Guest Post by Steve Hays
I'll comment on a post by Jeff Lowder:
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/secularoutpost/2016/07/09/naturalism-theism-and-the-meaning-of-life/
Jeff's analysis is dependent on Erik J. Wielenberg's Value and Virtue in a Godless Universe.
intrinsically meaningful life: a life has intrinsic meaning if the life is good for the person who lives it overall.
Take the head of a Latin American drug cartel. He enjoys the best of everything. Sexy women, gourmet food, yachts, mansions, sports cars, &c.
He has business rivals murdered. He has their family members murdered as a deterrent. He bribes judges and police. Those who can't be bribed he has tortured and murdered.
It's a very good life for him. He enjoys the perks. In fact, due to his sadistic streak, he even enjoys the vicious policies necessary to sustain it.
Doesn't that meet Jeff's definition?
If Jeff objects that it isn't "good" in the appropriate sense, does Jeff have a noncircular definition of "good"?
intrinsic value: something is intrinsically valuable if the thing’s value is inherent to the thing’s own properties, as opposed to its value being derived from the properties of another thing.
extrinsic value: something is extrinsically valuable if the thing’s value is derived from the value of another thing.
Is it that cut-and-dried? Take a facsimile of Da Vinci's The Virgin and Child with St. Anne.
In one respect, the reproduction is valuable in its own right. If the original was destroyed, the reproduction would still be valuable. In that regard, the reproduction has a value independent of the original.