Deck 51: The Meaning of Life Richard Taylor

Question 1

Taylor claims that if the gods had implanted in Sisyphus an impulse to roll stones, they would have acted

A) wisely.
B) mercifully.
C) cruelly.
D) impermissibly.

Answer 1

B

Question 2

Taylor invokes the myth of Sisyphus to illustrate

A) the meaninglessness of life.
B) our eternal struggle and unquenchable spirit.
C) the importance of helping others.
D) the wrongness of betraying the gods.

Answer 2

A

Question 3

According to Taylor, the most appalling feature of Sisyphus's life is that

A) it involves very difficult labor.
B) it does not contain any variety.
C) his struggle comes to nothing.
D) it is filled with pain and devoid of pleasure.

Answer 3

C

Question 4

Which of the following best describes the point of Taylor's story about the caves in New Zealand lit by glow worms?

A) It hints at the reality of a Creator whose creation is like a masterful work of art.
B) It shows that only a rational being can have a meaningful existence.
C) It shows that we need not believe in a divine Creator to appreciate the mystery and beauty of existence.
D) It suggests that the point of any living thing's life is only life itself.

Question 5

According to Taylor, the pictures of Sisyphus and of our own lives

A) are in outline the same.
B) are potentially separated by a vast gulf.
C) have little to do with one another.
D) are diametrically opposed.

Question 6

Taylor regards religious and philosophical visions of some permanent and lasting good as

A) answers to a real human need.
B) human inventions.
C) denials of the meaninglessness of existence.
D) All of the above

Question 7

Taylor argues that the most desirable sort of meaning

A) comes from God.
B) comes from living morally.
C) is objective and rational.
D) is subjective and irrational.

Question 8

According to Taylor, the question of the meaning of life admits no significant answer.

Question 9

Taylor claims that the idea of meaningfulness is most easily grasped by imagining a meaningless life.

Question 10

According to Taylor, the most dreadful feature of Sisyphus's life is that it is without meaning.

Question 11

Taylor claims that the two types of meaningfulness that Sisyphus's life can have is a strange compulsion and temporary boredom.

Question 12

According to Taylor, imagining Sisyphus's task as relatively easy and his stone as relatively light diminishes the oppressive, dejecting quality of the myth.

Question 13

According to Taylor, if Sisyphus's life had a significant culmination, it would be endlessly fulfilling.

Question 14

According to Taylor, an objectively meaningless existence can nevertheless have meaning for the one whose existence it is.

Question 15

Taylor believes that having children redeems a human life from objective meaninglessness.

Question 16

According to Taylor, to have a meaningless task we irrationally enjoy would be more worthwhile than to have an objectively meaningful task we find uninteresting.

Question 17

Explain what Taylor means when he says that "the point of living is simply to be living, in the manner that it is your nature to be living." How does he relate this conclusion to the image of Sisyphus?

Question 18

What is Sisyphus condemned to do? What is it about Sisyphus's task that renders it meaningless in Taylor's view? What could be done to give Sisyphus's task meaning?

Question 19

What two types of meaning in life does Taylor distinguish? Which does he think is preferable and why? Do you agree with his assessment?