"A moral absolutist definition of meaningful work"
by Michaelson, Christopher (2017)
Abstract
Many researchers and laypersons agree on at least two conventional propositions about meaningful work: first, it means different things to different people; and second, it is worthwhile. Separately from each other, the definitions of meaningful work implied by these propositions do not provide enough knowledge about what meaningful work is to help people make decisions about meaningful work and to help scholars study it. Yet it is also not clear that these propositions are logically compatible together. The alternative definition developed in this paper does not wholly reject the conventional propositions about meaningful work but rather considers them conceptually incomplete and pragmatically unhelpful. My argument defends an explicitly moral account of the worthiness of meaningful work and claims that there are objective, universal grounds for considering some work to be more meaningful than other work. My definition thus aims to be clearer than past scholarly research and conventional wisdom about meaningful work as to its inherent morality, that is, its essential contribution to human flourishing. It also proscribes some claims to meaningful work, particularly claims about self- aggrandizing or even harmful work that do not warrant the moral legitimacy conferred by the term “meaningful work.”
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