open access

https://doi.org/10.14943/jaep.16.15

https://hdl.handle.net/2115/94246

Does Living Ethically Make Life Meaningful? An Analysis from a Kantian Perspective

英語

Virtue

2025-02

Center for Applied Ethics and Philosophy, Hokkaido University

Journal of Applied Ethics and Philosophy

16

15-21

This study explores how people should live their lives to make them meaningful, adopting a Kantian perspective. Specifically, this paper focuses on Kant's theory of virtue and argues that we can make our lives meaningful by living ethically. In the context of the philosophy of meaning in life, this view aligns with a form of objectivism, which holds that life becomes meaningful through the achievement of moral value in accordance with objective norms. Additionally, this paper incorporates elements of subjectivism into the objectivist framework, suggesting that living an ethical life makes life meaningful, emphasizing that subjective satisfaction derived from following moral norms is combined with a meaningful life. Drawing on Kant’s argument that a virtuous agent experiences a sense of self-satisfaction as a reward for leading an ethical life, this approach is termed the Kantian hybrid theory. Finally, this paper interprets life as meaningful when we are satisfied with our state of being, which results from living ethically.

紀要論文

Version of Record

1883-0129

1884-0590