Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-94fs2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-02T21:22:46.818Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Meaning in Lives Nearing Their End

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 November 2021

F. M. Kamm
F. M. Kamm*
Affiliation:
Rutgers University
*
[email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In this paper, I consider the idea of meaning in life as I believe it has arisen in some discussions of ageing and death. I critically examine and compare the views of Atul Gawande and Ezekiel Emanuel, connecting their views to the idea of meaning in life. I further consider the relation of meaning in life to both the dignity of the person and the reasonableness of continuing or not continuing to live. In considering these issues, I evaluate and draw on Bernard Williams’ distinction between categorical and conditional desires, Susan Wolf's work on meaning in life, and Jeremy Waldron's views on dignity in old age.

Type
Papers
Information
Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplements , Volume 90: Death and Meaning , October 2021 , pp. 277 - 296
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy and the contributors 2021

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Darwall, Stephen, ‘Two Kinds of Respect’ in Ethics 88 (1977), 36–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Emanuel, Ezekiel, ‘Why I Hope to Die at 75’, The Atlantic, (2014).Google Scholar
Gawande, Atul, Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End (N.Y.: Henry Holt & Co, 2017).Google Scholar
Kagan, Shelly, Death (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012).Google Scholar
Kahneman, Daniel, ‘The Cognitive Psychology of Consequences and Moral Intuition’, Tanner Lecture on Human Values, University of Michigan, (October 21, 1994).Google Scholar
Kamm, F. M., ‘Moral Intuitions, Cognitive Psychology, and the Harming/Not-Aiding Distinction’, reprinted in my Intricate Ethics (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), 422–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kamm, F. M., ‘The Purpose of My Death: Death, Dying, and Meaning’ Ethics, 127 (2017) 733–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kamm, F. M., Almost Over: Aging, Dying, Dead (Oxford University Press, 2020).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Redelmeier, D. A. and Kahneman, Daniel, ‘Patients; Memories of Painful Medical Treatments: Real-Time and Retrospective Evaluations of Two Minimally Invasive Procedures’, Pain 66 (1996), 3–8.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Scanlon, Thomas, Being Realistic About Reasons (Oxford University Press, 2014).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Serio, Nathaniel, ‘If Goldfish Give Us Meaning in Life, What's Next?’ Journal of Philosophy of Life, 1 (2020), 120–133.Google Scholar
Williams, Bernard, ‘The Makropulos Case and the Tedium of Immortality’ in his Problems of the Self (Cambridge University Press, 1973).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Williams, Bernard, ‘Persons, Character, and Morality’ in his Moral Luck: Philosophical Papers 1973–1980 (Cambridge University Press, 1981).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wolf, Susan, Meaning in Life and Why It Matters (Princeton University Press, 2010).Google Scholar