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The Meaning of Life Without Parole

By Clint Smith

It is the midpoint of autumn—the time of year when winter begins to crawl its way onto your skin—and night is beginning to fall as I arrive to teach my writing class at a state prison in Massachusetts. On particularly windy evenings like this, the tops of trees sway back and forth. The sounds of their fraying leaves wrestle against one another like the bristles of an old broom along a wooden floor—its old, worn edges bending and breaking as it moves across the room.

In a classroom on the second floor of this prison, sixteen men in faded blue and gray jumpsuits await the start of class. Each window—on opposite sides of the room—remains a few inches open, just enough to allow the breeze to somersault its way across the room and out again. An enormous concrete wall, topped with barbed wire, demarcates the perimeter of the facility. You are reminded that you are, in fact, inside of a cage.

Here, at one of the state’s more rehabilitation-friendly institutions, there are ample programs for the men to participate in, including sports leagues, a chess club, writing classes, a ministry, and vocational courses. You may, in fact, find yourself forgetting the limits of your freedom, even if just for a moment. But it is important to remind yourself of this fallacy. To look around—at the guards, their black uniforms juxtaposed against the gray halls they patrol, at the perches from which they watch everyone beneath them, at the intercom that informs you when and where you are allowed to move—is to be reminded that this is a space in which the state has made it policy to strip people of agency over their bodies. A cage that allows someone to walk around inside of it is still a cage.

Inside of this cage, countless men are serving life sentences without the possibility of parole. They have, fundamentally, been sentenced to die in prison. For a number of them, the sentences they are serving are for crimes that were committed when they were teen-agers.

Near the end of January, the Supreme Court ruled, in Montgomery v. Louisiana , that those serving life sentences for crimes committed as juveniles would have the opportunity to make the case for a chance at a second hearing. This decision makes retroactive a 2012 ruling in Miller v. Alabama, stating that life without the possibility of parole for juveniles is unconstitutional. Among those who have been waiting anxiously on the Montgomery decision is a student in my class whom I’ll call Neal.

Neal’s long beard protrudes from his chin and jawbone, patches of gray scattered haphazardly across the small forest of tight black curls. His oversized sweatshirt and sweatpants belie his rotund frame, and the incandescent light from above reflects off of his cleanly shaven head. His glasses sit precariously on his nose, teetering on the edge of his nostrils. The intonation in his voice connotes a question, even when he is not asking one.

Today, when it is time for each of the men to share his work from the previous week, Neal makes his way to the front of the class and places several pieces of loose-leaf paper atop our makeshift lectern. He adjusts his glasses, and strokes the side of his beard as if to convince his mouth to open. He looks around at each of us, looks down again, and begins to share a story of his childhood. His youth, like many of ours, began with the sort of innocence that shields us from fully absorbing all that transpires around us. Soon, however, his father began to physically abuse him, his brother, and his mother. His mother tried to find an escape through crack cocaine. She became emotionally, and often physically, absent.

Despite an absent mother and abusive father, Neal did his best to hold on to some semblance of a childhood, searching for friendship, mentorship, and guidance anywhere he might find it. He did not find it in a school that failed to support him. He did not find it in a family that had been ripped apart by violence. When he couldn’t find it anywhere else, he fell into the world of gangs and drug dealing; they would look out for him when no one else would. “Finding acceptance in the streets was clearly the wrong choice, but I did what I thought was right at the time,” he said. “I saw more than any eleven-year-old should ever have to experience.” Still in the midst of his teens, and in the heat of a confrontation, Neal took someone’s life. He is now serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole.

In the conversation around mass incarceration, the contemporary political discourse often centers on the notion that if we simply release, or reduce the sentences of, all of the nonviolent drug offenders, we will be able to solve the problem of our enormous prison population. This is false. According to the latest Department of Justice statistics , only sixteen per cent of incarcerated people in state prisons are serving sentences for nonviolent drug offenses. Fifty-three per cent are serving sentences for violent offenses, and about nineteen per cent for property offenses, like burglary or larceny. “Even if every single nonviolent drug offender were released tomorrow,” Gilad Edelman wrote last year, “the [U.S.] incarcerated population would stand at around 1.7 million—still nearly a fifth of the world total.”

The much more difficult, and perhaps more necessary, question about incarceration is what our efforts to reduce our prison population mean for people like Neal, those who did indeed commit a violent crime and who are subsequently spending decades upon decades behind bars.

Miller v. Alabama, and now Montgomery v. Louisiana, force us to reckon with this question, but if we are in fact moving toward meaningful decarceration more must be done. If the espoused mission of departments of correction is to “promote public safety by managing offenders while providing care and appropriate programming in preparation for successful reentry into the community”—as stated by the Massachusetts Department of Corrections —we must ask ourselves if putting men and women who committed crimes when they were children, or even young adults, in prison for the rest of their lives moves us toward that goal. Further, if the purpose of incarceration is public safety, what does it mean to keep people in prison when they are no longer a threat to society?

Although it was once assumed that adolescent development was complete by age eighteen, emerging research demonstrates that the brain does not finish developing until one’s mid-twenties , specifically the prefrontal cortex, which controls decision-making, risk management, and impulse control. Additionally, after a certain age, one’s likelihood of committing another violent offense decreases dramatically. This is becoming increasingly relevant because, at present, about ten per cent of incarcerated people are fifty-five or older, and by 2030, according to a report by the A.C.L.U., that percentage will grow to a third of our prison population. This demographic’s average likelihood of committing another crime is ever-diminishing.

As a result of the Supreme Court’s ruling, the law now states that people seventeen and younger cannot be sentenced to life without parole, except in the rarest cases. But what about those who committed crimes when they were eighteen? Twenty-one? Twenty-three? Is someone who committed a crime at twenty-five the same person he or she is at sixty-five? We must ask ourselves these questions because mass incarceration is not merely the result of putting away too many people for nonviolent drug offenses; it is the result of putting people who committed violent offenses away for longer than is necessary to promote public safety.

Additionally, we must also contend with the fact that many of those who have been imprisoned have, because of systemic disinvestment by the state, grown up in conditions that facilitated their pathway to prison. It is easy to lob moral disapprobation when we are not caught in the web of structural violence and intergenerational poverty ourselves. As is the case with adolescence, poverty clouds judgment and restricts choices . This is not meant to excuse, it is meant to contextualize.

Neal’s story of abuse reflects how those who have witnessed or been on the receiving end of physical violence are often those more likely to engage in violent behavior later in life. His story of poverty and neglect reflects a diminished moral agency, as he grew up in an environment that has been systemically stripped of resources as a matter of public policy . In a study by Harvard sociologist Bruce Western, forty per cent of the recently incarcerated men and women interviewed in the Boston area had witnessed a killing during their childhood . So, beyond rationally responding to one’s social context, sometimes the very notion of what is rational, particularly for young people who grow up surrounded by violence, becomes much more complicated. What is choice when in the midst of ubiquitous trauma? What is agency when you have been dispossessed of your innocence?

One might contend, and quite legitimately, that someone who has been murdered by another person will never have the opportunity to grow, heal, or change. This opportunity has been taken away from the victim, thus it should also be taken away from their murderers. The place from which this sentiment arises is certainly understandable. But, as a matter of public policy, we should ask whether or not we want to be the type of country that allows people who demonstrate no legitimate threat to public safety the opportunity to move beyond what they have previously done.

Neal does not pretend that he has done nothing wrong; in fact, over twenty years have passed, and remorse for his crime is an ever-present part of life. He speaks and writes often of the victim’s family, how he cannot imagine what he has put them through. He has spent his entire tenure behind bars participating in education programs, cognitive-thinking programs, drug rehabilitation, and P.T.S.D. treatment. “I’m not the same person I was before,” he says. If released, Neal says that his mission is to work to insure that young people do not get caught in the same web of drugs and violence that led him here.

Neal is also deeply cognizant of the way that the broader world perceives him. He knows that his story is all too familiar to many, but that he and many of the men in the prison alongside him have undergone a process of fundamental rehabilitation, and are prepared to meaningfully contribute to society again.

In his opinion on Montgomery v. Louisiana, Justice Kennedy wrote, “Prisoners like Montgomery must be given the opportunity to show their crime did not reflect irreparable corruption; and, if it did not, their hope for some years of life outside prison walls must be restored.” The question is not if Mr. Montgomery, Neal, or others like them should be excused for the crimes they committed. The question is whether it makes good public policy—does it make us safer and align with our espoused notions of justice—to keep aging men and women in prison until the day they die?

When I leave the prison, I button my coat and secure my scarf. The wind is especially strong. The trees move from side to side, not by their branches, but from the core of their trunks. I know that but for the arbitrary nature of circumstance, it could have been me sitting for decades inside of prison, rather than walking away from one. It is easy to singularly define people by the worst thing that they have ever done, but it becomes more difficult to imagine what we would want the world to do if it were us.

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By Adam Gopnik

By Gilad Edelman

By John J. Lennon

Home > VLR > Vol. 43 > Iss. 2 (1990)

Life-Without-Parole: An Alternative to Death or Not Much of a Life at All?

Julian H. Wright, Jr.

This Note will discuss the relatively recent development and current prevalence of one alternative: the life sentence without benefit of parole, commonly called life-without-parole (LWOP). Life-without-parole is the penultimate penalty, meaning in theory the incarceration of convicts for their natural lives without the possibility of release on parole. In practice, LWOP generally means what it says, although various states do retain some release mechanisms for LWOP inmates, like executive commutation or a set term of years. The idea of jailing individuals for the rest of their lives is at least as old in the Western legal tradition as the Tower of London or the Bastille. In the United States, however,such a penalty historically has not been particularly popular. The constitutional system of government in the United States never has allowed persons to be summarily locked away. The American concept of prisons traditionally has been that they exist for rehabilitation and release as much as for incarceration.'

Recommended Citation

Julian H. Wright, Jr., Life-Without-Parole: An Alternative to Death or Not Much of a Life at All?, 43 Vanderbilt Law Review 529 (1990) Available at: https://scholarship.law.vanderbilt.edu/vlr/vol43/iss2/15

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Article Contents

• Introduction
• A Brief Overview of LWOP
• The Rationale for LWOP
• Human Rights and Human Dignity
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The Pros and Cons of Life Without Parole

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Catherine Appleton, Bent Grøver, The Pros and Cons of Life Without Parole, The British Journal of Criminology , Volume 47, Issue 4, July 2007, Pages 597–615, https://doi.org/10.1093/bjc/azm001

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The question of how societies should respond to their most serious crimes if not with the death penalty is ‘perhaps the oldest of all the issues raised by the two-century struggle in western civilization to end the death penalty’ (Bedau, 1990: 481). In this article we draw attention to the rapid and extraordinary increase in the use of ‘life imprisonment without parole’ in the United States. We aim to critically assess the main arguments put forward by supporters of whole life imprisonment as a punishment provided by law to replace the death penalty and argue against life-long detention as the ultimate sanction.

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Life without Parole

America's new death penalty.

• Edited by: Charles J. Ogletree Jr. and Austin Sarat
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• Language: English
• Publisher: New York University Press
• Copyright year: 2012
• Audience: Professional and scholarly;
• Published: June 4, 2012
• ISBN: 9780814762493

Juvenile Life Without Parole: An Overview

The United States stands alone as the only nation that sentences people to life without parole for crimes committed before turning 18. This briefing paper reviews the Supreme Court precedents that limit the use of juvenile life without parole (JLWOP) and the challenges that remain to its abolition.

Related to: Youth Justice, Sentencing Reform

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The momentum to protect youth rights in the criminal legal system is clear. Twenty-seven states and the District of Columbia have banned life sentences without the possibility of parole for people under 18; in nine additional states, no one is serving life without parole for offenses committed before age 18.

The Sentencing Project, in its national survey of life and virtual life sentences in the United States found 1,465 people serving JLWOP sentences at the start of 2020. This number reflects a 38% drop in the population of people serving JLWOP since our 2016 count and a 44% drop since the peak count of JLWOP figures in 2012. 1 This count continues to decline as more states eliminate JLWOP.

In five decisions – Roper v. Simmons (2005), Graham v. Florida (2010), Miller v. Alabama (2012), Montgomery v. Louisiana (2016), and Jones v. Mississippi (2021) –the Supreme Court of the United States establishes and upholds the fact that “children are constitutionally different from adults in their levels of culpability” 2 when it comes to sentencing. Differences in maturity and accountability informs the protections of the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment that limits sentencing a child to die in prison.

Research on adolescent brain development confirms the commonsense understanding that children are different from adults in ways that are critical to identifying age-appropriate criminal sentences. This understanding – Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy called it what “any parent knows” 3 – was central to the recent Supreme Court decisions excluding people under 18 from the harshest sentencing practices.

Starting in 2005, Roper struck down the death penalty for people under 18. In 2010, Graham invalidated life without parole sentences for people under 18 convicted of non-homicide crimes. Two years later in Miller, the Court recognized the need to protect nearly all youth from life-without-parole sentences, regardless of the crime of conviction. Life without parole, as a mandatory minimum sentence for anyone under age 18 was found unconstitutional. Montgomery, in 2016, clarified that Miller applied retroactively. Jones reaffirmed both Montgomery and Miller but held that a specific factual finding of “permanent incorrigibility” at the time of sentencing is not required for the imposition of a juvenile life without parole sentence.

Henceforth, few youth will be sentenced to life without the possibility of parole. Moreover, youth sentenced to parole-ineligible life sentences in 28 states where the sentence was mandatory and the federal government are in the process of having their original sentences reviewed or have been granted a new sentence, including hundreds of individuals who have been released from prison.

Supreme Court Rulings

Since 2005, Supreme Court rulings have accepted adolescent brain science and banned the use of capital punishment for juveniles, limited life without parole sentences to homicide offenses, banned the use of mandatory life without parole, and applied the decision retroactively.

Roper v. Simmons, 543 U.S. 551 (2005)

The Supreme Court ruled that juveniles cannot be sentenced to death, writing that the death penalty is a disproportionate punishment for the young; immaturity diminishes their culpability, as does their susceptibility to outside pressures and influences. Their heightened capacity for reform means that they are entitled to a separate set of punishments. The court also held that the nation’s “evolving standards of decency” showed the death penalty for juveniles to be cruel and unusual: 12 states banned the death penalty in all circumstances, and 18 more banned it for people under 18. 4 The Roper ruling affected 72 juveniles on death row in 12 states. 5 Between 1976 and the Roper decision, 22 defendants were executed for crimes committed before age 18. 6

Graham v. Florida, 130 S.CT. 2011 (2010)

Having banned the use of the death penalty for juveniles in Roper, the Court left the sentence of life without parole as the harshest sentence available for offenses committed by people under 18. In Graham v. Florida, the Court banned the use of life without parole for juveniles not convicted of homicide. The ruling applied to at least 123 prisoners – 77 of whom had been sentenced in Florida, the remainder in 10 other states. 7 As in Roper, the Court pointed to the rare imposition of a particular punishment to prove that the punishment is unusual. 8

U.S. Supreme Court precedent recognizes that non-homicide offenses do not warrant the most serious punishment available. 9 “The concept of proportionality is central to the Eighth Amendment,” wrote Justice Kennedy. 10 Thus, having denied the maximum punishment for all people under 18 (life without parole), the Court ruled that the harshest punishment must be limited to the most serious category of crimes (i.e., those involving homicide).

The Court called life without parole “an especially harsh punishment for a juvenile … A 16-year-old and a 75-year-old each sentenced to life without parole receive the same punishment in name only.” 11 Limiting the use of life without parole did not guarantee such individuals would be released; it guaranteed a “meaningful opportunity” for release.

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Miller v. Alabama and Jackson v. Hobbs, 132 S.Ct. 2455 (2012)

Following Roper’s exclusion of the death penalty for juveniles and Graham’s limitation on the use of life without parole, approximately 2,500 people were serving sentences of life without parole for crimes committed as juveniles, all of whom were convicted of homicide. 12

In 2012, deciding Miller and Jackson jointly, the U.S. Supreme Court held that, for people under 18, mandatory life without parole sentences violate the Eighth Amendment. Writing for the majority, Justice Kagan emphasized that judges must be able to consider the characteristics of young defendants in order to issue a fair and individualized sentence. Adolescence is marked by “transient rashness, proclivity for risk, and inability to assess consequences,” all factors that should mitigate the punishment received by juvenile defendants. 13

Adolescence is marked by “rashness, proclivity for risk, and inability to assess consequences.”

Montgomery v. Louisiana , 136 S.Ct. 718 (2016)

The Miller ruling affected mandatory sentencing laws in 28 states and the federal government. States inconsistently interpreted Miller’s retroactivity. Supreme Courts in fourteen states ruled that Miller applied retroactively 14 while those of seven other states ruled that Miller was not retroactive. 15 In addition, California, Delaware, Nebraska, Nevada, North Carolina, and Wyoming passed sentencing legislation for people under 18 that applied retroactively as of 2014. 16

The question was settled by the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of 68-year old Henry Montgomery 17 , who had been imprisoned in Louisiana with no chance of parole since 1963 and called a “model member of the prison community.” 18 Justice Kennedy, writing for a 6-3 majority, noted that the Court in Roper, Graham, and Miller found that “children are constitutionally different from adults in their level of culpability.” 19 Moreover, the severest punishment must be reserved “for the rarest of juvenile offenders, those whose crimes reflect permanent incorrigibility.” 20

States can remedy the unconstitutionality of mandatory juvenile life without parole sentences by permitting parole hearings rather than resentencing the approximately 2,100 people whose life sentences were issued mandatorily. 21 , 22

Jones v. Mississippi 593 U.S. __ (2021)

Brett Jones is among the thousands of people who were eligible to apply for a new sentence following Miller and Montgomery. Despite the progress he had attained while imprisoned, 23 the state of Mississippi reissued his life-with-parole sentence in 2015, which Jones challenged because there had been no finding of “permanent incorrigibility.” Writing on behalf of a 6-3 majority, Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh upheld Miller and Montgomery’s requirement that “youth matters in sentencing” (as such, mandatory life without parole sentences remain unconstitutional for youth), but also held that a separate and specific factual finding of “permanent incorrigibility” was not required to sentence a person who was under 18 at the time of their offense to life without parole. 24

Legislative Responses to JLWOP

Since 2012, 33 states and the District of Columbia have changed their laws for people under 18 convicted of homicide, mostly by banning life without parole for people under 18, but also eliminating life without parole for felony murder or re-writing penalties that were struck down by Graham. Twenty-seven of the 32 reforms, plus that of the District of Columbia, banned life without parole for people under 18; the other seven states limited its application. All but five of the states that banned life without parole for people under 18 had previously required it in the same circumstances.

These new laws provide mandatory minimums ranging from a chance of parole after 15 years (as in Nevada and West Virginia) to 40 years (as in Nebraska). Twenty-five states still allow life without parole as a sentencing option for juveniles.

In most states, the question of virtual life sentences – a term of years that exceeds life expectancy but not life without parole – has yet to be addressed. There are 1,716 people serving such lengthy terms. One such person was Bobby Bostic of Missouri, hypothetically parole-eligible at age 112 for offenses committed at age 16, but released in 2022 due to a law passed in 2021 25

People Serving Juvenile Life Without Parole Sentences

Thirty-one states and the District of Columbia do not have any prisoners serving life without parole for crimes committed as juveniles, either due to laws prohibiting the sentence or because there are no individuals serving the sentence at this time.

Childhood Experiences

The life experiences of those sentenced to life as juveniles varies, but they are often marked by very difficult upbringings with frequent exposure to violence; they were often victims of abuse themselves. Justice Kagan, in Miller, ruled that Alabama and Arkansas erred because a mandatory sentencing structure does not “tak[e] into account the family and home environment.” 26 The petitioners in those cases, Kuntrell Jackson and Evan Miller, both 14 at the time of their crimes, grew up in highly unstable homes. Evan Miller was a troubled child; he attempted suicide four times, starting at age 6. 27 Kuntrell Jackson’s family life was “immers[ed] in violence: Both his mother and his grandmother had previously shot other individuals.” 26 His mother and a brother were sent to prison. The defendant in Graham, Terrance Graham, had parents who were addicted to crack cocaine. 29 Similarly, in Jones, Justice Sotomayor’s dissent noted that “Brett Jones was the victim of violence and neglect that he was too young to escape.” 30

In 2012, The Sentencing Project released findings from a survey of people sentenced to life in prison as juveniles and found the defendants in the above cases were not unusual. 31

• 79% witnessed violence in their homes regularly
• 32% grew up in public housing
• Fewer than half were attending school at the time of their offense
• 47% were physically abused
• 80% of girls reported histories of physical abuse and 77% of girls reported histories of sexual abuse

Racial Disparities

Racial disparities plague the imposition of JLWOP sentences. Sixty-two percent of people serving JLWOP, among those for whom racial data are available, are African American. While 23% of juvenile arrests for murder involve an African American suspected of killing a white person, 42% of JLWOP sentences are for an African American convicted of this crime. White juvenile offenders with African American victims are only about half as likely (3.6%) to receive a JWLOP sentence as their proportion of arrests for killing an African American (6.4%). 32

Cost of Life Sentences

Aside from important justice considerations, the financial cost of JLWOP sentences is significant. A life sentence issued to a juvenile is designed to last longer than a life sentence issued to an older defendant.

Housing juveniles for a life sentence requires decades of public expenditures. Nationally, it costs over $33,000 per year to house an average prisoner. This cost roughly doubles when that person is over 50. 33 Therefore, a 50-year sentence for a 16-year old will cost upwards of $2.25 million.

What Makes Youth Different?

In amici briefs written on behalf of the defendants in Roper, Graham, Miller, and Montgomery organizations representing health professionals, such as the American Academy of Child Adolescent Psychiatry and the American Psychological Association, explained current research on immature brains. In Miller, Justice Kagan noted that adolescence is marked by “immaturity, impetuosity, and failure to appreciate risks and consequences,” all factors that limit an adolescent’s ability to make sound judgments. Justice Kagan cited Graham and J. D. B. v. North Carolina 34 in noting that juvenile defendants are at a substantial disadvantage in criminal proceedings; they are less able than adults to assist in their own defenses (working constructively with counsel) and they are likely to respond poorly to the high pressures of interrogation.

Even before Roper, states routinely recognized differences between juveniles and adults in other contexts. Almost every state prohibits juveniles from voting, buying cigarettes and alcohol, serving on juries, and getting married without parental consent. Teenagers’ drivers licenses are typically restricted through age 18. The Graham decision emphasized the importance of giving juvenile offenders a chance to become rehabilitated. These individuals have a substantial capacity for rehabilitation, but many states deny this opportunity: approximately 62% of people sentenced to life without parole as juveniles reported not participating in prison programs 32 in large part due to state prison policies that prohibit their participation or limited program availability. They typically receive fewer rehabilitative services than others in prison. 36

Momentum for Reform

Under current Supreme Court precedent, curbs on juvenile life without parole sentences do not guarantee release. Rather, Supreme court holdings and the reforms passed in response to those holdings by state legislatures provide an opportunity for individualized review before a parole board or a judge for a new sentence, taking into consideration the unique circumstances of each defendant.

The Sentencing Project supports a 20-year maximum sentence for nearly all individuals convicted of crimes. 37 This recommendation recognizes that the age of mass incarceration in America led to extreme and overly harsh sentences that are often unjust and counterproductive to public safety. It applies to all people in prison, not only those sentenced in their youth. Some recent reforms are beginning to align with this recommendation as states recognize that extreme sentences are outdated, unnecessary and inhumane. For example, both West Virginia 38 and the District of Columbia 39 offer opportunities for release after 15 years with a parole hearing or a chance to apply to a court for a new sentence, respectively. Maryland, Nevada, New Jersey, and Virginia allow for the possibility of release after 20 years. All incarceration should further the goals of rehabilitation and reintegration.

In Montgomery, the Court ruled that “allowing those offenders to be considered for parole ensures that juveniles whose crimes reflected only transient immaturity – and who have since matured – will not be forced to serve a disproportionate sentence in violation of the 8th Amendment.” 21

The District of Columbia 41 ) and Washington State 42 have extended Miller’s guidance to people under age 25 and 21, respectively, with the understanding that older and younger adolescents alike should not be sentenced to die in prison. Additional legislation for people under 21 has progressed elsewhere.

In many other countries the period before a mandated sentencing review is 10 to 15 years, and 10 years prior to a second look is recommended by the American Law Institute’s Model Penal Code. 43 If adequate rehabilitation has not occurred during these years in prison, as decided by experts, the individual may remain in prison and their case should be reviewed again in another few years.

Nor is it appropriate to eliminate life sentences in name only, such as replacing them with excessively lengthy prison terms that can reasonably be expected to last for an offender’s entire life. There is mounting support for such reform in select states. Motivated by the Miller decision, the state of California (previously home to one of the largest populations of JLWOP defendants) now affords prisoners a meaningful chance at parole after 15 to 25 years if their crime occurred when they were a juvenile. Reforms are underway in other states as well. Sentences that close the door on rehabilitation and second chances are cruel and misguided.

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Article contents

Life without parole sentencing.

• Christopher Seeds Christopher Seeds Department of Criminology, Law and Society, University of California, Irvine
• https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190264079.013.465
• Published online: 28 August 2019

Life without parole sentencing refers to laws, policies, and practices concerning lifetime prison sentences that also preclude release by parole. While sentences to imprisonment for life without the possibility of parole have existed for more than a century in the United States, over the past four decades the penalty has emerged as a prominent element of U.S. punishment, routinely put to use by penal professionals and featured regularly in public discourse. As use of the death penalty diminishes in the United States, life without parole serves as the ultimate punishment in more and more U.S. jurisdictions. The scope with which states apply life without parole varies, however, and some states have authorized the punishment even for nonviolent offenses. More than a punishment serving purposes of retribution, crime control, and public safety, and beyond the symbolic functions of life without parole sentencing in U.S. culture and politics, life without parole is a lived experience for more than 50,000 prisoners in the United States. Life without parole’s increasing significance in the United States points to the need for further research on the subject—including studies that directly focus on how race and racial prejudice factor in life without parole sentencing, studies that investigate the proximate causes of life without parole sentences at the state and local level, and studies that examine the similarities and differences between life without parole, the death penalty, and de facto forms of imprisonment until death.

• life without parole
• life sentences
• mass incarceration
• criminal justice reform

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Student and Practitioner Legal Scholarship Online

Juvenile Life Without Parole: Where the Law Stands After Jones v. Mississippi

Photo by  Emiliano Bar  on  Unsplash

Margo McGehee, Blog Chair, University of Cincinnati Law Review

I. Introduction

The United States is the only country in the world that sentences juveniles to life in prison without the possibility of parole. [1] Although twenty-four states and the District of Columbia have banned these sentences for juveniles, nearly 1,500 people are still serving life-without-parole sentences for crimes committed as juveniles. [2] Since 2005, the Supreme Court has issued a handful of decisions limiting the circumstances in which a juvenile may be sentenced to life in prison. In each of these cases, the Supreme Court relied upon scientific research to conclude that the brain function of juveniles is significantly different than that of adults, and youths who commit even the most serious crimes have the capacity to change.

Recent legal developments on both the state and national level have reintroduced discussion of when, if ever, juveniles should be sentenced to life in prison and what should be done about individuals currently serving life-without-parole sentences for crimes committed as juveniles. In November 2020, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Jones v. Mississippi to decide whether a judge must determine if a juvenile convicted of a homicide crime is “permanently incorrigible,” meaning they have no hope of rehabilitation, before sentencing them to life without parole. [3] On April 22, 2021, the Court issued its decision.

Part II of this article will overview the current state of the law as it relates to juveniles sentenced to life without parole and the impact of Jones v. Mississippi . Part III will discuss why juveniles convicted of crimes should be treated differently than adults in sentencing.

II. Background

A. Supreme Court Precedent

In 2005, the Supreme Court ruled in Roper v. Simmons that imposing the death penalty on juveniles violates the Eighth Amendment’s protection against cruel and unusual punishment, effectively banning the practice nationwide. [4] The Court considered the cognitive differences between juveniles and adults in reaching its decision, noting that immaturity diminishes a juvenile’s culpability and recognizing that juveniles have a heightened capacity for reform. [5]

In 2010, in Graham v. Florida , the Supreme Court held that the Eighth Amendment also prohibits life without parole sentences for juveniles convicted of non-homicide crimes. [6] Justice Kennedy noted that “[t]he concept of proportionality is central to the Eighth Amendment,” and precedent decisions establish that non-homicide offenses do not warrant the most serious punishment available. [7] The Court called life without parole “an especially harsh punishment for a juvenile . . . A 16-year-old and a 75-year-old each sentenced to life without parole receive the same punishment in name only.” [8] The Court again noted the fundamental cognitive differences between juveniles and adults when reaching its decision. [9]

In the 2012 case of Miller v . Alabama , the Supreme Court expanded on its previous decisions by striking down mandatory life sentences without the possibility of parole for juveniles convicted of homicide crimes—again, on Eighth Amendment grounds. [10] However, juveniles may still be sentenced to life without parole on a case-by-case basis for homicide crimes. [11] The Court noted that adolescence is marked by “transient rashness, proclivity for risk, and inability to assess consequences,” all factors that should mitigate the punishment received by juvenile defendants. [12]

In 2016, the Supreme Court determined in Montgomery v. Louisiana that the Miller decision applied retroactively to convictions that became final before Miller was decided, making thousands of automatically-sentenced prisoners eligible for parole. [13] States are not required to resentence individuals in cases where a juvenile received a mandatory life sentence without the possibility of parole, but states must permit juvenile homicide offenders to be considered for parole. [14]

After Miller and Montgomery , state courts may sentence juveniles to life without the possibility of parole for homicide crimes as long as the sentence is not a mandatory penalty under the law. Currently, twenty-six states still allow life without parole as a sentencing option for juveniles. [15]

B. Jones v. Mississippi

On April 22, 2021, the Supreme Court issued its decision in Jones v. Mississippi , [16] the most recent juvenile life-without-parole case to reach the highest court since Montgomery in 2016. The Court evaluated whether states may sentence juveniles to life in prison without the possibility of parole for homicide crimes without finding that the juvenile is so incorrigible that there is no hope of rehabilitation. [17]

Brett Jones was sentenced to life without parole—Mississippi’s mandatory sentence for murder—for killing his grandfather less than a month after his 15th birthday. [18] After Miller was decided, the Supreme Court of Mississippi ordered resentencing in Jones’ case, and the resentencing judge upheld Jones’ original sentence. [19]

Jones argued that the resentencing judge operated under a fundamental misunderstanding of Miller when the judge failed to determine that he was permanently incorrigible before sentencing him to life without parole. [20] The phrase “permanent incorrigibility” comes from Montgomery , where the Supreme Court stated that Miller barred life without parole “for all but the rarest of juvenile offenders, those whose crimes reflect permanent incorrigibility.” [21] Mississippi is among a small minority of states that allows life-without-parole sentences for juvenile homicide crimes without requiring a finding of permanent incorrigibility, and Jones argued that this is inconsistent with the Supreme Court’s interpretation of Miller . [22]  

The State in Jones argued that the judge was not required to make a permanent incorrigibility determination under Miller , and the Eighth Amendment does not require a finding that the juvenile is incapable of rehabilitation before sentencing him to life without parole. [23] Instead, the State contended that judges must only “consider the mitigating circumstances of youth before sentencing a juvenile to life without parole” and that permanent incorrigibility is just “one way of testing the sentence’s proportionality.” [24]

On this issue, the Supreme Court held that Miller and Montgomery do not require a separate factual finding of permanent incorrigibility before sentencing a juvenile defendant to life in prison without the possibility of parole. [25] The Court reasoned that “a discretionary sentencing system is both constitutionally necessary and constitutionally sufficient.” [26]

III. Discussion

In each of the aforementioned cases decided before Jones , the Supreme Court considered key differences between adult and adolescent brain development and other relevant factors to limit life-without-parole sentencing of juveniles. Despite the ultimate holding of Jones , courts should continue to consider these cognitive differences when sentencing juveniles.

One key difference is the lack of prefrontal cortex development in young brains. This lack of development impacts juveniles’ ability to delay and reflect upon their actions, leading to rash and impulsive decisions. [27] Lack of prefrontal cortex development also diminishes juveniles’ abilities to contemplate risks and consequences. [28] Furthermore, juveniles have different social-emotional systems than adults: they have an increased need to seek reward and sensation, are more emotionally reactive to both positive and negative emotions, and are more susceptible to “peer-pressure.” [29] However, as the cognitive control system develops with age, the development leads to increased impulse control, better emotional regulation, more foresight and resistance to stress and peer pressure, and better anticipation of consequences and outcomes. [30] These drastic changes in development contribute to the understanding that juveniles have a better chance at rehabilitation than their adult counterparts.

Apart from cognitive differences, courts should also consider other factors when deciding a juvenile’s sentence. Justice Kagan noted in Miller that juvenile defendants are at a substantial disadvantage in criminal proceedings, as they are less able to assist in their own defenses and are more likely to respond to the high pressure of interrogation than adults. [31] Moreover, juveniles are treated differently in many other contexts, as almost every state prohibits juveniles from voting, buying cigarettes, and serving on juries. [32] These state legislatures recognize that juveniles have different qualities that should exclude them from some activities available to adults, and courts should not ignore these differences. The sheer cost of life sentences for juveniles should also give sentencing judges pause: it costs $34,135 per year, on average, to house a prisoner, and this number roughly doubles when that prisoner is over the age of 50. [33] A juvenile sentenced to life without parole could live eighty years or more, imposing a significant financial burden on the state. Finally, courts should consider racial disparities within the criminal justice system when sentencing. Black individuals convicted of homicide crimes are sentenced to life without parole at approximately double the rate of white individuals convicted of the same crime, demonstrating that race and ethnicity may play a subconscious role in a judge’s decision-making. [34]

IV. Conclusion

Under Jones v. Mississippi , judges are not required to find a juvenile permanently incorrigible before sentencing them to life in prison without the possibility of parole for a homicide crime. Instead, judges may use discretion to determine whether such a judgment is appropriate under the circumstances. Despite the outcome of Jones , courts should continue to consider scientific research on adolescent brain development and other relevant factors that distinguish juveniles from adults when sentencing juveniles.

[1] Josh Rovner, Juvenile Life Without Parole: An Overview , The Sentencing Project (Mar. 8, 2021), https://www.sentencingproject.org/publications/juvenile-life-without-parole/ .

[3] Jones v. Mississippi, 140 S. Ct. 1293 (2020); Nina Totenberg, Supreme Court Examines When Juveniles May Be Sentenced to Life Without Parole , NPR (Nov. 3, 2020), https://www.npr.org/2020/11/03/930892945/supreme-court-examines-when-juveniles-may-be-sentenced-to-life-without-parole .

[4] Roper v. Simmons, 543 U.S. 551, 578 (2005).

[5] Id. at 568-74.

[6] Graham v. Florida, 560 U.S. 48 (2010).

[7] Id. at 59; Kennedy v. Louisiana, 554 U.S. 407 (2008).

[8] Graham , 560 U.S. at 70.

[9] Id. at 68.

[10] Miller v. Alabama, 567 U.S. 460, 479 (2012).

[11] Id. at 489.

[12] Id. at 472.

[13] Montgomery v. Louisiana, 577 U.S. 190, 207 (2016).

[14] Montgomery Slip Op. at 21.

[15] Rovner, supra note 1.

[16] 593 U.S. 1307 (2021).

[17] Totenberg, supra note 3.

[18] Amy Howe, Case preview: Court to consider life sentences for juveniles – again , SCOTUSblog (Nov. 2, 2020), https://www.scotusblog.com/2020/11/case-preview-court-to-consider-life-sentences-for-juveniles-again/ .

[19] Totenberg, supra note 3.

[21] Montgomery , 577 U.S. at 209.

[22] Totenberg, supra note 3.

[23] Howe, supra note 18.

[25] Jones v. Mississippi, 593 U.S. 1307, 1309 (2021).

[27] Morgan Tyler, Understanding the Adolescent Brain and Legal Culpability , ABA (Aug. 1, 2015), https://www.americanbar.org/groups/public_interest/child_law/resources/child_law_practiceonline/child_law_practice/vol-34/august-2015/understanding-the-adolescent-brain-and-legal-culpability/ .

[31] Miller v. Alabama, 567 U.S. 460, 477-78 (2012).

[32] Rovner, supra note 1.

Margo McGehee

Margo obtained her Bachelor of Arts from Western Kentucky University with a double major in Arabic and economics. During her time in law school, Margo clerked for numerous immigration firms, non-profit organizations, and the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio. As an Associate Member of the UC Law Review, Margo wrote for the Blog focusing on issues such as immigration under the Trump and Biden Administrations, labor law, and criminal law. As an Editorial Member, Margo served on the Executive Board as Blog Chair. Upon completion of the bar exam, Margo will begin her career as an immigration attorney in Raleigh, North Carolina. Margo recently ran the Flying Pig Half Marathon and plans to visit every U.S. National Park.

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“What if They Open That Door One Day?” What Education Means to People Sentenced to Juvenile Life Without Parole

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What JLWOP means: life without parole, for kids

W hen Robert Holbrook was 16 years old, he acted as a lookout in a drug deal in which a young woman was killed. Robert was not what's known as the "trigger man", and, according to his own testimony at least, he did not witness the murder occurring. But because he took part in a felony that resulted in murder, he was automatically culpable under the felony murder rule. He was convicted, along with his co-defendants, of murder in the first degree, which carries an automatic sentence of life without the possibility of parole (LWOP) in the state of Pennsylvania .

So, at 16, Robert joined the growing ranks of American children sentenced to die in prison.

Sentencing juveniles to life without parole (JLWOP) is one of the many areas of criminal justice in which the United States sets itself apart from the rest of the world. No other country allows for the imposition of life sentences without the possibility of parole for child offenders.

Of the approximately 2,500 JLWOP sentences in the United States, around 400 or so were awarded in Pennsylvania, which is what is known in juvenile sentencing terms as a "double mandatory" state: juveniles involved in a homicide are automatically transferred to adult court and tried as adults ("adult crime, adult time") and both first- and second-degree murder convictions carry mandatory LWOP sentences.

In Robert's case, even though the judge alluded to his young age and pointed out that he was the least culpable of all the defendants, there was no opportunity anywhere in the process to exercise judicial discretion. According to Marc Mauer, executive director of the Sentencing Project, which just released a comprehensive study on the lives of juvenile lifers (pdf) :

"When you impose mandatory sentences on broad categories of offenders, you're inevitably going to draw people into those broad categories, who do not belong."

Over 100 years ago, the juvenile justice system was established in the United States to prevent children being caught up in an adult net. The court recognized that the adolescent brain is not fully matured (pdf) , leaving teenagers less risk-averse, less able to weigh consequences and, possibly, less culpable. That separate system of justice has now been more or less dismantled, with devastating consequences.

Though tried as an adult, Robert was housed, along with other youths charged with crimes, in a juvenile facility while he awaited sentencing. He recounts them all watching each other drop like flies into the lifer bin – and being completely unable to comprehend what this meant.

"Many of us, after being sentenced to LWOP, couldn't comprehend the experience and only years later understood what a life sentence implies. Life. We hadn't even lived – so how could we comprehend life? "More often than not, the courts' sentence of life landed on our ears with a dull thud and numbing silence as our young minds tried in vain to make sense of the words and the totality of the sentence. We couldn't look that far ahead into a future because we had no extensive reference for the past. "Only after many of us have served 10 or 15 years in prison does the 'reality' of the sentence sink in. When you have more life experience to reference, when you are 26 years old, with 10 years of prison behind you, you start to recognize what imprisonment for the rest of your life implies."

Now at the age of 38, after serving 22 years of his eternal sentence, and facing the prospect of maybe 40 or 50 more, depending on how long it takes him to die, Robert, like his fellow juvenile lifers, is still grappling with that reality.

There may be some hope on the horizon, however. In the recent past, the US supreme court has made several decisions on the constitutionality of treating juvenile offenders as adults. In a landmark 2005 decision (Roper v Simmons), juveniles became the third category of defendants, along with the insane and mentally retarded, to be categorically excluded from the death penalty. Although it was implied that JLWOP sentences are an acceptable alternative, the decision involved broad statements about the reduced culpability of juvenile offenders. That would appear to leave open to debate – and possible challenge – whether LWOP is, in fact, a humane alternative. Four years later, in 2009, in the case of Graham v Florida, the supreme court barred the imposition of JLWOP sentences for non-homicide crimes.

The Graham decision left several questions unanswered, though. A key one was whether or not a "non-trigger man" accomplice to a murder can be charged with homicide, at least in cases where there was no intent to kill, or no knowledge that a murder was to take place. The supreme court is currently reviewing two additional cases, Miller v Alabama and Jackson v Hobbs, both involving 14-year-old defendants convicted of murder and given LWOP sentences.

In one of the cases, Jackson (like Robert Holbrook) was a non-trigger man accomplice. Whatever decision the supreme court reaches will likely only apply to juveniles aged 14 or younger, yet sentencing reform advocates have welcomed this latest opportunity to review the constitutionality of sentencing children to die in prison. A verdict is expected later this month.

Interested parties can write to:

Sadhbh Walshe PO Box 1466 New York, NY 10150

Or send an email to: [email protected]

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The Meaning of Life

Many major historical figures in philosophy have provided an answer to the question of what, if anything, makes life meaningful, although they typically have not put it in these terms (with such talk having arisen only in the past 250 years or so, on which see Landau 1997). Consider, for instance, Aristotle on the human function, Aquinas on the beatific vision, and Kant on the highest good. Relatedly, think about Koheleth, the presumed author of the Biblical book Ecclesiastes, describing life as “futility” and akin to “the pursuit of wind,” Nietzsche on nihilism, as well as Schopenhauer when he remarks that whenever we reach a goal we have longed for we discover “how vain and empty it is.” While these concepts have some bearing on happiness and virtue (and their opposites), they are straightforwardly construed (roughly) as accounts of which highly ranked purposes a person ought to realize that would make her life significant (if any would).

Despite the venerable pedigree, it is only since the 1980s or so that a distinct field of the meaning of life has been established in Anglo-American-Australasian philosophy, on which this survey focuses, and it is only in the past 20 years that debate with real depth and intricacy has appeared. Two decades ago analytic reflection on life’s meaning was described as a “backwater” compared to that on well-being or good character, and it was possible to cite nearly all the literature in a given critical discussion of the field (Metz 2002). Neither is true any longer. Anglo-American-Australasian philosophy of life’s meaning has become vibrant, such that there is now way too much literature to be able to cite comprehensively in this survey. To obtain focus, it tends to discuss books, influential essays, and more recent works, and it leaves aside contributions from other philosophical traditions (such as the Continental or African) and from non-philosophical fields (e.g., psychology or literature). This survey’s central aim is to acquaint the reader with current analytic approaches to life’s meaning, sketching major debates and pointing out neglected topics that merit further consideration.

When the topic of the meaning of life comes up, people tend to pose one of three questions: “What are you talking about?”, “What is the meaning of life?”, and “Is life in fact meaningful?”. The literature on life's meaning composed by those working in the analytic tradition (on which this entry focuses) can be usefully organized according to which question it seeks to answer. This survey starts off with recent work that addresses the first, abstract (or “meta”) question regarding the sense of talk of “life’s meaning,” i.e., that aims to clarify what we have in mind when inquiring into the meaning of life (section 1). Afterward, it considers texts that provide answers to the more substantive question about the nature of meaningfulness (sections 2–3). There is in the making a sub-field of applied meaning that parallels applied ethics, in which meaningfulness is considered in the context of particular cases or specific themes. Examples include downshifting (Levy 2005), implementing genetic enhancements (Agar 2013), making achievements (Bradford 2015), getting an education (Schinkel et al. 2015), interacting with research participants (Olson 2016), automating labor (Danaher 2017), and creating children (Ferracioli 2018). In contrast, this survey focuses nearly exclusively on contemporary normative-theoretical approaches to life’s meanining, that is, attempts to capture in a single, general principle all the variegated conditions that could confer meaning on life. Finally, this survey examines fresh arguments for the nihilist view that the conditions necessary for a meaningful life do not obtain for any of us, i.e., that all our lives are meaningless (section 4).

1. The Meaning of “Meaning”

2.1. god-centered views, 2.2. soul-centered views, 3.1. subjectivism, 3.2. objectivism, 3.3. rejecting god and a soul, 4. nihilism, works cited, classic works, collections, books for the general reader, other internet resources, related entries.

One of the field's aims consists of the systematic attempt to identify what people (essentially or characteristically) have in mind when they think about the topic of life’s meaning. For many in the field, terms such as “importance” and “significance” are synonyms of “meaningfulness” and so are insufficiently revealing, but there are those who draw a distinction between meaningfulness and significance (Singer 1996, 112–18; Belliotti 2019, 145–50, 186). There is also debate about how the concept of a meaningless life relates to the ideas of a life that is absurd (Nagel 1970, 1986, 214–23; Feinberg 1980; Belliotti 2019), futile (Trisel 2002), and not worth living (Landau 2017, 12–15; Matheson 2017).

A useful way to begin to get clear about what thinking about life’s meaning involves is to specify the bearer. Which life does the inquirer have in mind? A standard distinction to draw is between the meaning “in” life, where a human person is what can exhibit meaning, and the meaning “of” life in a narrow sense, where the human species as a whole is what can be meaningful or not. There has also been a bit of recent consideration of whether animals or human infants can have meaning in their lives, with most rejecting that possibility (e.g., Wong 2008, 131, 147; Fischer 2019, 1–24), but a handful of others beginning to make a case for it (Purves and Delon 2018; Thomas 2018). Also under-explored is the issue of whether groups, such as a people or an organization, can be bearers of meaning, and, if so, under what conditions.

Most analytic philosophers have been interested in meaning in life, that is, in the meaningfulness that a person’s life could exhibit, with comparatively few these days addressing the meaning of life in the narrow sense. Even those who believe that God is or would be central to life’s meaning have lately addressed how an individual’s life might be meaningful in virtue of God more often than how the human race might be. Although some have argued that the meaningfulness of human life as such merits inquiry to no less a degree (if not more) than the meaning in a life (Seachris 2013; Tartaglia 2015; cf. Trisel 2016), a large majority of the field has instead been interested in whether their lives as individual persons (and the lives of those they care about) are meaningful and how they could become more so.

Focusing on meaning in life, it is quite common to maintain that it is conceptually something good for its own sake or, relatedly, something that provides a basic reason for action (on which see Visak 2017). There are a few who have recently suggested otherwise, maintaining that there can be neutral or even undesirable kinds of meaning in a person’s life (e.g., Mawson 2016, 90, 193; Thomas 2018, 291, 294). However, these are outliers, with most analytic philosophers, and presumably laypeople, instead wanting to know when an individual’s life exhibits a certain kind of final value (or non-instrumental reason for action).

Another claim about which there is substantial consensus is that meaningfulness is not all or nothing and instead comes in degrees, such that some periods of life are more meaningful than others and that some lives as a whole are more meaningful than others. Note that one can coherently hold the view that some people’s lives are less meaningful (or even in a certain sense less “important”) than others, or are even meaningless (unimportant), and still maintain that people have an equal standing from a moral point of view. Consider a consequentialist moral principle according to which each individual counts for one in virtue of having a capacity for a meaningful life, or a Kantian approach according to which all people have a dignity in virtue of their capacity for autonomous decision-making, where meaning is a function of the exercise of this capacity. For both moral outlooks, we could be required to help people with relatively meaningless lives.

Yet another relatively uncontroversial element of the concept of meaningfulness in respect of individual persons is that it is logically distinct from happiness or rightness (emphasized in Wolf 2010, 2016). First, to ask whether someone’s life is meaningful is not one and the same as asking whether her life is pleasant or she is subjectively well off. A life in an experience machine or virtual reality device would surely be a happy one, but very few take it to be a prima facie candidate for meaningfulness (Nozick 1974: 42–45). Indeed, a number would say that one’s life logically could become meaningful precisely by sacrificing one’s well-being, e.g., by helping others at the expense of one’s self-interest. Second, asking whether a person’s existence over time is meaningful is not identical to considering whether she has been morally upright; there are intuitively ways to enhance meaning that have nothing to do with right action or moral virtue, such as making a scientific discovery or becoming an excellent dancer. Now, one might argue that a life would be meaningless if, or even because, it were unhappy or immoral, but that would be to posit a synthetic, substantive relationship between the concepts, far from indicating that speaking of “meaningfulness” is analytically a matter of connoting ideas regarding happiness or rightness. The question of what (if anything) makes a person’s life meaningful is conceptually distinct from the questions of what makes a life happy or moral, although it could turn out that the best answer to the former question appeals to an answer to one of the latter questions.

Supposing, then, that talk of “meaning in life” connotes something good for its own sake that can come in degrees and that is not analytically equivalent to happiness or rightness, what else does it involve? What more can we say about this final value, by definition? Most contemporary analytic philosophers would say that the relevant value is absent from spending time in an experience machine (but see Goetz 2012 for a different view) or living akin to Sisyphus, the mythic figure doomed by the Greek gods to roll a stone up a hill for eternity (famously discussed by Albert Camus and Taylor 1970). In addition, many would say that the relevant value is typified by the classic triad of “the good, the true, and the beautiful” (or would be under certain conditions). These terms are not to be taken literally, but instead are rough catchwords for beneficent relationships (love, collegiality, morality), intellectual reflection (wisdom, education, discoveries), and creativity (particularly the arts, but also potentially things like humor or gardening).

Pressing further, is there something that the values of the good, the true, the beautiful, and any other logically possible sources of meaning involve? There is as yet no consensus in the field. One salient view is that the concept of meaning in life is a cluster or amalgam of overlapping ideas, such as fulfilling higher-order purposes, meriting substantial esteem or admiration, having a noteworthy impact, transcending one’s animal nature, making sense, or exhibiting a compelling life-story (Markus 2003; Thomson 2003; Metz 2013, 24–35; Seachris 2013, 3–4; Mawson 2016). However, there are philosophers who maintain that something much more monistic is true of the concept, so that (nearly) all thought about meaningfulness in a person’s life is essentially about a single property. Suggestions include being devoted to or in awe of qualitatively superior goods (Taylor 1989, 3–24), transcending one’s limits (Levy 2005), or making a contribution (Martela 2016).

Recently there has been something of an “interpretive turn” in the field, one instance of which is the strong view that meaning-talk is logically about whether and how a life is intelligible within a wider frame of reference (Goldman 2018, 116–29; Seachris 2019; Thomas 2019; cf. Repp 2018). According to this approach, inquiring into life’s meaning is nothing other than seeking out sense-making information, perhaps a narrative about life or an explanation of its source and destiny. This analysis has the advantage of promising to unify a wide array of uses of the term “meaning.” However, it has the disadvantages of being unable to capture the intuitions that meaning in life is essentially good for its own sake (Landau 2017, 12–15), that it is not logically contradictory to maintain that an ineffable condition is what confers meaning on life (as per Cooper 2003, 126–42; Bennett-Hunter 2014; Waghorn 2014), and that often human actions themselves (as distinct from an interpretation of them), such as rescuing a child from a burning building, are what bear meaning.

Some thinkers have suggested that a complete analysis of the concept of life’s meaning should include what has been called “anti-matter” (Metz 2002, 805–07, 2013, 63–65, 71–73) or “anti-meaning” (Campbell and Nyholm 2015; Egerstrom 2015), conditions that reduce the meaningfulness of a life. The thought is that meaning is well represented by a bipolar scale, where there is a dimension of not merely positive conditions, but also negative ones. Gratuitous cruelty or destructiveness are prima facie candidates for actions that not merely fail to add meaning, but also subtract from any meaning one’s life might have had.

Despite the ongoing debates about how to analyze the concept of life’s meaning (or articulate the definition of the phrase “meaning in life”), the field remains in a good position to make progress on the other key questions posed above, viz., of what would make a life meaningful and whether any lives are in fact meaningful. A certain amount of common ground is provided by the point that meaningfulness at least involves a gradient final value in a person’s life that is conceptually distinct from happiness and rightness, with exemplars of it potentially being the good, the true, and the beautiful. The rest of this discussion addresses philosophical attempts to capture the nature of this value theoretically and to ascertain whether it exists in at least some of our lives.

2. Supernaturalism

Most analytic philosophers writing on meaning in life have been trying to develop and evaluate theories, i.e., fundamental and general principles, that are meant to capture all the particular ways that a life could obtain meaning. As in moral philosophy, there are recognizable “anti-theorists,” i.e., those who maintain that there is too much pluralism among meaning conditions to be able to unify them in the form of a principle (e.g., Kekes 2000; Hosseini 2015). Arguably, though, the systematic search for unity is too nascent to be able to draw a firm conclusion about whether it is available.

The theories are standardly divided on a metaphysical basis, that is, in terms of which kinds of properties are held to constitute the meaning. Supernaturalist theories are views according to which a spiritual realm is central to meaning in life. Most Western philosophers have conceived of the spiritual in terms of God or a soul as commonly understood in the Abrahamic faiths (but see Mulgan 2015 for discussion of meaning in the context of a God uninterested in us). In contrast, naturalist theories are views that the physical world as known particularly well by the scientific method is central to life’s meaning.

There is logical space for a non-naturalist theory, according to which central to meaning is an abstract property that is neither spiritual nor physical. However, only scant attention has been paid to this possibility in the recent Anglo-American-Australasian literature (Audi 2005).

It is important to note that supernaturalism, a claim that God (or a soul) would confer meaning on a life, is logically distinct from theism, the claim that God (or a soul) exists. Although most who hold supernaturalism also hold theism, one could accept the former without the latter (as Camus more or less did), committing one to the view that life is meaningless or at least lacks substantial meaning. Similarly, while most naturalists are atheists, it is not contradictory to maintain that God exists but has nothing to do with meaning in life or perhaps even detracts from it. Although these combinations of positions are logically possible, some of them might be substantively implausible. The field could benefit from discussion of the comparative attractiveness of various combinations of evaluative claims about what would make life meaningful and metaphysical claims about whether spiritual conditions exist.

Over the past 15 years or so, two different types of supernaturalism have become distinguished on a regular basis (Metz 2019). That is true not only in the literature on life’s meaning, but also in that on the related pro-theism/anti-theism debate, about whether it would be desirable for God or a soul to exist (e.g., Kahane 2011; Kraay 2018; Lougheed 2020). On the one hand, there is extreme supernaturalism, according to which spiritual conditions are necessary for any meaning in life. If neither God nor a soul exists, then, by this view, everyone’s life is meaningless. On the other hand, there is moderate supernaturalism, according to which spiritual conditions are necessary for a great or ultimate meaning in life, although not meaning in life as such. If neither God nor a soul exists, then, by this view, everyone’s life could have some meaning, or even be meaningful, but no one’s life could exhibit the most desirable meaning. For a moderate supernaturalist, God or a soul would substantially enhance meaningfulness or be a major contributory condition for it.

There are a variety of ways that great or ultimate meaning has been described, sometimes quantitatively as “infinite” (Mawson 2016), qualitatively as “deeper” (Swinburne 2016), relationally as “unlimited” (Nozick 1981, 618–19; cf. Waghorn 2014), temporally as “eternal” (Cottingham 2016), and perspectivally as “from the point of view of the universe” (Benatar 2017). There has been no reflection as yet on the crucial question of how these distinctions might bear on each another, for instance, on whether some are more basic than others or some are more valuable than others.

Cross-cutting the extreme/moderate distinction is one between God-centered theories and soul-centered ones. According to the former, some kind of connection with God (understood to be a spiritual person who is all-knowing, all-good, and all-powerful and who is the ground of the physical universe) constitutes meaning in life, even if one lacks a soul (construed as an immortal, spiritual substance that contains one’s identity). In contrast, by the latter, having a soul and putting it into a certain state is what makes life meaningful, even if God does not exist. Many supernaturalists of course believe that God and a soul are jointly necessary for a (greatly) meaningful existence. However, the simpler view, that only one of them is necessary, is common, and sometimes arguments proffered for the complex view fail to support it any more than the simpler one.

The most influential God-based account of meaning in life has been the extreme view that one’s existence is significant if and only if one fulfills a purpose God has assigned. The familiar idea is that God has a plan for the universe and that one’s life is meaningful just to the degree that one helps God realize this plan, perhaps in a particular way that God wants one to do so. If a person failed to do what God intends her to do with her life (or if God does not even exist), then, on the current view, her life would be meaningless.

Thinkers differ over what it is about God’s purpose that might make it uniquely able to confer meaning on human lives, but the most influential argument has been that only God’s purpose could be the source of invariant moral rules (Davis 1987, 296, 304–05; Moreland 1987, 124–29; Craig 1994/2013, 161–67) or of objective values more generally (Cottingham 2005, 37–57), where a lack of such would render our lives nonsensical. According to this argument, lower goods such as animal pleasure or desire satisfaction could exist without God, but higher ones pertaining to meaning in life, particularly moral virtue, could not. However, critics point to many non-moral sources of meaning in life (e.g., Kekes 2000; Wolf 2010), with one arguing that a universal moral code is not necessary for meaning in life, even if, say, beneficent actions are (Ellin 1995, 327). In addition, there are a variety of naturalist and non-naturalist accounts of objective morality––and of value more generally––on offer these days, so that it is not clear that it must have a supernatural source in God’s will.

One recurrent objection to the idea that God’s purpose could make life meaningful is that if God had created us with a purpose in mind, then God would have degraded us and thereby undercut the possibility of us obtaining meaning from fulfilling the purpose. The objection harks back to Jean-Paul Sartre, but in the analytic literature it appears that Kurt Baier was the first to articulate it (1957/2000, 118–20; see also Murphy 1982, 14–15; Singer 1996, 29; Kahane 2011; Lougheed 2020, 121–41). Sometimes the concern is the threat of punishment God would make so that we do God’s bidding, while other times it is that the source of meaning would be constrictive and not up to us, and still other times it is that our dignity would be maligned simply by having been created with a certain end in mind (for some replies to such concerns, see Hanfling 1987, 45–46; Cottingham 2005, 37–57; Lougheed 2020, 111–21).

There is a different argument for an extreme God-based view that focuses less on God as purposive and more on God as infinite, unlimited, or ineffable, which Robert Nozick first articulated with care (Nozick 1981, 594–618; see also Bennett-Hunter 2014; Waghorn 2014). The core idea is that for a finite condition to be meaningful, it must obtain its meaning from another condition that has meaning. So, if one’s life is meaningful, it might be so in virtue of being married to a person, who is important. Being finite, the spouse must obtain his or her importance from elsewhere, perhaps from the sort of work he or she does. This work also must obtain its meaning by being related to something else that is meaningful, and so on. A regress on meaningful conditions is present, and the suggestion is that the regress can terminate only in something so all-encompassing that it need not (indeed, cannot) go beyond itself to obtain meaning from anything else. And that is God. The standard objection to this relational rationale is that a finite condition could be meaningful without obtaining its meaning from another meaningful condition. Perhaps it could be meaningful in itself, without being connected to something beyond it, or maybe it could obtain its meaning by being related to something else that is beautiful or otherwise valuable for its own sake but not meaningful (Nozick 1989, 167–68; Thomson 2003, 25–26, 48).

A serious concern for any extreme God-based view is the existence of apparent counterexamples. If we think of the stereotypical lives of Albert Einstein, Mother Teresa, and Pablo Picasso, they seem meaningful even if we suppose there is no all-knowing, all-powerful, and all-good spiritual person who is the ground of the physical world (e.g., Wielenberg 2005, 31–37, 49–50; Landau 2017). Even religiously inclined philosophers have found this hard to deny these days (Quinn 2000, 58; Audi 2005; Mawson 2016, 5; Williams 2020, 132–34).

Largely for that reason, contemporary supernaturalists have tended to opt for moderation, that is, to maintain that God would greatly enhance the meaning in our lives, even if some meaning would be possible in a world without God. One approach is to invoke the relational argument to show that God is necessary, not for any meaning whatsoever, but rather for an ultimate meaning. “Limited transcendence, the transcending of our limits so as to connect with a wider context of value which itself is limited, does give our lives meaning––but a limited one. We may thirst for more” (Nozick 1981, 618). Another angle is to appeal to playing a role in God’s plan, again to claim, not that it is essential for meaning as such, but rather for “a cosmic significance....intead of a significance very limited in time and space” (Swinburne 2016, 154; see also Quinn 2000; Cottingham 2016, 131). Another rationale is that by fulfilling God’s purpose, we would meaningfully please God, a perfect person, as well as be remembered favorably by God forever (Cottingham 2016, 135; Williams 2020, 21–22, 29, 101, 108). Still another argument is that only with God could the deepest desires of human nature be satisfied (e.g., Goetz 2012; Seachris 2013, 20; Cottingham 2016, 127, 136), even if more surface desires could be satisfied without God.

In reply to such rationales for a moderate supernaturalism, there has been the suggestion that it is precisely by virtue of being alone in the universe that our lives would be particularly significant; otherwise, God’s greatness would overshadow us (Kahane 2014). There has also been the response that, with the opportunity for greater meaning from God would also come that for greater anti-meaning, so that it is not clear that a world with God would offer a net gain in respect of meaning (Metz 2019, 34–35). For example, if pleasing God would greatly enhance meaning in our lives, then presumably displeasing God would greatly reduce it and to a comparable degree. In addition, there are arguments for extreme naturalism (or its “anti-theist” cousin) mentioned below (sub-section 3.3).

Notice that none of the above arguments for supernaturalism appeals to the prospect of eternal life (at least not explicitly). Arguments that do make such an appeal are soul-centered, holding that meaning in life mainly comes from having an immortal, spiritual substance that is contiguous with one’s body when it is alive and that will forever outlive its death. Some think of the afterlife in terms of one’s soul entering a transcendent, spiritual realm (Heaven), while others conceive of one’s soul getting reincarnated into another body on Earth. According to the extreme version, if one has a soul but fails to put it in the right state (or if one lacks a soul altogether), then one’s life is meaningless.

There are three prominent arguments for an extreme soul-based perspective. One argument, made famous by Leo Tolstoy, is the suggestion that for life to be meaningful something must be worth doing, that something is worth doing only if it will make a permanent difference to the world, and that making a permanent difference requires being immortal (see also Hanfling 1987, 22–24; Morris 1992, 26; Craig 1994). Critics most often appeal to counterexamples, suggesting for instance that it is surely worth your time and effort to help prevent people from suffering, even if you and they are mortal. Indeed, some have gone on the offensive and argued that helping people is worth the sacrifice only if and because they are mortal, for otherwise they could invariably be compensated in an afterlife (e.g., Wielenberg 2005, 91–94). Another recent and interesting criticism is that the major motivations for the claim that nothing matters now if one day it will end are incoherent (Greene 2021).

A second argument for the view that life would be meaningless without a soul is that it is necessary for justice to be done, which, in turn, is necessary for a meaningful life. Life seems nonsensical when the wicked flourish and the righteous suffer, at least supposing there is no other world in which these injustices will be rectified, whether by God or a Karmic force. Something like this argument can be found in Ecclesiastes, and it continues to be defended (e.g., Davis 1987; Craig 1994). However, even granting that an afterlife is required for perfectly just outcomes, it is far from obvious that an eternal afterlife is necessary for them, and, then, there is the suggestion that some lives, such as Mandela’s, have been meaningful precisely in virtue of encountering injustice and fighting it.

A third argument for thinking that having a soul is essential for any meaning is that it is required to have the sort of free will without which our lives would be meaningless. Immanuel Kant is known for having maintained that if we were merely physical beings, subjected to the laws of nature like everything else in the material world, then we could not act for moral reasons and hence would be unimportant. More recently, one theologian has eloquently put the point in religious terms: “The moral spirit finds the meaning of life in choice. It finds it in that which proceeds from man and remains with him as his inner essence rather than in the accidents of circumstances turns of external fortune....(W)henever a human being rubs the lamp of his moral conscience, a Spirit does appear. This Spirit is God....It is in the ‘Thou must’ of God and man’s ‘I can’ that the divine image of God in human life is contained” (Swenson 1949/2000, 27–28). Notice that, even if moral norms did not spring from God’s commands, the logic of the argument entails that one’s life could be meaningful, so long as one had the inherent ability to make the morally correct choice in any situation. That, in turn, arguably requires something non-physical about one’s self, so as to be able to overcome whichever physical laws and forces one might confront. The standard objection to this reasoning is to advance a compatibilism about having a determined physical nature and being able to act for moral reasons (e.g., Arpaly 2006; Fischer 2009, 145–77). It is also worth wondering whether, if one had to have a spiritual essence in order to make free choices, it would have to be one that never perished.

Like God-centered theorists, many soul-centered theorists these days advance a moderate view, accepting that some meaning in life would be possible without immortality, but arguing that a much greater meaning would be possible with it. Granting that Einstein, Mandela, and Picasso had somewhat meaningful lives despite not having survived the deaths of their bodies (as per, e.g., Trisel 2004; Wolf 2015, 89–140; Landau 2017), there remains a powerful thought: more is better. If a finite life with the good, the true, and the beautiful has meaning in it to some degree, then surely it would have all the more meaning if it exhibited such higher values––including a relationship with God––for an eternity (Cottingham 2016, 132–35; Mawson 2016, 2019, 52–53; Williams 2020, 112–34; cf. Benatar 2017, 35–63). One objection to this reasoning is that the infinity of meaning that would be possible with a soul would be “too big,” rendering it difficult for the moderate supernaturalist to make sense of the intution that a finite life such as Einstein’s can indeed count as meaningful by comparison (Metz 2019, 30–31; cf. Mawson 2019, 53–54). More common, though, is the objection that an eternal life would include anti-meaning of various kinds, such as boredom and repetition, discussed below in the context of extreme naturalism (sub-section 3.3).

3. Naturalism

Recall that naturalism is the view that a physical life is central to life’s meaning, that even if there is no spiritual realm, a substantially meaningful life is possible. Like supernaturalism, contemporary naturalism admits of two distinguishable variants, moderate and extreme (Metz 2019). The moderate version is that, while a genuinely meaningful life could be had in a purely physical universe as known well by science, a somewhat more meaningful life would be possible if a spiritual realm also existed. God or a soul could enhance meaning in life, although they would not be major contributors. The extreme version of naturalism is the view that it would be better in respect of life’s meaning if there were no spiritual realm. From this perspective, God or a soul would be anti-matter, i.e., would detract from the meaning available to us, making a purely physical world (even if not this particular one) preferable.

Cross-cutting the moderate/extreme distinction is that between subjectivism and objectivism, which are theoretical accounts of the nature of meaningfulness insofar as it is physical. They differ in terms of the extent to which the human mind constitutes meaning and whether there are conditions of meaning that are invariant among human beings. Subjectivists believe that there are no invariant standards of meaning because meaning is relative to the subject, i.e., depends on an individual’s pro-attitudes such as her particular desires or ends, which are not shared by everyone. Roughly, something is meaningful for a person if she strongly wants it or intends to seek it out and she gets it. Objectivists maintain, in contrast, that there are some invariant standards for meaning because meaning is at least partly mind-independent, i.e., obtains not merely in virtue of being the object of anyone’s mental states. Here, something is meaningful (partially) because of its intrinsic nature, in the sense of being independent of whether it is wanted or intended; meaning is instead (to some extent) the sort of thing that merits these reactions.

There is logical space for an orthogonal view, according to which there are invariant standards of meaningfulness constituted by what all human beings would converge on from a certain standpoint. However, it has not been much of a player in the field (Darwall 1983, 164–66).

According to this version of naturalism, meaning in life varies from person to person, depending on each one’s variable pro-attitudes. Common instances are views that one’s life is more meaningful, the more one gets what one happens to want strongly, achieves one’s highly ranked goals, or does what one believes to be really important (Trisel 2002; Hooker 2008). One influential subjectivist has recently maintained that the relevant mental state is caring or loving, so that life is meaningful just to the extent that one cares about or loves something (Frankfurt 1988, 80–94, 2004). Another recent proposal is that meaningfulness consists of “an active engagement and affirmation that vivifies the person who has freely created or accepted and now promotes and nurtures the projects of her highest concern” (Belliotti 2019, 183).

Subjectivism was dominant in the middle of the twentieth century, when positivism, noncognitivism, existentialism, and Humeanism were influential (Ayer 1947; Hare 1957; Barnes 1967; Taylor 1970; Williams 1976). However, in the last quarter of the twentieth century, inference to the best explanation and reflective equilibrium became accepted forms of normative argumentation and were frequently used to defend claims about the existence and nature of objective value (or of “external reasons,” ones obtaining independently of one’s extant attitudes). As a result, subjectivism about meaning lost its dominance. Those who continue to hold subjectivism often remain suspicious of attempts to justify beliefs about objective value (e.g., Trisel 2002, 73, 79, 2004, 378–79; Frankfurt 2004, 47–48, 55–57; Wong 2008, 138–39; Evers 2017, 32, 36; Svensson 2017, 54). Theorists are moved to accept subjectivism typically because the alternatives are unpalatable; they are reasonably sure that meaning in life obtains for some people, but do not see how it could be grounded on something independent of the mind, whether it be the natural or the supernatural (or the non-natural). In contrast to these possibilities, it appears straightforward to account for what is meaningful in terms of what people find meaningful or what people want out of their lives. Wide-ranging meta-ethical debates in epistemology, metaphysics, and the philosophy of language are necessary to address this rationale for subjectivism.

There is a cluster of other, more circumscribed arguments for subjectivism, according to which this theory best explains certain intuitive features of meaning in life. For one, subjectivism seems plausible since it is reasonable to think that a meaningful life is an authentic one (Frankfurt 1988, 80–94). If a person’s life is significant insofar as she is true to herself or her deepest nature, then we have some reason to believe that meaning simply is a function of those matters for which the person cares. For another, it is uncontroversial that often meaning comes from losing oneself, i.e., in becoming absorbed in an activity or experience, as opposed to being bored by it or finding it frustrating (Frankfurt 1988, 80–94; Belliotti 2019, 162–70). Work that concentrates the mind and relationships that are engrossing seem central to meaning and to be so because of the subjective elements involved. For a third, meaning is often taken to be something that makes life worth continuing for a specific person, i.e., that gives her a reason to get out of bed in the morning, which subjectivism is thought to account for best (Williams 1976; Svensson 2017; Calhoun 2018).

Critics maintain that these arguments are vulnerable to a common objection: they neglect the role of objective value (or an external reason) in realizing oneself, losing oneself, and having a reason to live (Taylor 1989, 1992; Wolf 2010, 2015, 89–140). One is not really being true to oneself, losing oneself in a meaningful way, or having a genuine reason to live insofar as one, say, successfully maintains 3,732 hairs on one’s head (Taylor 1992, 36), cultivates one’s prowess at long-distance spitting (Wolf 2010, 104), collects a big ball of string (Wolf 2010, 104), or, well, eats one’s own excrement (Wielenberg 2005, 22). The counterexamples suggest that subjective conditions are insufficient to ground meaning in life; there seem to be certain actions, relationships, and states that are objectively valuable (but see Evers 2017, 30–32) and toward which one’s pro-attitudes ought to be oriented, if meaning is to accrue.

So say objectivists, but subjectivists feel the pull of the point and usually seek to avoid the counterexamples, lest they have to bite the bullet by accepting the meaningfulness of maintaining 3,732 hairs on one’s head and all the rest (for some who do, see Svensson 2017, 54–55; Belliotti 2019, 181–83). One important strategy is to suggest that subjectivists can avoid the counterexamples by appealing to the right sort of pro-attitude. Instead of whatever an individual happens to want, perhaps the relevant mental state is an emotional-perceptual one of seeing-as (Alexis 2011; cf. Hosseini 2015, 47–66), a “categorical” desire, that is, an intrinsic desire constitutive of one’s identity that one takes to make life worth continuing (Svensson 2017), or a judgment that one has a good reason to value something highly for its own sake (Calhoun 2018). Even here, though, objectivists will argue that it might “appear that whatever the will chooses to treat as a good reason to engage itself is, for the will, a good reason. But the will itself....craves objective reasons; and often it could not go forward unless it thought it had them” (Wiggins 1988, 136). And without any appeal to objectivity, it is perhaps likely that counterexamples would resurface.

Another subjectivist strategy by which to deal with the counterexamples is the attempt to ground meaningfulness, not on the pro-attitudes of an individual valuer, but on those of a group (Darwall 1983, 164–66; Brogaard and Smith 2005; Wong 2008). Does such an intersubjective move avoid (more of) the counterexamples? If so, does it do so more plausibly than an objective theory?

Objective naturalists believe that meaning in life is constituted at least in part by something physical beyond merely the fact that it is the object of a pro-attitude. Obtaining the object of some emotion, desire, or judgment is not sufficient for meaningfulness, on this view. Instead, there are certain conditions of the material world that could confer meaning on anyone’s life, not merely because they are viewed as meaningful, wanted for their own sake, or believed to be choiceworthy, but instead (at least partially) because they are inherently worthwhile or valuable in themselves.

Morality (the good), enquiry (the true), and creativity (the beautiful) are widely held instances of activities that confer meaning on life, while trimming toenails and eating snow––along with the counterexamples to subjectivism above––are not. Objectivism is widely thought to be a powerful general explanation of these particular judgments: the former are meaningful not merely because some agent (whether it is an individual, her society, or even God) cares about them or judges them to be worth doing, while the latter simply lack significance and cannot obtain it even if some agent does care about them or judge them to be worth doing. From an objective perspective, it is possible for an individual to care about the wrong thing or to be mistaken that something is worthwhile, and not merely because of something she cares about all the more or judges to be still more choiceworthy. Of course, meta-ethical debates about the existence and nature of value are again relevant to appraising this rationale.

Some objectivists think that being the object of a person’s mental states plays no constitutive role in making that person’s life meaningful, although they of course contend that it often plays an instrumental role––liking a certain activity, after all, is likely to motivate one to do it. Relatively few objectivists are “pure” in that way, although consequentialists do stand out as clear instances (e.g., Singer 1995; Smuts 2018, 75–99). Most objectivists instead try to account for the above intuitions driving subjectivism by holding that a life is more meaningful, not merely because of objective factors, but also in part because of propositional attitudes such as cognition, conation, and emotion. Particularly influential has been Susan Wolf’s hybrid view, captured by this pithy slogan: “Meaning arises when subjective attraction meets objective attractiveness” (Wolf 2015, 112; see also Kekes 1986, 2000; Wiggins 1988; Raz 2001, 10–40; Mintoff 2008; Wolf 2010, 2016; Fischer 2019, 9–23; Belshaw 2021, 160–81). This theory implies that no meaning accrues to one’s life if one believes in, is satisfied by, or cares about a project that is not truly worthwhile, or if one takes up a truly worthwhile project but fails to judge it important, be satisfied by it, or care about it. A related approach is that, while subjective attraction is not necessary for meaning, it could enhance it (e.g., Audi 2005, 344; Metz 2013, 183–84, 196–98, 220–25). For instance, a stereotypical Mother Teresa who is bored by and alienated from her substantial charity work might have a somewhat significant existence because of it, even if she would have an even more significant existence if she felt pride in it or identified with it.

There have been several attempts to capture theoretically what all objectively attractive, inherently worthwhile, or finally valuable conditions have in common insofar as they bear on meaning in a person’s life. Over the past few decades, one encounters the proposals that objectively meaningful conditions are just those that involve: positively connecting with organic unity beyond oneself (Nozick 1981, 594–619); being creative (Taylor 1987; Matheson 2018); living an emotional life (Solomon 1993; cf. Williams 2020, 56–78); promoting good consequences, such as improving the quality of life of oneself and others (Singer 1995; Audi 2005; Smuts 2018, 75–99); exercising or fostering rational nature in exceptional ways (Smith 1997, 179–221; Gewirth 1998, 177–82; Metz 2013, 222–36); progressing toward ends that can never be fully realized because one’s knowledge of them changes as one approaches them (Levy 2005); realizing goals that are transcendent for being long-lasting in duration and broad in scope (Mintoff 2008); living virtuously (May 2015, 61–138; McPherson 2020); and loving what is worth loving (Wolf 2016). There is as yet no convergence in the field on one, or even a small cluster, of these accounts.

One feature of a large majority of the above naturalist theories is that they are aggregative or additive, objectionably treating a life as a mere “container” of bits of life that are meaningful considered in isolation from other bits (Brännmark 2003, 330). It has become increasingly common for philosophers of life’s meaning, especially objectivists, to hold that life as a whole, or at least long stretches of it, can substantially affect its meaningfulness beyond the amount of meaning (if any) in its parts.

For instance, a life that has lots of beneficence and otherwise intuitively meaning-conferring conditions but that is also extremely repetitive (à la the movie Groundhog Day ) is less than maximally meaningful (Taylor 1987; Blumenfeld 2009). Furthermore, a life that not only avoids repetition but also ends with a substantial amount of meaningful (or otherwise desirable) parts seems to have more meaning overall than one that has the same amount of meaningful (desirable) parts but ends with few or none of them (Kamm 2013, 18–22; Dorsey 2015). Still more, a life in which its meaningless (or otherwise undesirable parts) cause its meaningful (desirable) parts to come about through a process of personal growth seems meaningful in virtue of this redemptive pattern, “good life-story,” or narrative self-expression (Taylor 1989, 48–51; Wong 2008; Fischer 2009, 145–77; Kauppinen 2012; May 2015, 61–138; Velleman 2015, 141–73). These three cases suggest that meaning can inhere in life as a whole, that is, in the relationships between its parts, and not merely in the parts considered in isolation. However, some would maintain that it is, strictly speaking, the story that is or could be told of a life that matters, not so much the life-story qua relations between events themselves (de Bres 2018).

There are pure or extreme versions of holism present in the literature, according to which the only possible bearer of meaning in life is a person’s life as a whole, and not any isolated activities, relationships, or states (Taylor 1989, 48–51; Tabensky 2003; Levinson 2004). A salient argument for this position is that judgments of the meaningfulness of a part of someone’s life are merely provisional, open to revision upon considering how they fit into a wider perspective. So, for example, it would initially appear that taking an ax away from a madman and thereby protecting innocent parties confers some meaning on one’s life, but one might well revise that judgment upon learning that the intention behind it was merely to steal an ax, not to save lives, or that the madman then took out a machine gun, causing much more harm than his ax would have. It is worth considering how far this sort of case is generalizable, and, if it can be to a substantial extent, whether that provides strong evidence that only life as a whole can exhibit meaningfulness.

Perhaps most objectivists would, at least upon reflection, accept that both the parts of a life and the whole-life relationships among the parts can exhibit meaning. Supposing there are two bearers of meaning in a life, important questions arise. One is whether a certain narrative can be meaningful even if its parts are not, while a second is whether the meaningfulness of a part increases if it is an aspect of a meaningful whole (on which see Brännmark 2003), and a third is whether there is anything revealing to say about how to make tradeoffs between the parts and whole in cases where one must choose between them (Blumenfeld 2009 appears to assign lexical priority to the whole).

Naturalists until recently had been largely concerned to show that meaning in life is possible without God or a soul; they have not spent much time considering how such spiritual conditions might enhance meaning, but have, in moderate fashion, tended to leave that possibility open (an exception is Hooker 2008). Lately, however, an extreme form of naturalism has arisen, according to which our lives would probably, if not unavoidably, have less meaning in a world with God or a soul than in one without. Although such an approach was voiced early on by Baier (1957), it is really in the past decade or so that this “anti-theist” position has become widely and intricately discussed.

One rationale, mentioned above as an objection to the view that God’s purpose constitutes meaning in life, has also been deployed to argue that the existence of God as such would necessarily reduce meaning, that is, would consist of anti-matter. It is the idea that master/servant and parent/child analogies so prominent in the monotheist religious traditions reveal something about our status in a world where there is a qualitatively higher being who has created us with certain ends in mind: our independence or dignity as adult persons would be violated (e.g., Baier 1957/2000, 118–20; Kahane 2011, 681–85; Lougheed 2020, 121–41). One interesting objection to this reasoning has been to accept that God’s existence is necessarily incompatible with the sort of meaning that would come (roughly stated) from being one’s own boss, but to argue that God would also make greater sorts of meaning available, offering a net gain to us (Mawson 2016, 110–58).

Another salient argument for thinking that God would detract from meaning in life appeals to the value of privacy (Kahane 2011, 681–85; Lougheed 2020, 55–110). God’s omniscience would unavoidably make it impossible for us to control another person’s access to the most intimate details about ourselves, which, for some, amounts to a less meaningful life than one with such control. Beyond questioning the value of our privacy in relation to God, one thought-provoking criticism has been to suggest that, if a lack of privacy really would substantially reduce meaning in our lives, then God, qua morally perfect person, would simply avoid knowing everything about us (Tooley 2018). Lacking complete knowledge of our mental states would be compatible with describing God as “omniscient,” so the criticism goes, insofar as that is plausibly understood as having as much knowledge as is morally permissible.

Turn, now, to major arguments for thinking that having a soul would reduce life’s meaning, so that if one wants a maximally meaningful life, one should prefer a purely physical world, or at least one in which people are mortal. First and foremost, there has been the argument that an immortal life could not avoid becoming boring (Williams 1973), rendering life pointless according to many subjective and objective theories. The literature on this topic has become enormous, with the central reply being that immortality need not get boring (for more recent discussions, see Fischer 2009, 79–101, 2019, 117–42; Mawson 2019, 51–52; Williams 2020, 30–41, 123–29; Belshaw 2021, 182–97). However, it might also be worth questioning whether boredom is sufficient for meaninglessness. Suppose, for instance, that one volunteers to be bored so that many others will not be bored; perhaps this would be a meaningful sacrifice to make. Being bored for an eternity would not be blissful or even satisfying, to be sure, but if it served the function of preventing others from being bored for an eternity, would it be meaningful (at least to some degree)? If, as is commonly held, sacrificing one’s life could be meaningful, why not also sacrificing one’s liveliness?

Another reason given to reject eternal life is that it would become repetitive, which would substantially drain it of meaning (Scarre 2007, 54–55; May 2009, 46–47, 64–65, 71; Smuts 2011, 142–44; cf. Blumenfeld 2009). If, as it appears, there are only a finite number of actions one could perform, relationships one could have, and states one could be in during an eternity, one would have to end up doing the same things again. Even though one’s activities might be more valuable than rolling a stone up a hill forever à la Sisyphus, the prospect of doing them over and over again forever is disheartening for many. To be sure, one might not remember having done them before and hence could avoid boredom, but for some philosophers that would make it all the worse, akin to having dementia and forgetting that one has told the same stories. Others, however, still find meaning in such a life (e.g., Belshaw 2021, 197, 205n41).

A third meaning-based argument against immortality invokes considerations of narrative. If the pattern of one’s life as a whole substantially matters, and if a proper pattern would include a beginning, a middle, and an end, it appears that a life that never ends would lack the relevant narrative structure. “Because it would drag on endlessly, it would, sooner or later, just be a string of events lacking all form....With immortality, the novel never ends....How meaningful can such a novel be?” (May 2009, 68, 72; see also Scarre 2007, 58–60). Notice that this objection is distinct from considerations of boredom and repetition (which concern novelty ); even if one were stimulated and active, and even if one found a way not to repeat one’s life in the course of eternity, an immortal life would appear to lack shape. In reply, some reject the idea that a meaningful life must be akin to a novel, and intead opt for narrativity in the form of something like a string of short stories that build on each other (Fischer 2009, 145–77, 2019, 101–16). Others, though, have sought to show that eternity could still be novel-like, deeming the sort of ending that matters to be a function of what the content is and how it relates to the content that came before (e.g., Seachris 2011; Williams 2020, 112–19).

There have been additional objections to immortality as undercutting meaningfulness, but they are prima facie less powerful than the previous three in that, if sound, they arguably show that an eternal life would have a cost, but probably not one that would utterly occlude the prospect of meaning in it. For example, there have been the suggestions that eternal lives would lack a sense of preciousness and urgency (Nussbaum 1989, 339; Kass 2002, 266–67), could not exemplify virtues such as courageously risking one’s life for others (Kass 2002, 267–68; Wielenberg 2005, 91–94), and could not obtain meaning from sustaining or saving others’ lives (Nussbaum 1989, 338; Wielenberg 2005, 91–94). Note that at least the first two rationales turn substantially on the belief in immortality, not quite immortality itself: if one were immortal but forgot that one is or did not know that at all, then one could appreciate life and obtain much of the virtue of courage (and, conversely, if one were not immortal, but thought that one is, then, by the logic of these arguments, one would fail to appreciate limits and be unable to exemplify courage).

The previous two sections addressed theoretical accounts of what would confer meaning on a human person’s life. Although these theories do not imply that some people’s lives are in fact meaningful, that has been the presumption of a very large majority of those who have advanced them. Much of the procedure has been to suppose that many lives have had meaning in them and then to consider in virtue of what they have or otherwise could. However, there are nihilist (or pessimist) perspectives that question this supposition. According to nihilism (pessimism), what would make a life meaningful in principle cannot obtain for any of us.

One straightforward rationale for nihilism is the combination of extreme supernaturalism about what makes life meaningful and atheism about whether a spiritual realm exists. If you believe that God or a soul is necessary for meaning in life, and if you believe that neither is real, then you are committed to nihilism, to the denial that life can have any meaning. Athough this rationale for nihilism was prominent in the modern era (and was more or less Camus’ position), it has been on the wane in analytic philosophical circles, as extreme supernaturalism has been eclipsed by the moderate variety.

The most common rationales for nihilism these days do not appeal to supernaturalism, or at least not explicitly. One cluster of ideas appeals to what meta-ethicists call “error theory,” the view that evaluative claims (in this case about meaning in life, or about morality qua necessary for meaning) characteristically posit objectively real or universally justified values, but that such values do not exist. According to one version, value judgments often analytically include a claim to objectivity but there is no reason to think that objective values exist, as they “would be entities or qualities or relations of a very strange sort, utterly different from anything else in the universe” (Mackie 1977/1990, 38). According to a second version, life would be meaningless if there were no set of moral standards that could be fully justified to all rational enquirers, but it so happens that such standards cannot exist for persons who can always reasonably question a given claim (Murphy 1982, 12–17). According to a third, we hold certain beliefs about the objectivity and universality of morality and related values such as meaning because they were evolutionarily advantageous to our ancestors, not because they are true. Humans have been “deceived by their genes into thinking that there is a distinterested, objective morality binding upon them, which all should obey” (Ruse and Wilson 1986, 179; cf. Street 2015). One must draw on the intricate work in meta-ethics that has been underway for the past several decades in order to appraise these arguments.

In contrast to error-theoretic arguments for nihilism, there are rationales for it accepting that objective values exist but denying that our lives can ever exhibit or promote them so as to obtain meaning. One version of this approach maintains that, for our lives to matter, we must be in a position to add objective value to the world, which we are not since the objective value of the world is already infinite (Smith 2003). The key premises for this view are that every bit of space-time (or at least the stars in the physical universe) have some positive value, that these values can be added up, and that space is infinite. If the physical world at present contains an infinite degree of value, nothing we do can make a difference in terms of meaning, for infinity plus any amount of value remains infinity. One way to question this argument, beyond doubting the value of space-time or stars, is to suggest that, even if one cannot add to the value of the universe, meaning plausibly comes from being the source of certain values.

A second rationale for nihilism that accepts the existence of objective value is David Benatar’s (2006, 18–59) intriguing “asymmetry argument” for anti-natalism, the view that it is immoral to bring new people into existence because doing so would always be on balance bad for them. For Benatar, the bads of existing (e.g., pains) are real disadvantages relative to not existing, while the goods of existing (pleasures) are not real advantages relative to not existing, since there is in the latter state no one to be deprived of them. If indeed the state of not existing is no worse than that of experiencing the benefits of existence, then, since existing invariably brings harm in its wake, it follows that existing is always worse compared to not existing. Although this argument is illustrated with experiential goods and bads, it seems generalizable to non-experiential ones, including meaning in life and anti-matter. The literature on this argument has become large (for a recent collection, see Hauskeller and Hallich 2022).

Benatar (2006, 60–92, 2017, 35–63) has advanced an additional argument for nihilism, one that appeals to Thomas Nagel’s (1986, 208–32) widely discussed analysis of the extremely external standpoint that human persons can take on their lives. There exists, to use Henry Sidgwick’s influential phrase, the “point of view of the universe,” that is, the standpoint that considers a human being’s life in relation to all times and all places. When one takes up this most external standpoint and views one’s puny impact on the world, little of one’s life appears to matter. What one does in a certain society on Earth over 75 years or so just does not amount to much, when considering the billions of temporal years and billions of light-years that make up space-time. Although this reasoning grants limited kinds of meaning to human beings, from a personal, social, or human perspective, Benatar both denies that the greatest sort of meaning––a cosmic one––is available to them and contends that this makes their lives bad, hence the “nihilist” tag. Some have objected that our lives could in fact have a cosmic significance, say, if they played a role in God’s plan (Quinn 2000, 65–66; Swinburne 2016, 154), were the sole ones with a dignity in the universe (Kahane 2014), or engaged in valuable activities that could be appreciated by anyone anywhere anytime (Wolf 2016, 261–62). Others naturally maintain that cosmic significance is irrelevant to appraising a human life, with some denying that it would be a genuine source of meaning (Landau 2017, 93–99), and others accepting that it would be but maintaining that the absence of this good would not count as a bad or merit regret (discussed in Benatar 2017, 56–62; Williams 2020, 108–11).

Finally, a distinguishable source of nihilism concerns the ontological, as distinct from axiological, preconditions for meaning in life. Perhaps most radically, there are those who deny that we have selves. Do we indeed lack selves, and, if we do, is a meaningful life impossible for us (see essays in Caruso and Flanagan 2018; Le Bihan 2019)? Somewhat less radically, there are those who grant that we have selves, but deny that they are in charge in the relevant way. That is, some have argued that we lack self-governance or free will of the sort that is essential for meaning in life, at least if determinism is true (Pisciotta 2013; essays in Caruso and Flanagan 2018). Non-quantum events, including human decisions, appear to be necessited by a prior state of the world, such that none could have been otherwise, and many of our decisions are a product of unconscious neurological mechanisms (while quantum events are of course utterly beyond our control). If none of our conscious choices could have been avoided and all were ultimately necessited by something external to them, perhaps they are insufficient to merit pride or admiration or to constitute narrative authorship of a life. In reply, some maintain that a compatibilism between determinism and moral responsibility applies with comparable force to meaning in life (e.g., Arpaly 2006; Fischer 2009, 145–77), while others contend that incompatibilism is true of moral responsibility but not of meaning (Pereboom 2014).

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How to cite this entry . Preview the PDF version of this entry at the Friends of the SEP Society . Look up topics and thinkers related to this entry at the Internet Philosophy Ontology Project (InPhO). Enhanced bibliography for this entry at PhilPapers , with links to its database.

• Delon, N., 2021, “ The Meaning of Life ”, a bibliography on PhilPapers.
• Metz, T., 2021, “ Life, Meaning of ”, in Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy , E. Mason (ed.).
• O’Brien, W., 2021, “ The Meaning of Life: Early Continental and Analytic Perspectives ”, in Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy , J. Fieser and B. Dowden (eds.).
• Seachris, J., 2021, “ Meaning of Life: The Analytic Perspective ”, in Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy , J. Fieser and B. Dowden (eds.).

afterlife | death | ethics: ancient | existentialism | friendship | love | perfectionism, in moral and political philosophy | value: intrinsic vs. extrinsic | well-being

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