know) where the statement "I had no choice" might actually be an instance of bad faith. For each, identify: (a) what the actual choices were, (b) what made the person want to deny that choices existed.

Part B: Is there any sense in which "I had no choice" can be legitimately true? When does describing constrained options shade into genuine coercion? Write 200–250 words.

Exercise 13.4 — The Three Paths to Meaning (Application)

Viktor Frankl identified three paths to meaning: through work, through love, and through unavoidable suffering.

Part A: Identify a specific example from your own life or from someone you know for each of the three paths. Be concrete — not "I find meaning in helping others" but "When I spent three months teaching my grandmother to use video calls so she could see her grandchildren, I felt something I'd call meaning."

Part B: Frankl's third path — meaning through unavoidable suffering — is the most challenging. Critics sometimes argue this is dangerous, that it could be used to ask people to find meaning in oppression or injustice they should be fighting instead. How would Frankl respond to this criticism? Do you find the response satisfying?

Exercise 13.5 — Imagining Sisyphus Happy (Evaluation)

Camus writes: "One must imagine Sisyphus happy."

Part A: In your own words, explain why Camus thinks this — not just that he thinks it but why, based on his account of the absurd.

Part B: Is this claim psychologically plausible? Can you think of a real-life equivalent of Sisyphus — someone engaged in genuinely repetitive, Sisyphean work — who might be understood as happy in Camus's sense? Describe the case.

Part C: Do you find Camus's position more or less honest than Sartre's claim that we can genuinely create meaning? Defend your answer in 250–300 words.

Exercise 13.6 — The Buddhist Dissolution (Analysis/Evaluation)

Buddhism argues that the question "what is the meaning of MY life?" contains a mistaken assumption — that there is a fixed, unified "I" whose life has or lacks meaning.

Part A: What exactly is the Buddhist argument here? Why does the no-self doctrine make the meaning-of-life question the wrong question?

Part B: Even if you are skeptical of Buddhist metaphysics, is there practical wisdom in the suggestion that asking "what is MY life for?" might sometimes be less useful than simply engaging fully with the present moment? Describe a concrete situation where you think the shift in question would make a practical difference.

Exercise 13.7 — Meaning vs. Happiness (Synthesis)

The research of Martela and Steger, and much other empirical work, confirms that meaning and happiness come apart — that pursuing meaning often involves sacrifice of moment-to-moment comfort.

Part A: Can you identify three specific activities or commitments in your own life or the lives of people you know where the meaningful thing is not the comfortable thing? For each, describe the tension.

Part B: Is "meaningful" the right criterion for choosing how to live, or is there a case that we overvalue meaning and undervalue simple enjoyment? Write a 300-word argument for the side you find less persuasive, then a 150-word rebuttal.

Exercise 13.8 — The Three Questions (Synthesis)

This chapter distinguishes three versions of the meaning-of-life question: the cosmic question (does the universe have purpose?), the species question (what makes any human life meaningful?), and the personal question (what makes MY particular life meaningful?).

Part A: For each of the six frameworks covered in this chapter, identify which question(s) it primarily addresses.

Part B: Which of the three questions feels most pressing to you right now, and why? Which philosophical framework do you find most useful for that version of the question?

Progressive Project — Meaning/Identity Section

Begin the Meaning/Identity section of your philosophical journal.

Write 400–600 words addressing the following: What do you currently believe makes YOUR life meaningful? Be honest and specific — not what you think you should say, but what actually feels true. Where does that meaning come from — achievement, relationships, service, creative expression, experience, belief?

Then: Which of the frameworks in this chapter comes closest to capturing how you actually think about meaning? Which framework challenges you most — which one points to something your current account might be missing?

You will return to this section in Chapter 14, which examines whether the "you" doing the meaning-making is as stable as it seems.