After explaining what meaning in life is, the book moves to criticizing certain presuppositions about the meaning of life that unnecessarily lead many people to believe that their lives are meaningless. Among others, it criticizes perfectionism about meaning in life, namely, the assumption that meaningful lives must include some perfection or some rare and difficult achievements. It then responds to recurring arguments made by people who take their lives to be meaningless, such as the arguments claiming that life is meaningless because death eventually annihilates us and everything we do; whatever we do is negligible when examined in the context of the whole universe; we have no free will and, thus, deserve no praise for what we achieve; everything, including meaning, is completely relative; we do not know what the purpose of life is; whenever we achieve something we stop sensing it as valuable; and there is so much suffering and evil in the world. The book also offers strategies that may help people identify what is meaningful in life and increase its meaningfulness. The final chapters consider questions such as whether only religious people can have meaningful lives; whether meaning of life should be discussed only by psychologists; and whether existentialism is a good source of guidance on the meaning of life.
Feminist standpoint theory has important implications for science education. The paper focuses on diYculties in standpoint theory, mostly regarding the assumptions that diVerent social positions produce diVerent types of knowledge, and that epistemic advantages that women might enjoy are always eVective and signiWcant. I conclude that the diYculties in standpoint theory render it too problematic to accept. Various implications for science education are indicated: we should return to the kind of science education that instructs students to examine whether arguments, experiments, etc. are successful, rather than ask who presented them; when considering researchers and students for science education programs we should examine their scholarly achievements, rather than the group to which they belong; women should not be discouraged from engaging in "mainstream" science research and education (or other spheres of knowledge considered as "men's topics") and men should not be discouraged from engaging in what are considered "women's topics" in science (or outside it); we should not assume that there are diVerent types of science for women and for men, nor diVerent ways for women and men to study science or conduct scientiWc research.
This paper replies to two arguments against marriage presented by Dan Moller (Philosophy 78, 2003: 79–91). One of Moller's arguments examines several ways in which the marriage promise could be explained, and shows that none of them is viable. The other argument suggests that marriage may not be a worthwhile enterprise since marriages frequently fail, in that they become loveless or end up in divorce. I argue that the marriage promise can be explained in a way unconsidered by Moller, which renders the promise viable; and that notwithstanding the failure of many marriages, it still is, for some people, a worthwhile enterprise.
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