What is it about?
This essay revises Blaise Pascal's famous wager. Now the reader is betting on the meaning of her own life. The argument works if we confine ourselves to this question and is not prey to fallacies found in Pascal's original. The structure of Pascal's argument holds but we only focus on the meaning of our own life. Of course, this is nowhere near as specific as Pascal renders his argument. This comes close to William James' "Will to Believe" but James would have us make some judgments about the way the world works given that we consider life in the world meaningful. My version of this argument concludes that you should consider your life meaningful no matter what.
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Why is it important?
This essay situates the "meaning of life" differently than most treatments of the issue. If you are convinced of this, then your conviction that your life is meaningful should be secure because it is meaningful no matter what the world is like. Of course, this does not absolve us of curiosity about the world. This article is about the "meaning of life". It also argues that considering your life meaningful is, at least initially, a judgment that stands free of judgments about ethics and metaphysics.
Perspectives
I have enjoyed reactions to this essay, which is not like most of the things I write and read. Since it was published in the Monist, I have been pleased by the reaction.
Dr. Jason Burke Murphy
College of our Lady of the Elms
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Betting on Life, The Monist, January 2010, Oxford University Press (OUP),
DOI: 10.5840/monist20109319.
You can read the full text:
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