In their essay ‘Living Well’, Steven M. Cahn and Christine Vitrano argue that living well, living a meaningful life merely involves enjoying your life, having your desires fulfilled and being personally satisfied with the things you do and have done.Footnote ¹ This is contrary to the view held by some philosophers (cited by the authors) such as Susan Wolf, Richard Kraut and Stephen Darwall who claim that personal satisfaction and enjoyment are not the measures of a meaningful life, that some things that people do are intrinsically or objectively more valuable and worthwhile than other things and that such activities are what make a life meaningful.

To argue for their position Cahn and Vitrano describe the lives and choices of two individuals. Pat is a successful academic working in philosophy, the ‘author of numerous books, articles, and reviews’, and ‘is widely regarded as a leading scholar and teacher’ (14). He is also ‘happily married’ with two children and enjoys leisure activities such as playing bridge, playing the cello, and going for holidays to Cape Cod (14). Pat is ‘Physically and mentally healthy’ and ‘in good spirits, looking forward to years of continued happiness.’ (14). Lee, on the other hand, after graduating from high school ‘moved to a beach community in California and is devoted to sunbathing, swimming, and surfing’ (14). He has ‘never married but has experienced numerous romances.’ (14). Lee has ‘inherited wealth from deceased parents' and ‘spends money freely on magnificent homes, luxury cars, the latest in electronic equipment, designer clothes, meals in fine restaurants, golfing holidays, and trips to far flung places’ (14). Lee also is ‘Physically and mentally healthy’ and ‘in good spirits, looking forward to years of continued happiness.’ (14). Both Pat and Lee ‘enjoy prosperity, treat others with respect, engage in activities they find fulfilling, and report they are happy.’ (14).

Cahn and Vitrano note that many philosophers have

However, Cahn and Vitrano cite the arguments of two philosophers who would probably hold the view that both Pat and Lee are living meaningful lives. Richard Taylor argues that even Sisyphus's life of repeatedly rolling a stone up a hill could be meaningful if ‘Sisyphus has a desire to roll stones up hills’ (15). If he has this desire then he has found ‘ “mission and meaning” (15). For Taylor, ‘living well is living in accord with your desires. If your activities match your wishes, then your life is successful’ (15).

Similarly, Harry Frankfurt argues that we ‘infuse our lives with meaning by loving certain intrinsic ends and caring about the means to achieve those ends’ (15–16). But the ends do not have to be of a particular type and Frankfurt says that ‘ “Devoting oneself to what one loves suffices to make one's life meaningful, regardless of the inherent or objective character of the objects that are loved.” ’ (16).

Agreeing with the positions of Taylor and Frankfurt, Cahn and Vitrano claim that both Pat and Lee are living meaningful, worthwhile lives because they are doing the things, living in a way, that they desire, enjoy and find fulfilling. They are satisfied and happy with their lives therefore their lives are meaningful.

Their attack on the alternative view is focussed on the difficulty of saying what is of objective value, as their opponents take objective value to be required for someone to lead a meaningful life. Susan Wolf argues that one's activities must be ‘projects of worth, i.e. those with objective value’ (16). They criticise Wolf for having ‘no theory of objective value to guide us' and for not having a clear and definite answer to the question of what activities are objectively valuable (16). Though she does provide a list of worthwhile and not worthwhile activities she is not sure whether to deem certain activities worthwhile or not. Wolf's woolliness over this matter is compounded by her response to a criticism from Jonathan Haidt which Cahn and Vitrano recount. Perhaps contrary to her stated position she concedes to Haidt that even someone (the example is a student of Haidt's) who has a passion for horses, ‘riding them, studying their history, and making “horse friends” with others who shared her passion’, could be engaged in an objectively valuable activity and could find meaning in life despite the fact that it ‘ “does nothing for anyone else, and it does not make the world a better place.” ’ (16–17). This is of course problematic. Rightly, it would help if Wolf had at least some suggestion for what makes an activity of objective value (e.g. that it benefits society), and we would like her to at least have an opinion about the woman whose life is to a great extent structured around her passion for horses. (The authors make similar criticisms of Richard Kraut and also note that doing philosophy is often praised by philosophers as giving life meaning.) However, I do not see how this is a valid criticism of the contrary position if we disregard the particularities of what Wolf and Kraut say. We should concentrate on what is important, that is, the basic criticisms that Wolf and Kraut do not specify definitively a list of what is and is not of objective value and that they do not provide a theory of objective value. When considered in this way we see that the recognition that people disagree over what is of objective value should not undermine the view that a meaningful life is one engaged in objectively valuable activities. Of course there will be disagreement over what is of objective value but it would be senseless to reject the view simply because of this. And it does not take much thought to come up with some crude answer to such a question. For example, we can all readily make such a distinction, perhaps by mapping it onto the difference between the things we do purely for ourselves and those things that have a broader value, for example help provided to others in need or actions that have some greater impact on the world and not just our own lives. And in doing this we easily understand the motivation behind promoting ‘objective value’ as the source of a meaningful life as we consider the sorts of important activities that are being implicitly encouraged. This, in a sense, is more important than providing a theory of objective value, because the important question is whether it is right to feel content just living a life seeking our own enjoyment, fulfilment and happiness or whether we should be doing more. It would be ridiculous to throw away such a concern just to avoid further and continuing debate about what is really of objective value or not.

This is perhaps a weak defence against a weak criticism and so far the authors' position seems at least to be internally consistent. However, they introduce morality and claim that it has a bearing on whether someone's life is meaningful, well lived, or not. This exposes them to a similar criticism to the one they level at Wolf and Kraut.

Cahn and Vitrano say that Pat and Lee ‘both act morally, neither harming anyone’ (21). They say that ‘To speak, as Frankfurt does, of Nazism offering its leaders a “complex, exhilarating, and rewarding life” is unconvincing’ because ‘Value cannot be found in doing unmitigated evil.’ (21) But obviously many of the Nazis did not believe they were doing evil. We should not be fooled by the extremeness of this example. If extreme immorality prevents a life from being meaningful or worthwhile, even though the person committing those evil acts does not find them to be evil and believes they are living a meaningful, worthwhile life, then there is no reason to deny that the whole spectrum of moral wrongdoing, including the most minor failings, will have at least some bearing on whether someone is living a meaningful life or not. Perhaps Cahn and Vitrano could reply that the Nazi's life was not meaningful because the immoral activity was the focus of that person's life. But that would imply that someone who was an active Nazi, an SS officer perhaps, but who found none of their satisfaction in their job and all their satisfaction in their social life, relationships and leisure activities could still have had a meaningful life. This is absurd and I suspect Cahn and Vitrano would themselves say that that person also could not have lived a meaningful life. It is irrelevant whether the Nazi finds their satisfaction in the Nazi activities or in something else.

If we agree with Cahn and Vitrano then immorality in general must play a role in determining whether someone has lived a meaningful life or not. But just as there is no universal agreement over some general list of what are objectively valuable activities nor is there such agreement over what is immoral. Some people might say that stealing food to feed your starving family is morally permissible whereas a Kantian may still firmly say that stealing, even in that situation, is always wrong. A Catholic may condemn Lee's premarital sex; some people may condemn Pat for not using his privileged position and intellectual capabilities for engaging in activism or helping to solve practical problems that have a serious effect on many people's lives (a reprehensible omission). Vegetarians would condemn both of them if they eat meat. All of these moral judgements are far from being universally agreed upon. In relation to morality, Cahn's and Vitrano's view implicitly has the same vagueness that they criticise in Wolf and Kraut. (We can also note that just as they criticise Wolf for not providing a theory of objective value they themselves do not provide a theory of moral value.)

There is another, more serious, problem with what they claim. Cahn and Vitrano say that ‘Our view, then, is that acting morally and finding long-term satisfaction are necessary conditions for living well’ and ‘jointly sufficient’ (21). But there are heights of moral worth and value as well as depths and middling averages. If moral failing has a negative impact on whether someone's life is meaningful, and how meaningful it is, why shouldn't significant morally valuable acts have a positive impact? It is consistent to believe that great morally valuable acts increase how meaningful and well lived your life is. The striving beneficent activist or charity worker, the highly courageous and effective soldier and the genius philosopher are all engaged in activities or have attributes that are, or have been, considered to be of moral value.Footnote ² If having been a Nazi is fatal to the possibility of a meaningful and worthwhile life, despite the individual claiming that their life is meaningful and satisfying, it would be inconsistent to claim that the activist/charity worker, the soldier or the philosopher (working for the right cause) have a no more meaningful life than the morally average person despite their morally admirable acts and personal characteristics. Therefore it cannot be that merely doing the bare minimum necessary to be a morally decent person is all you can do morally to affect how meaningful your life is.

We see that when the implications of the authors' position are spelt out we find that it results in something very much like the view they criticise. Is there any significant difference between morally admirable actions and objectively valuable activities? Aren't morally admirable actions just objectively valuable activities with another name? And if there are any activities of objective value are we not likely to agree that moral actions would constitute at least the prime examples if not the whole category? If morally admirable acts increase how meaningful someone's life is then they play the same role that objectively valuable activities play in the contrary view in providing meaning to life. Because the authors allow morality to play a role they end up with an almost identical view to that which their opponents hold. And with that they also have the same problems as the contrary view. The only difference is the importance Cahn and Vitrano place on personal fulfilment and satisfaction. To resolve this second issue they would have to jettison morality and agree with Frankfurt that even the committed Nazi can have a meaningful, worthwhile, life, or they must find some justification for only allowing negative moral acts to have a bearing on whether a life is meaningful or not but not positive moral acts.