Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology, Vol 45(2), May 2025, 101-117; doi:10.1037/teo0000252
“What is the meaning of life?” is universally regarded as one of the big questions. For reasons given in this article, the question itself and the variety and intensity of responses and behaviors associated with it are here treated together, as a phenomenon in need of an explanation. Accordingly, a contrastive explanation is provided as part of an inference to the best explanation: proximally by an appeal to recent studies on promiscuous teleology in child and developmental psychology, and ultimately by an appeal to evolutionary biology, specifically neoteny in human evolution. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)