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The question of life's meaning has not been a favourite topic among normative theorists. As E. M. Adams notes, analytic philosophers have given enormous attention to the questions of morality or "well-being" but 'scarcely" any to the question of life's meaning (2002: 71).¹ Metz suggests that there might be two reasons for the fact that the meaning of life has not received due attention. The first reason might be that normative theorists are not aware of "any clear and precise analysis of the question of the meaning of life". Philosophers, Metz writes, "are more confident as to the senses of "well-being" and "right action" than as to those of "life's meaning" "(2002: 782). The second reason might be that common Kantian and utilitarian outlooks continue to dominate and define the way philosophers think of "normative categories' (ibid.). It seems to me that there is yet another important reason for the fact that normative theorists are reluctant to address the question of life's meaning: The question sounds like a pseudo-religious question, one that you ask from sages and gurus but not from proper academic philosophers who have learnt that not every big question is worth racking one's brain over. Rumour has it that a taxi driver once had Bertrand Russell in the backseat of his cab, and since Russell was a famous philosopher the taxi driver asked him, "What's it all about?" And, not surprisingly, Russell couldn't give an answer. For a large portion of the 20th century, philosophers have been reluctant to address these kinds of taxi drivertype "pseudo-questions". The strategy was to question the question itself instead of giving an answer to it and, by doing this, to make the problem hopefully disappear.

DOI: 10.1057/9781137440914_5

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