Is Meaning in Life Constituted by Value or Intelligibility?

Abstract Several authors have recently argued that intelligibility, rather than value, constitutes life’s meaning. In this paper I criticize the intelligibility view by offering examples of cases in which intelligibility and meaningfulness rates do not coincide. I show this for both meaning in life and meaning of life; under both naturalist and supernaturalist assumptions; and in ways relevant to subjectivists, objectivists, and hybridists. I show why the value view is not, in fact, vulnerable to several putative counterexamples to it, and I explain why, if value rather than intelligibility constitutes meaningfulness, there are so many cases in which intelligibility and meaningfulness rates do coincide. Finally, I explain why various arguments for the intelligibility view fail to show that it is advantageous to the value view.