The need for a more nuanced conclusion than life is pretty meaningful

Abstract

Comments on the original article "Life is pretty meaningful," by S. J. Heintzelman and L. A. King (see record 2014-03265-001). Heintzelman and King explored meaning in life (MIL), which they acknowledged "remains, in some ways, a construct and experience shrouded in mystery" (p. 561). Unfortunately, they dealt with this complex topic in a very simplistic way. They claimed that "from an existentialist perspective, human life has no inherent meaning" (p. 568), but this is not true for all existentialists. They then implied that their data had somehow refuted this existentialist view, proving it false. In fact, nothing of the sort has been proven, as only a distorted straw existentialist position has been challenged by data of questionable worth for this task, and used to draw the trite conclusion that life is pretty meaningful-and the implication that existentialists must be wrong. This oversimplicity does great injustice not only to the many nuanced existentialist positions but also to the mystery of MIL.