title: Morality and a Meaningful Life
creator: Thomas, Laurence
subject: Ethics
description: This essay aims to capture the intuition that the moral person is, in virtue of being such, favored over the immoral person to lead a meaningful life.  It is argued that the reason for this is that the moral person is open to affirmation from others in a way that the immoral person is not.  Central to the argument is that idea of psychological health.  Being affirmed by others is a fundamental aspect of being psychologically health.  Thus, being moral and being psychologically healthy are said to dovetail with respect to leading a meaningful life.  The argument regarding psychological health draws upon, and extends, P. F. Strawson’s seminal essay “Freedom and Resentment”.  Also in this regard, Wittgenstein’s argument against the possibility of a private language is extended to social behavior generally.  
date: 2005-09
type: Preprint
type: PeerReviewed
format: application/pdf
identifier: http://cogprints.org/4541/1/MeaningfulLife.pdf
identifier:   Thomas, Laurence  (2005) Morality and a Meaningful Life.  [Preprint]     
relation: http://cogprints.org/4541/