class: center, middle, inverse, title-slide .title[ # Death and immortality ] .subtitle[ ## Bernard Williams ] .date[ ### PHIL 2350 The Meaning of Life - FS23 ] --- # Agenda for this week 1. Course evaluation 2. Video Lecture 1: Thomas Nagel: Death 3. Video Lecture 2: Bernard Williams: The Makropulos Case: Reflections on the Tedium of Immortality 4. Exam --- class: medium-font # Questions for this week 1. Why, according to Nagel, death is always bad for those who die? 2. Why might one think that death is _not bad_ for those who die? 3. According to Nagel, why is the deprivation of a good a bad thing for a person? 4. According to Nagel, can something that we don’t experience be a bad thing for us? 5. According to Nagel, is _not having been born yet_ a bad thing? 6. According to Nagel, is death bad for an 82-year-old person? 7. According to Williams, why is death reasonably considered a bad thing? 8. According to Williams, why is immortality undesirable? 9. According to Williams, what are categorical desires? 10. According to Williams, does death have a role in giving meaning to life? --- background-image: url(assets/thegoodplace.jpeg) background-size: contain --- class: medium-font # Williams' _The Makropulos Case_ Main theses: 1. The death of a person is _reasonably_ considered a bad thing. 2. Immortality is _necessarily_ undesirable. (Thus, to die _at some point in time_ is a good thing.) Argument for the first thesis: 1. If something interferes with the accomplishment of our categorical desires, then that thing is bad for us. 2. Premature death interferes with the accomplishment of our categorical desires. 3. Therefore, premature death is bad for us. --- class: small-font # Williams' _The Makropulos Case_ Main theses: 1. The death of a person is _reasonably_ considered a bad thing. 2. Immortality is _necessarily_ undesirable. (Thus, to die _at some point in time_ is a good thing.) Argument for the second thesis: 1. If person P’s life extends indefinitely, then either (a) all of their categorical desires will be fulfilled, or (b) P will develop new, different categorical desires. 2. If all of P’s categorical desires are fulfilled, then P will no longer have reasons to live. 3. If P no longer has reasons to life, then P’s life would become oppressively boring. 4. If P’s life becomes oppressively boring, then immortality would become undesirable for P. 5. If P develops new, different categorical desires, P’s character would change so drastically that P would become a completely different person. 6. If P becomes a completely different person, then immortality would become undesirable for P. 7. Therefore, if person P’s life extends indefinitely, then immortality would become undesirable for P. --- class: medium-font # Categorical desires - Desire 1: I want oxygen and water. - Desire 2: I want my son to have a good start in life. Suppose I lose my life in the next hour. Desire 1 is _conditional_ on me being alive. My desire for oxygen and water makes sense only if I’m alive to make use of these things. However, desire 2 still makes sense after my death. It doesn’t seem to be conditional on me being alive. I want my son to have a good start in life even if I’m not there to see it. Furthermore, this desire constitutes _a reason for me to live_; it motivates me to keep living so I can contribute to my son’s start in life. This is a _categorical_ desire. --- class: medium-font # Categorical desires - Desire 1: I want oxygen and water. - Desire 2: I want my son to have a good start in life. Williams call this latter type of desires “categorical desires”: Each of these desires we have give us a reason to live, and they are not conditional on our survival. These desires vary from person to person and are very important in shaping the personal character of people (they are what makes you be you). 1. If something interferes with the accomplishment of our categorical desires, then that thing is bad for us. 2. Premature death interferes with the accomplishment of our categorical desires. 3. Therefore, premature death is bad for us. --- class: medium-font # The case of Elina Makropulos - “The Makropulos Case” is the title of a play written by Karel Čapek. - It tells the story of Elina Makropulos, a woman who acquires the elixir of life at the “biological” age of 42. The elixir extends her “chronological” life 300 years, while keeping her stuck at the “biological” age of 42. - However, after 300 years, she finds her unending life deeply dull and empty. So she resolves not to drink from the elixir again and dies soon after. > “[Elina’s problem] was it seems, boredom: a boredom connected with the fact that everything that could happen and make sense to one particular human being of 42 had already happened to her. Or, rather, all the sorts of things that could make sense to one woman of a certain character (…)” (p. 229) Elina was alive for so long that she had more than enough time to fulfill her categorical desires. Once this happened, according to Williams, Elina had no reasons to live. Williams suggests that this would happen to any person in Elina’s position of immortality. --- ## Argument 2: Immortality is undesirable 1. If person P’s life extends indefinitely, then either (a) all of their categorical desires will be fulfilled, or (b) P will develop new, different categorical desires. 2. If all of P’s categorical desires are fulfilled, then P will no longer have reasons to live. 3. If P no longer has reasons to life, then P’s life would become oppressively boring. 4. If P’s life becomes oppressively boring, then immortality would become undesirable for P. 5. If P develops new, different categorical desires, P’s character would change so drastically that P would become a completely different person. 6. If P becomes a completely different person, then immortality would become undesirable for P. 7. Therefore, if person P’s life extends indefinitely, then immortality would become undesirable for P. --- class: small-font ## Argument 2: Immortality is undesirable 1. If person P’s life extends indefinitely, then either (a) all of their categorical desires will be fulfilled, or (b) P will develop new, different categorical desires. 2. If all of P’s categorical desires are fulfilled, then P will no longer have reasons to live. 3. If P no longer has reasons to life, then P’s life would become oppressively boring. 4. If P’s life becomes oppressively boring, then immortality would become undesirable for P. 5. If P develops new, different categorical desires, P’s character would change so drastically that P would become a completely different person. 6. If P becomes a completely different person, then immortality would become undesirable for P. 7. Therefore, if person P’s life extends indefinitely, then immortality would become undesirable for P. Premise 1 establishes a dilemma. Premises 2-4 are what follows from premise 1 part (a) (first _horn_ of the dilemma). Premises 5-6 are what follows from premise 1 part (b) (second _horn_ of the dilemma). Since both paths lead to the same outcome, we can conclude premise 7. Let's review premises 5 and 6 of the second horn. --- # Changing categorical desires Premise 5: If P develops new, different categorical desires, P’s character would change so drastically that P would become a completely different person. Imagine that, at some point, _all_ your categorical desires will be realized. This means that you will no longer have reasons to live. _From today's perspective_, creating new categorical desires would create new reasons to live, but not for _you_–they will be reasons to live _for your future you_. These desires will make up the character of that person that no longer has _your_ reasons to keep living. Perhaps this future person will share your body and physical appearance, but it will have completely different categorical desires, and so a completely different character. --- class: small-font ## The price of immortality: becoming a different person Premise 6: If P becomes a completely different person, then immortality would become undesirable for P. > You're twenty years old and you've been diagnosed with an illness that will cause you to die within five years. Thanks to recent advancements in science and medicine, however, a cure for your illness has been developed. If you take the treatment, you'll live roughly sixty more years, years you can safely predict will be happy ones. But this is a recently developed treatment, with some noteworthy side effects. If you take it, you'll experience a radical personality change. - The sports you currently like, you'll hate. - The music you despise, you'll love. - You'll befriend people you now find irksome, and lose touch with those who, today, are your closest companions. - You'll make plans that would seem bizarre to you now, and work on projects you would've never have worked on otherwise. Question: Would you take this treatment? Is taking this treatment desirable _for you_? Since becoming a radically different person is not desirable (at least not for oneself), immortality is necessarily undesirable for oneself. --- # Immortality and the meaning of life From Williams' text, one might infer that death, while usually undesirable, is necessary to avoid either oppresive boredom or becoming a totally different person. > Immortality, or a state without death, would be meaningless, I shall suggest; so, in a sense, death gives the meaning to life. (p. 223) - Is death really a _bad thing_ for us? - Can death ever be a _good_ thing? - Can death have an essential role in giving _meaning to life_?