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The Search for Meaning

What Is Life Worth?

Michael Allen Fox wonders whether life really is ‘a precious gift’.

What is life worth? Questioning the value of our existence has the utmost significance, but no response seems likely to fully satisfy our need for an answer.

First a few preliminaries. Our question could be raised out of despair by people who are struggling just to survive, in war-torn, enslaved, or environmentally collapsing countries. Or, it could come from a position of privilege, being asked by those who have the luxury and leisure to ponder it. In addition, our question may not have arisen at all in early human history, or have ever been asked by those whose sociocultural experience is quite different from our own.

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