1.

Just as nihilism is absurd as an a priori view of the human condition, so is an a priori answer to the question of what things are of categorical value to humans. The answer to such a question must be found in what humans actually find under reasonably favorable conditions to make life worth living. In this sense, though perhaps not in others, categorical value is not an issue of justification but of explanation.

Consider in this regard how we are both like and unlike other animals. It is natural for a dog to bark, but the dog's bark can be eliminated without

eliminating the dog. This might be done for reasons of social utility, human rights, or the will of God. But to eliminate the dog's bark is to disfigure the dog, even if such disfigurement is justified by other considerations. It is, of course, one thing to justify disfiguring the dog but quite another to require of the dog that it should justify its bark. Dogs are just the kinds of natural organisms that find barking natural. They also find copulating and fighting rather natural. Still these things too can be eliminated and perhaps on justifiable grounds. But if the dog's bark and its sexual and predatory instincts are eliminated, the disfigurement borders on eliminating that which makes a dog a dog. There are just some interests, then, a dog has because it is a dog. No sense is to be made of a dog's having and pursuing these interests for a reason or being justified in it.

Of course, a dog is not a reason-giving animal and hence does not live in terms of justifications. We, on the other hand, are reason giving and do live in terms of justifications. But however reason giving we are, we are still animals. Taking offense at this is simply taking offense at the truth. To be sure, the forms of meaningful life of which humans are capable are diverse in ways that the good for dogs is rather uniform for the entire species. But the central point remains that our reason giving proceeds outward from our categorical interests, which have their substance in whatever source of human meaning it is that has its deepest grip on us.

The call for justification, then, is at least unclear when it comes to reasons for living and to Camus's worries about the worth of life. It is at least worth asking what one is wondering about regarding the meaning of human lives where humans have self-respect, are involved in good personal relations, have some intrinsically meaningful work to do, have a healthy amount of play and leisure, are not suffering from serious physical or psychological abnormalities, and seem to take up their activities with vigor. These things do not justify their lives but are the values in terms of which human justifications normally proceed, at least for the overwhelming majority. Remove these things and most humans simply struggle to take any interest in life at all. Thus it is only from the things that add meaning that practical justifications emanate.

Someone might object, however, that what I have just said is simply false, that there are people who have all the things I have just mentioned in their lives but still wonder if their lives are meaningful. According to one version of this objection, these people, on looking out over their deliberative fields, are asking the question, Is this all there is? Such a question expresses a dissatisfaction with life because it lacks something; something is

missing. In Aristotelian terms, the goods of life are not self-sufficient; in fact, they are not minimally sufficient to make life worthy of being chosen for itself.

What this "something" might be that could be added to life in addition to the things already mentioned to make life worthy of choice is unclear in most cases. Still it is possible. Since I have not mentioned a relationship with God, this is certainly one possibility. Other possibilities might present themselves, though it is difficult to think of clear cases. Not enough security or not enough excitement come to mind. Yet it is difficult to see that these things would not be included within good personal relations and intrinsically meaningful activities of work and play. But whatever this something that is lacking might be it must be something of categorical value if the question about the meaning of life is deep enough to seriously disturb the person who asks the question. So understood, this version of the objection turns out to be no objection at all to the general point about justification: Justification proceeds from what is most meaningful for us; it does not precede it. For most people, I believe,meaning derives from the elements I have mentioned and are included within the thick conception of integrity. I will argue this in more detail in parts 2 through 4.

Another version of the objection construes the wonder about the meaning of life differently. According to this objection, some people who have all that I have mentioned in their lives still wonder whether the substantive focus of their lives is justified from some objective point of view. In yearning for a meaningful life, they seek not only the things above but these plus an objective justification for living this kind of life. Without the belief that such a life is justified, they do not find life meaningful.

One theoretical way of construing this line of thought about the meaningfulness of one's life is in terms of some conception of what value is. Consider how we might think of questions about the meaningfulness of our lives from the perspective of a certain view of intrinsic value. I have in mind the view of intrinsic value begun by the intuitionists (Brentano, Moore, Ross, Ewing, etc.) and developed by Noah Lemos in his book, Intrinsic Value .^[1] According to this view, there is a kind of intrinsic value that attaches to states of affairs that is nonrelational which contrasts with both instrumental value and relational intrinsic value. Some things are instru-

[1] . Noah Lemos, Intrinsic Value: Concept and Warrant (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994). Also, see my review of Lemos's book in Mind 105, no. 418 (April 1996): 496–503.

mentally good for something; others are intrinsically good for someone; and others are intrinsically good period. Hammers are instrumentally good for driving nails; playing the piano is intrinsically good for the music lover; and (perhaps) the flourishing of a tropical forest is intrinsically good period, regardless of whether there is anyone around to appreciate it. Of course, it is controversial that there is any such value as being intrinsically good period, but this is not something I am concerned to challenge here. The point here is to assume there is such value for the moment to see what relevance it might have to the question of the meaningfulness of one's life from one's own point of view and the issue of justification. In this regard, the point here is similar to the one we considered in the introduction that Aristotle made against Plato concerning the relevant sense of good: What sense of value is relevant to how we live our lives?

According to Lemos, intrinsic value is not only nonrelational, its existence is independent of any psychological attitude. This is true despite the fact that Lemos explicates the concept of intrinsic value in terms of a state of affair's being intrinsically worthy of love. He says,

(P2) p is intrinsically worthy of love if and only if p is necessarily such that, for any x, the contemplation of just p by x requires that x love p and not hate p.^[2]

Bringing in love in this way to explicate the concept of intrinsic value would seem to contradict both the claim that such value is independent of any psychological attitude and the claim that it is nonrelational. When properly understood, however, the concept of being intrinsically worthy of love deepens our understanding of the nonrelational, psychological independence of intrinsic value. Lemos insists that the word requires in (P2) cannot be read causally but normatively. Thus (P2) is logically consistent with "x hates p even when contemplating just p." When x contemplates just p what x sees is that loving p is fitting. This does not mean that contemplating just p causes x to love p. Indeed, to see that love is fitting is to perceive a state of affairs, a fact, namely, that p is intrinsically good. Intrinsic value, on this view, then, is another fact about the world, and judgments about intrinsic value are about such facts. Not only is the fact "the tropical forest is flourishing" intrinsically valuable, but "the flourishing of the tropical forest is intrinsically valuable" is a fact. Moreover, it is a fact that obtains in-

[2] , Lemos, Intrinsic Value , 12.

dependent of anyone's believing it to obtain, and our belief that it obtains is true only if it obtains.

Though Lemos does not raise the question of the meaningfulness of life, we might understand what it is to justify one's life in terms of this concept of intrinsic value. Suppose one has one's self-respect, sympathy and concern for others, and love in a variety of forms for others and is committed to excellence at what one does. Assume also that one is in reasonably good physical and psychological health and that things are going well for those about whom one cares where one cares in the ways described. Further, assume that one is able to achieve some level of excellence acceptable from one's own point of view. Finally, assume that one has all this with the basic elements of integrity intact. Now, on the view under consideration, one might still wonder about the meaningfulness of one's life by wondering if it is justified. One would be wondering about whether the sentence "My life so described is intrinsically good" is true, that is, whether this sentence reports a fact. One would not, on this view, necessarily be wondering if one could on reflection endorse or approve of one's life.

So construed, if this is my worry, the wonder about justification is decidedly not about how to live my life but about the epistemic justification for believing that a certain fact obtains, namely, that my life is intrinsically valuable. Suppose this fact obtains and I justifiably believe that it does. There remains the question of how to live my life, unless I am psychologically constituted in a way that I find life meaningful only if I believe that I am justified in believing as fact that my life is intrinsically valuable in this sense. Therefore, even if we accept this ontology of value, there remains the issue of how such value bears on practical reason. There is a gap, on this view, between believing that something is intrinsically valuable and taking such a fact as even remotely of practical significance. For it is a contingent matter, on this view, that I assert that p is valuable and that I endorse or approve of or value p.^[3] I might on this view care deeply that my beliefs about intrinsic value be justified but care not at all that my life is intrinsically valuable in this sense. Indeed, believing, on this view, that my

[3] . In this regard, Lemos says, "Even if it were true that whoever accepts that a thing is intrinsically good also approves or desires that thing, it is possible that he could conceive or entertain that thing's being intrinsically good without conceiving of his approving or desiring that thing," Intrinsic Value , 115. There is then no essential connection, on this view, between x's believing that p is intrinsically valuable and x's valuing p. Indeed, one could believe that p is intrinsically valuable and not value p at all.

life is not intrinsically valuable in this sense gives me no reason whatever for changing my life. For on this view, to be aware that something is good and of intrinsic value is not to be aware of something as appearing within one's deliberative field.

I cannot see that when most people are wondering about the meaningfulness of their lives they are worrying about whether it is a fact that their lives are intrinsically valuable in this sense. But if there are those who are and if their worry in this regard is at the center of their lives, then they have categorical values regarding epistemic justification that others lack. When their beliefs about intrinsic value affect their lives, it is not simply because they believe certain propositions concerning value to be true but because certain values are categorically instantiated in their affective (not merely cognitive) psychologies. What intuitionism lacks, then, is a conception of value that is relevant to practical reason. I believe the same applies to any externalist account of morality or what it is to have reasons for action, including traditional Kantianism. And this is one argument in favor of Kantian internalism.^[4]

There is a difference between a moral epistemology, a theory of which is included in the second part of Intrinsic Value , and a theory of practical reason. At least, there is a difference on the intuitionist's view. Judgments of intrinsic value are on Lemos's view like axioms except that they have only modest a priori justification,^[5] which is to say that they are defeasible judgments about necessary truths regarding value. As axiom-like, however, they are not practical norms. They cannot be, given that the assertion by a speaker that p is intrinsically valuable is not an endorsement or expression of approval of p; prescriptivity is thus external to the judgment that something is intrinsically good. To accept an axiom as a practical norm, however, is to see it as prescriptive, and it is only so that an axiom has a place in practical reason.

Why we should care about intrinsic value is, according to the intuitionist view, a separate issue from whether our value beliefs are epistemically justified. It is this separate issue that is both about practical reason and

[4] . Christine Korsgaard also faults intuitionism along these lines in Creating the Kingdom of Ends (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 52, 66, 228, 246–47. She similarly rejects realism in The Sources of Normativity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), and, I believe, decisively wins the argument against Thomas Nagel there. For the exchange between Korsgaard and Nagel, see The Sources of Normativity , 200–9, 219–58.

[5] . They are not axioms in the strong sense of having strong a priori justification.

about the meaningfulness of our lives. And what can be said in this regard about intuitionism can be said for any conception of "objective" value that is independent of the facts about human psychology.

It is one thing, then, to wonder if one is living according to one's deepest values or to wonder what one's deepest values are, or even whether one's life is anchored in some deep set of values at all. It is quite another to wonder with any sense of urgency if one's life is justified after careful reflection on one's deepest values where one finds that one's life is going well in terms of those values. What could one be wondering about? Here it is crucial to note that this is anything but a rhetorical question. It is rather a request for the hard philosophical work of providing a clear understanding of what the question of meaning is calling for and what its connection is with the issue of justification. Without the fruit of such work, the question of meaning seems itself rhetorical, even superficial. So when I say that ultimately categorical values are not in need of justification, I am not simply trying to circumvent a difficult philosophical problem. I am asserting that there is a clear understanding of practical justification that proceeds from categorical values rather than to them and that it is unclear what the issue of meaning is that motivates the denial of this conception. As we will see, there is some limited room for deliberation about one's categorical values, but these facts do not deny what has been said about practical justification and its structure. Contra Aristotle, we can deliberate about ends but only in a limited and special way.^[6]

There is, of course, a sense in which categorical values are justified. They are justified from the agent's most reflective point of view, namely, the point of view of life as a whole. For this to be the case, those values must be such that they provide the basis for an agent's perceiving a way of life in which those values have a coherent place and that way of life is chosen for itself. But this does not mean that there is some point of view outside of any particular agent's own point of view from which the agent derives a justification for his or her deepest values. In this sense, explanation and justification converge. From the third-person point of view, what explains the rationality of one's actions are the very same factors that justify it from the first-

[6] . The best discussion I have seen in the literature on the possibility of revising final ends through deliberation is by Henry Richardson. There may be some difference between Richardson and me on what counts as a matter of deliberation, but on the view I defend there can be a change in one's final ends. How much change and how such change is effected by deliberation turns somewhat on what one counts as a matter of deliberation. See Henry S. Richardson, Practical Reasoning about Final Ends (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994).

person point of view, namely, a coherent set of values instantiated within a psychology with integrity. Hence the kind of naturalism suggested here does not commit the naturalistic fallacy: Practical judgments are normative through and through, but the explanation for why we value what we do is to be found in a naturalistic explanation of our psychologies.