"Picture two people on their deathbeds. The first lived comfortably, surrounded by loving family and friends, enjoying diverse pleasures and achievements throughout a long life. The second dedicated herself entirely to fighting injustice, achieving remarkable social change, but at great personal cost. Who lived the better life? Your answer might depend on what you mean by 'better'. Philosophers have long recognized that when we call a life 'good' we can mean different things."
"So we could be talking about a life's moral goodness - how virtuous the person was - or its prudential goodness - how well the life went for the person living it. But there's a third dimension we often overlook: how meaningful the life was. This gives us three distinct questions we can ask about any life: 1. Was it morally good? 2. Did it go well for the person living it? 3. Was it meaningful?"
Meaningfulness, moral goodness, and prudential well-being constitute three distinct ways to evaluate a life. A life can be morally exemplary yet involve personal suffering, or go well for someone without significant moral impact. Meaning often overlaps with well-being because both subjective and objective theories appeal to similar goods like love, knowledge, achievement, and aesthetic experience. This overlap prompts the question whether meaning is reducible to well-being, but sacrifices for moral or meaningful aims can reduce prudential welfare. Recognizing these differences clarifies tensions among ethical commitment, personal flourishing, and the pursuit of significance when making life choices.
Read at Philosophynow
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