Meaninglessness

Abstract

This chapter is the second of two chapters concerned with whether life is meaningless. In this chapter, it is argued that life has no meaning sub specie aeternitatis (that is, no purpose or point from a cosmic perspective). Nihilism about cosmic meaning is the bad news. Some people deny that life lacks cosmic meaning while others argue that it does not matter that life lacks such meaning. The chapter responds to such arguments, some of which are theistic and some of which are secular. For example, it is argued that cosmic meaning is not to be found in God’s or nature’s purposes, or in the possibility that life on earth is the only life there is.