Book Description
This dissertation offers a theory of a solution to the problem of lost meaning in life due to regrettable, past events. Each of us wishes for a meaningful life, but each of us, too, is vulnerable to threats to the meaning in life. The dissertation argues that a phenomenon called redemption can restore lost meaningfulness, and increase the value of our lives, overall. The first step in the argument is to demonstrate the need for a new model of redemption. The next step is to argue that redemption is a matter of transforming the meaning of events in our lives from bad to good in a thick, eudaimonistic sense related to a person's well-being. Finally, I show that this transformation not only increases a person's well-being but, more importantly, changes the relationship a person has with his past; By satisfying conditions for meaningfulness—a special value a life can have, distinct from its moral goodness or happiness—redemption renders the past more meaningful that it would have otherwise been. Because of this, redemption can solve the problem articulated in the beginning of the dissertation—the problem of lost meaning in life due to bad, past events.
