Sinn - eine dritte Dimension des guten Lebens?

English version

The claim that meaning is a third irreducibly independent and fundamental dimension of the good life has attracted broad attention in the wake of the renewed interest in the category of meaningfulness. The aim of this contribution is, first, to explore the precise content of this independence claim. As a close examination reveals, even the claim’s defenders motivate and outline it mainly by appealing to common intuitions and through demarcating it from alternative positions, without providing a sufficiently positive fundament. In particular, it will be suggested that we should distinguish between an axiological and a deliberative version of this claim. Whereas the axiological independence claim maintains that meaning is an irreducibly independent and fundamental value dimension to assess a given life’s goodness, the deliberative independence claim states that meaning provides us with an irreducibly independent and fundamental source of practical reasons. This distinction is significant not the least because the latter version of the claim appears to imply the former, but not vice versa: Even the main advocates of the axiological independence claim accept the deliberative version only with major restrictions, which in turn also lead to critical questions regarding the axiological independence claim. A second aim of this contribution is to show, in the course of a detailed exploration of the problem area outlined by both versions of the independence claim, that so far, no convincing arguments have been given for either version of it. Furthermore, until now, no plausible candidates for a theory of meaningfulness have been identified which meet the requirements of such an independent dimension of the good life or such a source of sui generis practical reasons. Finally, general considerations in axiology and the theory of rationality also speak against the belief in such a dimension.