Thank you for your question, which in spite of its brevity brings up a lot of hard issues. I won't try to answer it directly, but just add a few considerations: 1. Considering one's life to be meaningless doesn't show that it is. It may contain sources of meaning that one has not yet appreciated or even conceived of. Also, a person's like may have little meaning to *her*, but a lot of meaning to others, such as parents, friends, etc. In that case, it may have more meaning than one thinks. 2. Meaning can take a lot of different forms. People often wonder about "the" meaning of life, and this suggests that for a life to be meaningful, there has to be one big thing that is its meaning. But this is questionable. After all, in principle there could be a lot of different things that give life meaning, and they might not be intertranslatable into each other of commensurable. A walk in a forest on a crisp fall day, holding a lover's hand, appreciating a novel, having a child, all...

Thank you for your good and important question. The extreme and contradictory positions we often hear proposed about difficult issues can make for a lot of confusion, and it's natural to wonder whether there is any rational way to adjudicate such disputes. Now, you asked what is *the* best way to decide between opposing opinions, whereas I don't think that we should assume that there is a unique best way in which to do so. However, I would like to suggest a few strategies that might be helpful. 1. When trying to decide between opposing opinions, take some time to articulate those opinions carefully. You might be surprised how little of an extreme-seeming position is left if you state it in plain English, after subtracting out the shouting and other emotional dimensions. 2. After this articulation, make sure that the opposed opinions are actually responding to the same issue. All too often, disputants twist the question at issue for their own purposes. If this happens, then it raises...

Good question. I suspect that the answer is 'yes', but we need to be clear that there are some puzzles about so-called 'self-deception' that need to be avoided. It's not plausible that I could lie to myself, fully knowing that I'm doing so, and also believe what I'm telling myself. Instead, we often *shroud* lots of what we tell ourselves in such a way that its untruth is not self-evident. So here I am with a plate of oatmeal-raisin cookies. I like them a lot, and although I know on some level that I shouldn't eat very many, I'm *extremely* clever at coming up reasons why I can have just one more. (Had a rough day, will run an extra mile tomorrow, raisins are pretty good for you, you know the drill.) So I might convince myself that I can clear the plate. But to do that I have to somehow shroud the fact that I know on some level that I shouldn't. The upshot is that a direct answer to your question is: Some people (maybe most of us) believe things that we know on some level are lies (but...

Thanks for your question. It contains two very different sub-questions: 1. Is the opinion held by the majority more likely to be right than that held by the minority? 2. Is one justified in holding onto an opinion in spite of persuasive counter-arguments to the contrary. I should note also that you suggest that you are *certain* of your opinion on the issue in question. That is a relevant factor also. Now, concerning 1: It is perhaps too high-handed simply to *dismiss* the opinion of the majority, though in some cases, that may well be justified. (Just imagine a naive or in some way very confused group of people.) On the other hand, there's no good inference from that fact that most people agree on something, to the conclusion that they must be right. To be safe, perhaps the best route is to reexamine your reasons for your contrary opinion, and so long as they still seem solid, then you're entitled to hold onto it in spite of what others think. Concerning 2: What if the...