Comparing Albert Camus And Richard Taylor's 'Meaning Of Life'

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MEANING OF LIFE ESSAY

What is the meaning of life? Many agree that the answer depends on the person asking the question. When Albert Camus and Richard Taylor decide to answer this question, they must take an in-depth look into the real and mythological worlds to arrive at a concise answer to this question that has baffled so many. Both have similar views with subtle differences - however Taylor 's view is the more accurate of the two.

When looking into the biological world, Taylor clearly describes how much of it can be identified with the Greek tale of Sisyphus. His first of two examples take an in-depth look into glowworms. They go through this cycle like Sisyphus did with his rock and ultimately they have nothing more to show
The tragedy of it is that we are never truly conscious of the absurd, and in those moments when we are conscious of the absurd, we experience the greatest moral downfall imaginable. The only way to live in this world is to live in contradiction. Once we can accept that the world we live in is absurd, we no longer need to live for hope or have this dying need for purpose (Tomo, 2013). It means not only accepting it but also being fully conscious and aware of it, because that is the only way we can enjoy the freedoms of life as long as we abide by a few common rules (Lane, 2013). He sees this as being the ultimate way to embrace everything the unreasonable world has to offer us. This is known as absurd freedom, when you are conscious of the world you live in and are freed from the absurdity. You can then reach a point of acceptance where you can feel truly content with your own life (Lane, 2013). He considers Sisyphus as being the absurd hero, since he performs a meaningless task because he hates death, and so he does this meaningless task to live to the fullest. He embraces his destiny and one could truly believe that he is happy with it. The meaning of life also does not matter about what are the best moments of living, or doing what is meaningful to the individual, but who did the most living. This can be further
One solution was based on doing things in general while the other focused on living as long as physically possible. In my opinion, although both have strong footings, I must say that although Camus position is slightly stronger logically, Taylor 's position has much better emotional traction. When Camus states that the world is completely absurd and that none of it has any meaning, his argument makes sense. We live in a world where even though we are creatures that demand reasoning and meaning for everything, there is none in the world we are currently in. Taylor agrees to a certain extent, but then introduces his idea of different kinds of meaning: subjective. He tries to give meaning to tasks that give us fulfillment - true subjective meaning, but these same tasks have no objective meaning since they have no end goal. Logically, such tasks can have no meaning because they have no lasting value, something that Camus himself tried to explain, ultimately making Camus 's position stronger logically.

Emotionally, the case is quite the opposite. Camus tells us we should accept our fate and just try to live on this planet for as long as we can, something only an atheist would willingly accept with grace. He goes on to say as long as there is no end goal in life; there is no meaning in life. However, many that live their every day lives do not think on such an emotionless