1. ‘The Meanings of Life,’ in David Schmidtz (ed.),Robert Nozick(New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002). I shall return to this example at the end of this essay.
2. Recall Bernard Williams's expression ‘ground projects,’ in his essay ‘Persons, Character, and Morality’ in his Moral Luck (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981).
3. Many of these have been admirably addressed by Thaddeus Metz in ‘The Concept of a Meaningful Life,’ American Philosophical Quarterly 38 (2001). See, in particular, his essay ‘The Immorality Requirement for Life's Meaning,’ in Ratio 16 (2005), in which he argues against the view that immortality is necessary in order for life to have meaning. For an important discussion concerning why the very topic of the meaning of life is not much discussed in philosophy, see Metz's essay ‘Recent Work on the Meaning of Life,’ Ethics 112 (2002)
4. I draw upon and refine the account of being favored developed in Living Morally: A Psychology of Moral Character (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1989), chapter 7.
5. Proceedings of the British Academy48 (1962): pp. 1–25.