Morality and a Meaningful Life

Abstract

I aim to capture the intuition that the moral person is, in virtue of being such, favored over the immoral person to lead a meaningful life. I argue that the reason for this is that the moral person is open to affirmation from others in a way that the immoral person is not. Central to the argument is the idea of psychological health. Being affirmed by others is a fundamental aspect of being psychologically healthy. Thus, I say that being moral and being psychologically healthy dovetail with respect to leading a meaningful life. With this argument regarding psychological health I draw upon, and extend, P. F. Strawson's seminal essay “Freedom and Resentment”. Also in this regard, I extend Wittgenstein's argument against the possibility of a private language to social behavior generally.