The prompt is based on Richard Taylor’s account, Sisyphus’s meaningless life can be transformed into a meaningful one if he has a “strange and irrational” desire to roll stones. Essay Prompt 1: In “The Meaning of Life” Taylor seeks to establish the following two claims: (1) human life lacks any objective meaning because there is no “significant culmination” to human life (or any other form of biological life) and (2) human life can have subjective meaning that comes “from within us” – (as Taylor explains “the point of living is simply to be living, in the manner that it is your nature to be living”). In your explanation section explain the argument that Taylor makes for these claims, and criticize the argument in your analysis section. Some questions to consider: Has Taylor correctly identified the defining characteristic of a meaningless life (here he uses the example of Sisyphus)? Is Taylor right that all biological life shares this defining characteristic of meaninglessness? Is there something different about the human species which gives our lives a “significant culmination”? Do you think that the subjective meaning that comes from “within us” is sufficient for a meaningful life? Is it possible for us to make our own meaning in life?
