Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-t5tsf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-02T21:35:47.220Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

When Death Comes Too Late: Radical Life Extension and the Makropulos Case

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 November 2021

Michael Hauskeller
Michael Hauskeller*
Affiliation:
University of Liverpool
*
[email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Famously, Bernard Williams has argued that although death is an evil if it occurs when we still have something to live for, we have no good reason to desire that our lives be radically extended because any such life would at some point reach a stage when we become indifferent to the world and ourselves. This is supposed to be so bad for us that it would be better if we died before that happens. Most critics have rejected Williams’ arguments on the grounds that it is far from certain that we will run out of things to live for, and I don't contest these objections. Instead, I am trying to show that they do not affect the persuasiveness of Williams’ argument, which in my reading does not rely on the claim that we will inevitably run out of things to live for, but on the far less contentious claim that it is not unthinkable we will do so and the largely ignored claim that if that happens, we will have died too late.

Type
Papers
Information
Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplements , Volume 90: Death and Meaning , October 2021 , pp. 147 - 166
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

Adams, Douglas, Life, the Universe, and Everything (London: Pan, 1982).Google Scholar
Aho, Kevin A., ‘Heidegger, Ontological Death, and the Healing Professions’, Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy 19 (2016), 55–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Altshuler, Roman, ‘Immortality, Identity, and Desirabiliy’, in Immortality and the Philosophy of Death, edited by Cholbi, Michael (London and New York: Rowman and Littlefield, 2016), 191–203.Google Scholar
Barnes, Julian, Nothing to Be Frightened of (London: Vintage Books, 2009).Google Scholar
Bartrop, Paul R., ‘Pol Pot’ in Modern Genocide. The Definitive Resource and Document Collection, Volume 1, edited by Bartrop, Paul R. and Leonard, Steven, (Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO 2015).Google Scholar
Beglin, David, ‘Should I choose to never die? Williams, boredom, and the significance of mortality’, Philosophical Studies 174/8 (2017), 2009–2028.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bortolotti, Lisa and Nagasawa, Y., ‘Immortality without Boredom’, Ratio 22/3 (2009), 261–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Buben, Adam, ‘Resources for Overcoming the Boredom of Immortality in Fischer and Kierkegaard’, in Immortality and the Philosophy of Death, edited by Cholbi, Michael (London and New York: Rowman and Littlefield, 2016), 205–219.Google Scholar
Burley, Mikel, Immortality and Boredom: A Response to Wisnewski, International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 65/2 (2009), 77–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chappell, Timothy, ‘Infinity Goes Up on Trial: Must Immortality Be Meaningless?’, European Journal of Philosophy 17/1 (2007), 30–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Conradi, Peter J., Iris Murdoch. A Life (London: HarperCollins, 2001).Google Scholar
Feinberg, Joel, ‘Harm to Others’, in The Metaphysics and Ethics of Death, ed. Taylor, James Stacey (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 171–90.Google Scholar
Fischer, John Martin, ‘Immortality’, in The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Death, edited by Bradley, Ben, Feldman, Fred, and Johansson, Jens (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 336–54.Google Scholar
Fischer, John Martin, ‘Immortality and Boredom’, The Journal of Ethics 18 (2014), 353–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fricke, David, ‘Jimi Hendrix: The Man and the Music’, Rolling Stone (6 February 1992). Accessed 27 June 2021. https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/jimi-hendrix-the-man-and-the-music-197412/Google Scholar
Gardner, Molly and Weinberg, Justin, ‘How Lives Measure Up’, Acta Analytica 28 (2013), 31–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gorman, A.G., ‘Williams and the Desirability of Body-bound Immortality Revisited’, European Journal of Philosophy 25/4 (2017), 1062–1083.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harris, John, Enhancing Evolution: The Ethical Case for Making Better People (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007).Google Scholar
Hauskeller, Michael, ‘Forever Young? Life Extension and the Ageing Mind’, Ethical Perspectives 18/3 (2011), 385–405.Google Scholar
Hauskeller, Michael, ‘“Life's a bitch, and then you don't die”. Postmortality in Film and Television’, in The Palgrave Handbook of Posthumanism in Film and Television, edited by Hauskeller, Michael, Philbeck, Thomas D., and Carbonell, Curt (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), 205–213.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hughes, Emily, ‘Melancholia, Temporal Disruption, and the Torment of Being Both Unable to Live and Unable to Die’, Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 27/3 (2020), 203–213.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kauppinen, Antti, ‘Meaningfulness and Time’, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 84/2 (2021), 345–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Keller, Simon, ‘Posthumous Harm’, in Life and Death, edited by Luper, Steven (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 181–97.Google Scholar
Kurzweil, Ray and Grossman, Terry, Fantastic Voyage. Live Long Enough to Live Forever (Emmaus, PA: Rodale, 2005).Google Scholar
Luper, Steven, ‘Retroactive Harms and Wrongs’, in The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Death, edited by Bradley, Ben, Feldman, Fred, and Johansson, Jens (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013).Google Scholar
Nagel, Thomas, Mortal Questions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nietzsche, Friedrich, Werke in drei Bänden, Vol. II (Munich: Carl Hanser Verlag 1966).Google Scholar
Nussbaum, Martha, ‘The Damage of Death’, in The Metaphysics and Ethics of Death, ed. Taylor, James Stacey (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2013).Google Scholar
Pitcher, George, ‘The Misfortunes of the Dead’, American Philosophical Quarterly 21 (1984), 183–88.Google Scholar
Rémy, Catherine, ‘“Men seeking monkey-glands”: the controversial xenotransplantations of Doctor Voronoff, 1910–1930’, French History 28/2 (2014), 226–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rosati, Connie S., ‘The Makropulos Case Revisited. Reflections on Immortality and Agency’, in The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Death, edited by Bradley, Ben, Feldman, Fred, and Johansson, Jens (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 355–90.Google Scholar
Scarre, Geoffrey, ‘Should We Fear Death?’, European Journal of Philosophy 5/3 (1997), 269–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scheffler, Samuel, Death and the Afterlife (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2013).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Seachris, Joshua W., ‘Death, Futility, and the Proleptic Power of Narrative Ending’, Religious Studies 47 (2011), 141–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shiffrin, Seana Valentine, ‘Preserving the Valued or Preserving Valuing?’, in Samuel Scheffler, Death and the Afterlife, 143–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smuts, Aaron, ‘Love and Death. The Problem of Resilience’, in Immortality and the Philosophy of Death, edited by Cholbi, Michael (London and New York: Rowman and Littlefield, 2016), 173–88.Google Scholar
Taylor, James Stacey, ‘The Myth of Posthumous Harm’, American Philosophical Quarterly 42/4 (2005), 311–22.Google Scholar
Temkin, Larry S., ‘Is Living Longer Living Better?’, Journal of Applied Philosophy 25/3 (2008), 193–210.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Williams, Bernard, ‘The Makropulos Case: Reflections on the Tedium of Immortality’, in Williams, Bernard, Problems of the Self (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1973), 82–100.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wisnewski, J. Jeremy, ‘Is the Immortal Life Worth Living?’, International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 58/1 (2005), 27–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar