The song has continued to invite widely diverse opinions. Among the most unfavourable assessments, author and critic Tim Riley, writing in 1988, dismissed "Within You Without You" as "directionless", adding that it was difficult to conceive how "lines such as 'Life flows on within you and without you' were taken seriously". He also said that the song was "the most dated piece on the record ... could easily have been left off with little to no effect" on the album. In a 2009 review, Alex Young of "Consequence of Sound" grouped it with the "major clunkers" on "Sgt. Pepper". Conversely, Ian Inglis considers the song to be "absolutely central to the form and content" of its parent album, and Ian MacDonald views it as the "conscience" of "Sgt. Pepper" and "the necessary sermon that comes with the community singing". Musicologist Russell Reising writes that Harrison's song provides the exception on "Sgt. Pepper", where the Beatles otherwise "retreated lyrically into predominantly banal, occasionally schmaltzy, and often trivial vignettes". Author and critic Kenneth Womack terms it "quite arguably, the album's ethical soul".