Existentialism and the Desirability of Immortality 9781032247977, 9781032249926, 9781003281085

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This book is clear, careful, and sometimes personal and especially poignant. It is essential reading for scholars interested in death and immortality, and it is accessible enough to use in undergraduate teaching. Buben is well-versed in the analytic philosophical literature on death and immortality as well as in the existentialist tradition, and his writing is accessible even for readers without a background in continental philosophy. I highly recommend this book. Taylor Cyr, Samford University, USA

Existentialism and the Desirability of Immortality

This book looks to existential thinkers for reasons to hope immortal life could be worth living. It injects new arguments and insights into the debate about the desirability of immortality, and tackles related issues such as boredom, personal identity, technological progress, and the meaning of life. Immortality, in some form or another, is a common topic throughout the history of philosophy, but many thinkers who consider its possibility (or necessity) give little attention to the question of whether it would be worthwhile. Recent work on the topic has been dominated by transhumanists in pursuit of radical life extension, and philosophers from the analytic tradition who argue about the dangers of immortality. This book makes the case that continental thinkers—including Søren Kierkegaard, Friedrich Nietzsche, Miguel de Unamuno, Martin Heidegger, Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, and Simone de Beauvoir—have much to offer the debate on immortality. For most of these figures, it seems possible that an unending life would not preclude the preservation of personal identity or the sorts of dangers and deadlines required to maintain something like ordinary human values and fend off boredom. The author draws connections between these so-called “existentialists” and demonstrates how they contribute to an overarching argument about the desirability of immortality. Existentialism and the Desirability of Immortality will be of interest to researchers and advanced students working on the philosophy of death and the history of existentialism. Adam Buben is a Universitair Docent 1 in Philosophy at Leiden University in the Netherlands. He is the co-editor, with Eleanor Helms and Patrick Stokes, of The Kierkegaardian Mind (Routledge, 2019).

Routledge Studies in Contemporary Philosophy

Force, Content and the Unity of the Proposition Edited by Gabriele M. Mras and Michael Schmitz John Rawls and the Common Good Edited by Roberto Luppi Philosophy of Love in the Past, Present, and Future Edited by André Grahle, Natasha McKeever, and Joe Saunders Time in Action The Temporal Structure of Rational Agency and Practical Thought Edited by Carla Bagnoli Perspectives on Taste Aesthetics, Language, Metaphysics, and Experimental Philosophy Edited by Jeremy Wyatt, Julia Zakkou, and Dan Zeman A Referential Theory of Truth and Falsity Ilhan Inan Existentialism and the Desirability of Immortality Adam Buben Recognition and the Human Life-Form: Beyond Identity and Difference Heikki Ikäheimo Autonomy, Enactivism, and Mental Disorder A Philosophical Account Michelle Maiese For more information about this series, please visit: https://www. routledge­.com/Routledge-Studies-in-Contemporary-Philosophy/­bookseries­/SE0720

Existentialism and the Desirability of Immortality Adam Buben

First published 2022 by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 and by Routledge 4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2022 Adam Buben The right of Adam Buben to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, ­mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be ­trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this title has been requested ISBN: 978-1-032-24797-7 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-032-24992-6 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-003-28108-5 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/9781003281085 Typeset in Sabon by SPi Technologies India Pvt Ltd (Straive)

To Andy and Charlie, for their mentorship and friendship.

Contents

Acknowledgments List of Abbreviations Introduction: The Hope of Meaningful Immortality

xii xv 1

The Meaning of “Meaning”  3 The Current State of the Immortality Debate  4 The Meaninglessness of Mortal Life  6 Hope for Meaning  11 Existentialism, Death, and Meaningful Life  13 1 Early Arguments About the Desirability of Immortality

15

Socrates’ Ambivalence  15 Pascal’s Wager  18 Kant’s Postulates  19 Schopenhauer’s Pessimism  21 2 Kierkegaard on Repeatable Pleasures, Perpetual Projects, and Risk

25

Boredom and Identity  25 The Importance of Repetition  26 Meaning Beyond Rotation  30 Immortality as a Thought Experiment  32 Risk and Value  34 3 The Dark Side of Desire: Nietzsche, Immortality, and the Roots of Transhumanism The Transhumanist Agenda and the Desirability of Immortality  37

37

x Contents Nietzsche on Life Affirmation, Novelty, and Immortality 41 Eternal Recurrence and Immortality  45 Not Quite a Curmudgeon or a Transhumanist  48 4 Unamuno on Having the Strength to Long for Personal Immortality

51

What We Really Want  51 Death and Injustice  53 Running Afoul of Nietzsche  56 Giving Up on Oneself  58 5 Heidegger on Finitude and Value

62

The Higher Bar: God-like Immortality  63 Stages, Risk, and Urgency  65 Being-towards-death 67 Immortality and Inhumanity  72 6 Immortality Online: Reasons to Be Wary

77

What Gets Left Behind  78 An Imagined but Not So Far-Fetched Scenario  79 Duties to the Dead  81 Inhuman Resources  84 Facing Death  86 Appendix 90 7 Sartre and the Importance of Always Having an Exit

92

Death and the Indeterminacy of Meaning  92 The Finitude of Immortal Life  95 “Hell Is Other People” and the Dangers of Necessary Immortality  97 Indefinite Life Extension and Suicide  100 8 Camus and the Absurdist Case for Immortality Meaninglessness and Absurdity  104 Two Types of Suicide  107 Freedom and Revolt  109 Imagining Sisyphus Happy  112

104

Contents  xi 9 Grander Ambitions, Rekindled Interests, and Limited Memory in Beauvoir

116

Beauvoir Contra Sartre  116 A Curmudgeonly Tale?  118 Resources for Immortality Enthusiasts  122 Lingering Ambiguities  127 Conclusion: Disappointment and Death

131

Notes References

134 157

Index

168

Acknowledgments

Much of the work on this book took place during summers and blocks off of teaching while employed by Leiden University in the Netherlands. I am grateful for the travel funding and other support that made my research possible. I am even more grateful for the friendship and moral support provided by my colleagues Peter Houben and Maja Vodopivec, as well as the fruitful discussions on relevant issues with Anar Ahmadov, Doug Berger, Martijn Boven, and Stephen Harris. It is thanks to all of them that workplace frustration can become a laughing matter. This project also benefitted from classroom debates (especially in my 2017 graduate seminar on the philosophy of death) and other relevant engagement with students. Claudia Galgau, Sophie Höfer (my invaluable research assistant), Maico Mariën, Suzanne Oskam, and Imre Rossel were particularly helpful in this regard. I also completed some work on this project during short periods as a visiting scholar at Hiram College in Ohio (2015 and 2018) and Cornell College in Iowa (2020), and I appreciate the support provided by both institutions. I am especially grateful to Colin Anderson, Genevieve Migely, and Jim White for thought-provoking conversations during my time hanging around their departments. Several other organizations (and the individuals behind them) also played crucial roles in the development of ideas contained in this volume through the conferences and workshops they hosted. The list includes the American Philosophical Association, the Australasian Society for Asian and Comparative Philosophy, the Comparative and Continental Philosophy Circle, the Ethics Research Group of the Department of Philosophy at the University of Tromsø (Roe Fremstedal and Heine Holmen, in particular), the Dutch Research School of Philosophy, the Howard V. and Edna H. Hong Kierkegaard Library at St. Olaf College (Gordon Marino, in particular), the International Association for the Philosophy of Death and Dying (Michael Cholbi, in particular), and the John Templeton Foundation and its Immortality Project (John Martin Fischer, in particular).

Acknowledgments  xiii For helpful comments, advice, and various other sorts of assistance, I  would like to thank Kevin Aho, Roman Altshuler, Laurens van Apeldoorn, Antony Aumann, Kathy Behrendt, Daniel Berthold, Ben  Bradley, Andrew Burgess, Stephen Burwood, Daniel Came, Justin Coates, Doug Farrer, Mélissa Fox-Muraton, Rick Furtak, August Gorman, Eleanor Helms, Ward Jones, Ryan Kemp, Martin Lipovšek, Paul Loeb, Ethan Mills, Benjamin Mitchell-Yellin, Alexander Ornella, Duncan Purves, Shoni Rancher, Tatjana von Solodkoff, Corina Stan, Iain Thomson, Robert Tierney, William Tierney, Travis Timmerman, Walter Wietzke, Mark Wrathall, and David Zetland. I hope I have not overlooked anyone, and I apologize if I have. There are three other people who deserve special recognition for their supportive efforts as I have worked on these ideas over the years. The first is my late PhD supervisor, Charles Guignon. His mentorship, friendship, and insight will be sorely missed. Next up is Patrick Stokes, my friend and frequent collaborator on Kierkegaard and all things death and digital. I am lucky to have such a fantastic sounding board and scholarly comrade. If only he had better taste in musical performance. And then there is Megan Altman, whose role in my life cannot be properly characterized in a couple of sentences. I always tease her about how I will meet new people when they reanimate my cryonically preserved corpse in a thousand years, but what I do not say out loud is that it will never be anyone as good. Finally, with the kind permission of the various publishers and editors,  previously published elements (all authored by Adam Buben) of Existentialism and the Desirability of Immortality have been included here in appropriately revised form. • Much of the introductory chapter is derived from “The Hope of Meaningful Immortality,” Journal of Philosophical Research, vol. 46 (2021). This scholarly article was inspired by my short popular piece in the inaugural issue of ThinKnow: A Magazine of Ideas (2020), titled “Immortal Life Might End Up Meaningless, but What If Mortal Life Already Is?” • Parts of Chapter 1 first appeared in “Pascal and his Wager in the Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Centuries,” in Pascal’s Wager, edited by Paul Bartha and Lawrence Pasternack. © Cambridge University Press 2018. Reprinted with permission. • Chapter 2 consists of elements from two earlier book chapters: “Resources for Overcoming the Boredom of Immortality in Fischer and Kierkegaard,” in Immortality and the Philosophy of Death, edited by Michael Cholbi (Rowman and Littlefield). © 2016. Copyright in individual chapters is held by the respective chapter authors. All rights reserved. Reproduced with permission of The

xiv Acknowledgments

• •

•

•

•

Licensor through PLSclear; and “Kierkegaard and the Desirability of Immortality,” in The Kierkegaardian Mind, edited by Adam Buben, Eleanor Helms, and Patrick Stokes (Routledge). © 2019. Copyright in individual chapters is held by the respective contributors. All rights reserved. Reproduced with permission of The Licensor through PLSclear. Chapter 3 is a thoroughly revised version of “The Dark Side of Desire: Nietzsche, Transhumanism, and Personal Immortality,” The Southern Journal of Philosophy, vol. 59, no. 1 (2021). Chapter 4 is a thoroughly revised version of “Unamuno on Making Oneself Indispensable and Having the Strength to Long for Immortality,” International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, vol. 90 (2021). Chapter 5 is a thoroughly revised version of “Heidegger and the Supposed Meaninglessness of Personal Immortality,” Journal of the American Philosophical Association, vol. 2, no. 3. © American Philosophical Association 2016. Reprinted with permission. Most of Chapter 6 is a thoroughly revised version of “Technology of the Dead: Objects of Loving Remembrance or Replaceable Resources?” Philosophical Papers, vol. 44, no. 1 (2015). Reprinted by permission of the publisher (Taylor & Francis Ltd, http://www.tandfonline.com). Other elements have appeared online in “A Future Without Goodbyes? Hanging Out with the Virtual Dead,” Live Wire, July 17, 2020. Chapter 7 is a thoroughly revised version of “Do Immortals Need an Eject Button? Sartre and the Importance of Always Having an Exit,” European Journal of Philosophy (2021): doi.org/10.1111/ejop.12718.

Abbreviations

Kierkegaard’s Works CI CUP EO FSE FT KJN SKS SUD TDIO WL

The Concept of Irony. Translated by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989. Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Frag­ ments, 2 volumes. Translated by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992. Either/Or, 2 volumes. Translated by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987. For Self-Examination and Judge for Yourself! Translated by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990. Fear and Trembling and Repetition. Translated by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983. Kierkegaard’s Journals and Notebooks, 11 volumes. Edited by Bruce H. Kirmmse et al. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007–2020. Søren Kierkegaards Skrifter, 28 volumes (plus corresponding commentary volumes). Edited by Niels Jørgen Cappelørn et al. Copenhagen: Gads, 1997–2013.1 The Sickness unto Death. Translated by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980. Three Discourses on Imagined Occasions. Translated by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993. Works of Love. Translated by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995.

Nietzsche’s Works BGE

Beyond Good and Evil. Translated by Judith Norman. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002.

xvi Abbreviations D EH GM GS HH TI/AC TSZ WLN WP WPb UM

Daybreak. Translated by R. J. Hollingdale. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997. Ecce Homo. Translated by R. J. Hollingdale. London: Penguin, 1979. On the Genealogy of Morality. Translated by Carol Diethe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997. The Gay Science. Translated by Josefine Nauckhoff. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Human, All Too Human. Translated by R. J. Hollingdale. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. Twilight of the Idols and The Anti-Christ. Translated by R. J. Hollingdale. London: Penguin, 1990. Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Translated by Adrian Del Caro. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006. Writings from the Late Notebooks. Translated by Kate Sturge. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. The Will to Power. Translated by Walter Kaufmann and R. J. Hollingdale. New York: Vintage, 1968. The Will to Power: An Attempted Transvaluation of All Values, vol. II. Translated by Anthony M. Ludovici. Edinburgh: T. N. Foulis, 1910. Untimely Meditations. Translated by Daniel Breazeale. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.

Unamuno’s Works TSL

Tragic Sense of Life. Translated by J. E. Crawford Flitch. Mineola, NY: Dover, 1954.

Heidegger’s Works BDT BT QCT

“Building, Dwelling, Thinking.” In Basic Writings. 2nd ed., edited by David Farrell Krell. New York: HarperCollins, 1993. Being and Time. Translated by John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson. New York: Harper & Row, 1962.2 The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays. Translated by William Lovitt. New York: Harper & Row, 1977.

Sartre’s Works BN NE

Being and Nothingness. Translated by Hazel E. Barnes. New York: Washington Square, 1992. No Exit and Three Other Plays. Translated by S. Gilbert and I. Abel. New York: Vintage, 1989.

Abbreviations  xvii NFE

Notebooks for an Ethics. Translated by David Pellauer. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992.

Camus’ Works LCE MS

Lyrical and Critical Essays. Translated by Ellen Conroy Kennedy. New York: Vintage, 1970. The Myth of Sisyphus. Translated by Justin O’Brien. New York: Penguin, 1975.

Beauvoir’s Works AM CA EA FC PL PC SS VED

All Men Are Mortal. Translated by Leonard M. Friedman. New York: W. W. Norton, 1992. The Coming of Age. Translated by Patrick O’Brian. New York: G. P. Putnam’s, 1972. The Ethics of Ambiguity. Translated by Bernard Frechtman. New York: Citadel, 1948. Force of Circumstance. Translated by Richard Howard. New York: Putnam’s, 1965. The Prime of Life. Translated by Peter Green. Cleveland, OH: The World Publishing Company, 1962. “Pyrrhus and Cineas.” In Philosophical Writings. Edited by Margaret A. Simons. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2004. The Second Sex. Translated by Constance Borde and Sheila Malovany-Chevallier. New York: Vintage, 2011. A Very Easy Death. Translated by Patrick O’Brian. New York: Pantheon, 1965.

Introduction The Hope of Meaningful Immortality

Since the passing days of a mortal, O Death, sap here the energy of all the senses; And even a full life is but a trifle; so keep your horses, your songs and dances! — Katha Upaniṣad (Olivelle 2008: KaU 1.26) While there’s life, there is hope. — Stephen Hawking (Collins 2010)

For the last half-century, philosophers of death have fiercely debated whether or not an immortal life would be worth living. Although this issue was hardly unheard of before, the 20th- and 21st-century debate has been inflamed by the growth of the science fiction and fantasy genres,1 as well as intensifying real-world speculation about relatively near-future technological advances that promise to radically alter the human lifespan. Some techno-optimists believe it is only a matter of time before medical interventions are capable of “curing aging” and various diseases that now seem inevitable. Robert M. Geraci (2011: 143) states that “purely biological solutions… include neuro-pharmacology, to… enhance mental abilities, stem cell research, to regenerate limbs and organs, and genetic engineering, for therapeutic and enhancement purposes.” There are a number of problems to solve along these lines of research, but the biggest single hurdle to overcome is basic cell degeneration. The hopeful call attention to existing species (such as the “immortal jellyfish,” Turritopsis dohrnii) that are better at maintaining cellular robustness, to experiments that have rejuvenated laboratory worms and mice (suggesting that human therapies might be coming), and to speculation about nanotechnology, which would likely be the major game-changer here (see e.g. Dvorsky 2013; Graham 2002: 78–9; Jabr 2021; Piore 2021; Rich 2012). But for those who cannot wait in their present state for medicine to advance, proponents of cryonic preservation think vitrification might buy some time while medical science figures things out. Of course,

DOI: 10.4324/9781003281085-1

2 Introduction reviving someone after preservation is another challenge, but the thinking is that technology advanced enough to reverse aging would probably be able to tackle this problem as well (see e.g. Hughes 2007: 3–4; Shaw 2009). However, even if such optimistic medical prognostications are accurate, and death becomes unnecessary, accidents are still possible as long as humans depend on flimsy organic bodies. Cyborgization or transplanting brains into more durable artificial bodies would address this problem (see e.g. Hughes 2004; Kurzweil 2005: 309–10), but, unfortunately, these strategies would only save people from certain small-scale dangers; larger catastrophes might still spell trouble. At this point in the strategizing about how to achieve immortality, things become conceptually hazier as “mind-uploading” promises to end human reliance on physical form (see e.g. Cole-Turner 2012: 795; Geraci 2011: 147; Goldstein 2012; Graham 2002: 72–3; Hughes 2007: 4–6). The upside of such a development is supposed to be the almost total invulnerability of data-based beings with back-up files scattered around the world/galaxy/universe, but the reduction of selves to mere patterns of information raises some serious questions about the nature of personal identity (cf. Harle 2002; Hughes 2010: 635–6; Zimmerman 2013: 101). And since the invulnerability is not truly complete given the universe’s precarious future, some (e.g. Kurzweil 2005: 358, 486) posit the rather fantastical possibility of universe-hopping to avoid whatever doom awaits this one. Many philosophers, recognizing that some of these means of life extension (e.g. by eliminating disease) do not seem obviously problematic, concern themselves with the more difficult, extreme, and interesting— even if less realistic—scenarios. Thus, they often (but not always) focus on the merits (or lack thereof) of a genuinely everlasting life that cannot end under any circumstances, and they contrast this kind of indestructible existence with something like our ordinary mortal situation (see e.g. Scheffler 2013: 95). Faced with the hypothetical choice between remaining more or less as you are (i.e. mortal and aging) for, at most, a few decades longer, and living literally forever with no way out, which option makes the most sense? The knee-jerk reaction of many members of a species doomed to mortality in the real world might be to prefer the latter, but it turns out that each of these options comes with serious downsides and dangers that must be weighed before indulging in magical elixir or new technology. Unfortunately, because there are so many jerking knees out there to correct, the apparent drawbacks of immortality get the lion’s share of attention from philosophers. I would like to begin this book by doing my part to remedy this imbalance. In considering the most prominent concern about immortality—that it would be without meaning or value for immortal persons—it occurs to me that there is even greater cause for

Introduction  3 concern when it comes to mortal life. Thus, I will argue in this introductory chapter that a never-ending existence offers more hope for personal meaning and value than ordinary finite existence does. Although potential for meaning is not the only relevant issue to consider in the course of weighing the dangers and downsides of mortal versus immortal life,2 it might prove to be the decisive one. What is certain is that the possibility of meaningful existence is the issue that really opens the door for considering, and indeed practically necessitates considering, what the various thinkers associated with the existentialist tradition have to say about the desirability of immortality. Up to this point in the contemporary philosophical debate on the topic, most of the voices heard have come from within the Anglo-American analytic tradition. Unfortunately, I think the conversation has been somewhat impoverished due to its failure to consider a range of perspectives that can point the way to compelling new arguments and examples. This book is dedicated to making the case that several, often neglected, figures from the continental—and specifically existentialist—tradition, who focus much of their attention on death and the meaning of life, have a great deal to contribute.

The Meaning of “Meaning” It can be a bit confusing to talk about the meaning of life because there are so many competing ways to understand what it consists of. I will not adopt any particularly rigid notion of such meaning, and there are two reasons for this rather open approach. First, it should not be necessary to provide a robust definition, so long as I can identify important and (in many cases) widely acknowledged contributing factors, or features of life’s meaning, that seem to be at stake in comparing mortality and immortality. If these features go missing, then meaning seems to be in jeopardy, even if the other features included in one particular theory of meaning or another remain intact. And explaining this jeopardy—not describing meaning in itself—is my main concern here. Second, I think some of these key features cut across the prominent contemporary understandings of the nature of meaning. Of course, it is always possible to specify a notion of meaning so narrowly that it avoids the jeopardy associated with losing the features I discuss in the following pages, but the obvious downside of such specification is that the notion of meaning no longer tracks what people usually have in mind when talking about meaningful life.3 Having proffered these somewhat abstract comments about the limits of my present interest in, and approach to, meaning, there are a couple of more concrete caveats also worth mentioning. To begin with, I generally do not make a strong distinction between “meaning” and “value” because

4 Introduction it has become fairly common practice in the literature on the desirability of immortality to use these terms somewhat interchangeably, or to speak about valuable experiences (frequently construed to include things such as pleasant feelings, moments of enlightenment, and work on projects) as what makes life meaningful. I can certainly imagine contexts in which making such a distinction would be helpful, but I am not sure that doing so is a pressing concern in this one, especially not in this introductory chapter.4 In fact, given that I intend to compare the situations of mortal and immortal life in the terms used by those who debate the meaning/ value of immortality, it would seem problematic if I suddenly started to use these terms in a radically different way. Another important caveat concerns the two most common ways contemporary philosophers talk about meaning. Some (e.g. Luper 2014) think meaning is dictated entirely by a person’s subjective relationship to activities and experiences, such that it makes little difference what this person is doing, so long as he or she finds it worthwhile. Others (­ e.g. Wolf 2010) hold that meaning depends to some degree upon the objective value of the activity a person is engaged in or the experience a person is having. If it did not, these champions of objectivity argue, then it would be possible for a subject to derive meaning from utterly ridiculous or trivial activities and experiences. Once again, I will not restrict my discussion by focusing on one perspective or the other. It seems to me that both notions of meaning require the existence of a subject who finds certain activities and experiences worthwhile (whether or not these activities or experiences meet some external standard of value).5 Without yet getting into any of the other complications mortality presents for both subjective and objective elements of meaning, this shared subject requirement already seems susceptible to some of the worries I will consider about the meaning of mortal life. Since these worries pertain to both subjective and objective approaches to meaning, I cannot see a good reason to pick a side at the moment. With this last preliminary qualification out of the way, we can now proceed to consider how meaning and value come up in the context of the desirability of immortality debate.

The Current State of the Immortality Debate The philosopher that really kicks off the present discussion about the perils of immortality is Bernard Williams, who famously argues that no one could maintain a meaningful identity without eventually becoming profoundly and irreparably bored. You would either have to become someone you do not recognize and do not really want to be—and you would probably have to “lose yourself” in this way indefinitely many times in order to keep life interesting—or you would run out of things you really care about and sink into permanent indifference. To help ­illustrate his argument, Williams introduces what has become the most

Introduction  5 significant literary figure associated with philosophical discourse on the desirability of immortality—Elina Makropulos (from The Makropulos Case, a play by Karel Čapek). Her “immortality” is granted in 300-year increments by consumption of a longevity potion, but when it comes time for the perpetual 42-year-old to take just her second dose, she abstains.6 Williams (1993: 82) believes that she chooses to die because life could no longer hold any value for someone who lives so long with a consistent character: “Her trouble 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.” If Williams is right in claiming that a life of a few hundred years would become pointless, then the further implication is that there is not much hope for a truly everlasting one.7 Following in Williams’ footsteps, other thinkers go even further in arguing that immortal life would be meaningless, claiming that death itself is a primary (and maybe the primary) source of value in human existence. In death’s absence, according to Samuel Scheffler (2013: 99), “it is at best unclear how far we would be guided by ideas of value at all.” In addition to Scheffler, philosophers such as Mikel Burley (2009b: ­545–6), Todd May (2009: 50, 63–8, 72), Martha Nussbaum (1994: ­226–9), and Aaron Smuts (2011: 140–1) have all suggested in different ways that human meaning depends on the temporal limitations, fragility, and orienting life stages imposed on us by the necessity of death. Without a literal deadline, there would be no profound sense of urgency or pressure to prioritize some activities over others. Without the danger of premature demise, there would be no profound sense of risk to keep our decision-making in check. Without a conclusion to a life story, there would be no profound sense of structure to prevent life from droning on or meandering aimlessly. And without any of these key elements contributing to the ordinary sense of meaningful existence, humans just would not be humans any longer.8 Of course, this situation would not necessarily preclude the possibility of forming a new sense of meaningful existence, but, as Williams’ (1993: 83) argument hints, it is not clear w ­ hy such a possibility should be attractive to me in my current human condition. In response to these “immortality curmudgeons”—as John Martin Fischer (2009; 2013) calls them—a number of immortality enthusiasts have arisen to defend the possibility of a worthwhile immortal existence from each incoming assault. For example, Fischer (2009: 84–5) argues that there are certain pleasures or activities whose value cannot be exhausted as easily as Williams’ Makropulos case study suggests: “Some pleasurable experiences… are in some sense ‘self-exhausting’… once (or perhaps a few times) is enough… But these are not the only sort of pleasures. There are also ‘repeatable pleasures.’” According to Fischer, the latter are sufficient to maintain personal identity and keep life sufficiently attractive indefinitely. As for the need to preserve stages, risk, and urgency

6 Introduction in order to furnish immortal life with values similar to those mortal humans now possess, one might question if death is the most significant obstruction or limitation humans face. Preston Greene, Niko Kolodny, and others suggest a number of ways temporal pressures come up within an ordinary lifespan that would seemingly still be in effect during an immortal life. For example, Greene (2017: 430–1) argues that humans tend to want pleasant experiences sooner rather than later, and there is no reason to think this would be different in everlasting lives. And Kolodny (2013: 167–8) points out that built right into certain projects and activities is a countdown to when it will be too late; there are some things—e.g. confessing affection to one’s beloved before someone else does—that cannot be postponed indefinitely. Similar things can be said about orienting life stages and risks that do not involve death. In the former case, there are still things like seasonal changes that offer some kind of structure and orientation; and in the latter, one might consider losing someone’s respect, being imprisoned, or catching a non-lifethreatening­ illness. While there are certainly a number of other interesting criticisms and defenses to add to the list above (and I will discuss many of them in detail as the book proceeds), this short overview is probably sufficient to allow for an important general observation.9 What often seems taken for granted in all of this back and forth between immortality curmudgeons and enthusiasts is why one might want to live a lot longer—maybe even forever—in the first place.10 Before joining the enthusiasts in getting defensive about the desirability of immortality in the coming chapters, I want to take up the offensive (in more than one sense, perhaps) position that being mortal already leaves a lot to be desired. More specifically, I  want to demonstrate that there are several ways in which having a necessary ending actually saps the meaning from life, but in order to make my ideas more concrete, it will be helpful to introduce a new literary example to juxtapose with Elina Makropulos.

The Meaninglessness of Mortal Life In his short story, “Lazarus,” Leonid Andreyev (1918) paints a rather bleak picture (which is very loosely based on Eastern Orthodox tradition) of what happens to the eponymous character after his famous resurrection in the Gospel of John. The man that returns from the dead is changed; in addition to his somewhat grotesque visage and unpleasant odor (which is to be expected after a body spends three days decomposing in a warm climate), he never smiles or laughs, he takes no joy in being reunited with loved ones, he finds life generally bereft of all meaning, and he waits to have his existence snuffed out once more. Andreyev’s point seems to be that, in comparison with the infinite nothingness of death, the transient significance of life simply evaporates:

Introduction  7 The vast emptiness which surrounds the universe… stretched boundless, penetrating everywhere… A man was just born, and funeral candles were already lighted at his head, and then were extinguished; and soon there was emptiness where before had been the man and the candles. And surrounded by Darkness and Empty Waste, Man trembled hopelessly before the dread of the Infinite. Because Lazarus’ resurrection makes him a kind of bridge between death and the living, anyone who looks into his eyes—thereby encountering the brutal reality of death—is similarly crushed by this infinite nothingness. A once-great and proud sculptor comes to view “with absolute indifference” all that formerly meant so much to him, a “jovial drunkard” has “his joy ended forever,” and a young couple previously consumed with love’s euphoria becomes “mournful and gloomy.” The one person who is able to avoid descending into utter despair after an encounter with Lazarus is the great Roman emperor, Augustus,11 who summons him to the capital out of a mixture of morbid curiosity, bravado, concern for the public welfare, and desire to defend the honor of life itself. But even this uniquely wise and powerful individual is only able to stave off despair periodically through distraction with the hustle and bustle of daily activities and responsibilities. Whenever the distraction wears off (which happens usually in the quiet of night), the lessons of Lazarus’ eyes rise to haunting prominence as the illusion of life’s value fades away. The story concludes with the emperor sending Lazarus home to waste away alone in the Judean desert, but not before having his eyes  burned out in order to save others from discovering their own meaninglessness. Equipped with this fairly depressing tale about the repercussions of paying attention to our mortality, I can now say more about how life’s meaning seems to evaporate in the face of death. Dying means the permanent loss of some things that are heavily involved in the formation and retention of meaning, such as our conscious experience, memories, and agency. Now, it might be somewhat inaccurate to describe this as a loss, assuming the dead do not actually exist anymore and there is, thus, no one left who can be said to have lost anything.12 In order to side-step this problem, and also avoid becoming entangled in the closely related and long-standing philosophical dispute about whether or not death somehow harms the one who dies,13 it is probably better to say that death destroys the sense of significance and value each of us builds up and attributes to our own life through our conscious experience, memories, and agency. Even if no one is there to “suffer” the final destruction of personal meaning and its aftermath, it undeniably takes place at precisely the same time the person itself is destroyed.14 And this personal sense of meaning may be in jeopardy much earlier than that. In order to see why, we must first consider how conscious

8 Introduction experience, which clearly vanishes when someone dies, contributes to the meaning of a person’s existence. Some would suggest that there is something inherently meaningful or valuable in the ability to experience itself, but this seems to be a rather controversial claim, as others would argue that conscious experience is merely the condition for finding anything valuable (cf. Silverstein 1993: 100–2). Since the living experience all variety of things and find only some of them valuable, it would appear that conscious experience cannot be valuable in itself. However, this particular utility-based sense of “valuable,” used as a kind of shorthand to indicate what one is in some way positively disposed toward, is not exactly my concern here. It is more the bare condition or capacity to take in new experiences that interests me at the moment. Over time, we weave our experiences (good and bad) and accomplishments (however modest) into a coherent picture or account of who, where, and how we have been up to the present. One might describe our flow of conscious experience in terms of constructing a curriculum vitae (in a broad sense that includes ups and downs). Think, for example, of the famous sculptor in the Lazarus tale; his sense of purpose and meaning comes from his work as an artist and the pieces he has created throughout his career. It is not so much the objects themselves that mean something to him, but the things he has accomplished (or failed to accomplish), the skills he has cultivated (or failed to cultivate), the struggles he has overcome (or failed to overcome), and the progress he has made (or failed to make). When the sculptor’s encounter with the infinite nothingness of death—via Lazarus’ eyes—puts his limited accomplishments, skills, struggles, and progress, as well as his failings, into perspective, he can see how little they really matter in the grand scheme of things and how close to the edge of irrelevance they already are. As for memory’s contribution to the meaning of a person’s existence, there is no doubt that it is closely connected with the way we weave together past experiences, achievements, and training into a coherent CV, but there is still more of value in what we remember that will be destroyed by death. I can put this point simply by saying that not everything makes it onto the CV, and yet some of these additional memories mean a great deal to us. There are just so many clever jokes, amusing anecdotes, embarrassing occurrences, impactful images, momentary feelings, petty slights, hopeful dreams, and bits of random knowledge that do not necessarily play a part in the tidy schematic life-overviews we present to ourselves. These minor details fill in the nooks and crannies of a life and enrich the basic picture we have of how and where things have been going. Unfortunately, if the meaning derived from the main highlights of a life cannot avoid being swallowed up by death, then there is not much hope that the value of the so-called “little things” can withstand its infinite void. This is perhaps why Andreyev makes sure to mention that the fairly inconsequential and ephemeral “joyous reveries” of the jovial drunkard

Introduction  9 (whether or not he would remember them in a sober state) are also silenced after his own run-in with Lazarus. But could one not acknowledge these reasons to worry about the meaning of mortal life, and yet still take comfort in the notion that it can last beyond the grave insofar as one leaves a mark on other people, or on the world in some other way? In fact, some feminist philosophers are critical of the CV-based meaning described above precisely because its focus on individual experience tends to downplay more community-, relation-, or cause-based ways of finding meaning in life (see Brennan 2006: 36–7). Since women have traditionally been forced to suppress their own personal interests for the sake of benefitting “something bigger than themselves” (i.e. the family unit), they might now have an easier time embracing a kind of meaning that cannot be so easily destroyed by their own deaths. While I sympathize with this critique of those (predominantly men) who would focus exclusively on the value of personal experience, there are good reasons to be wary of looking for meaning in what lives on after we die, be it children, social/political causes, or cultural legacy. One issue, which I will discuss in greater detail in later chapters, is that this kind of meaning seems like something of a consolation prize. It just is not what many of us (men and women alike) usually care about when we nervously ponder the meaning of mortal lives.15 But setting this preliminary concern aside, one must still address the problem—expressed in plenty of clichés, aphorisms, and proverbs—that even this more “diversified” sort of meaning has an expiration date. Percy Shelley’s (2002: 194) famous sonnet “Ozymandias,” for example, points out that even the most intentional effort of a world-historical figure to leave something durable behind is destined for ultimate failure. The pharaoh’s image will eventually lie ruined in the sand, a mocking attestation of the fact that no contribution to/mark on the world or its inhabitants is permanent.16 It would seem that mortal existence offers no hope for lasting meaning, personal or otherwise; the infinite nothingness of death—the core concern of the Lazarus story—will eventually swallow us whole (cf. Nozick 1981: 582). To make matters worse, even before the things we leave behind fade away for good, they remain entirely in the hands of others once we are no longer around to have any say in what happens next. In the words of Jean-Paul Sartre, “to be dead is to be a prey for the living” (BN 695). My monuments and works of art might be defaced or misinterpreted, my family might be murdered by a bitter rival eager to erase my name from history, and the causes I championed might be corrupted. Now, I do not want to overstate the role of individual agency in cultivating a meaningful existence, since humans are fundamentally intertwined with others and affected by their actions and ideas. Because of this essential social embedding, these same sorts of catastrophes can certainly befall us while we are still alive. However, being mortal means that eventually there will

10 Introduction be absolutely nothing we can do to influence the fate of what we pass down to posterity. So even if we could count on the durability of our contributions to something greater than our particular selves, I am still not sure we can reasonably derive a sense of meaning from these contributions. There is no guarantee that things will end up even remotely as we intend them to, and it is difficult to find value in the prospect of very different, and possibly disturbing, outcomes that have little, if anything at all, to do with us. If, years after my death (and despite the lessons of equity and inclusivity I tried to impart), one of my children gets involved with a racist political movement, eventually becoming its leader and instigating a genocide that will live on in infamy for the duration of human history, I doubt this says much, if anything, about me and my values. (I certainly hope not.) Another problem for meaningful mortal life, according to one prominent immortality enthusiast, is that we have indefinitely many things we want to do, and only a finite amount of time to do them in before we die. How much better to be free of the time-pressure that our mortality imposes; to have, for these indefinitely many projects, indefinitely much time. (Chappell 2007: 32) Obviously, Williams uses the example of Elina Makropulos to dispute the  claim that “we have indefinitely many things we want to do,” but there are a number of thinkers who find Williams’ notion of i­dentity/ character—which­establishes the range of meaningful projects that are available to a person—far too rigid and restrictive. A more sensible view is that the meaning of life largely depends on the fact that at any given moment we have a number of overlapping projects—like “threads in a rope”—that we care about (Chappell 2007: 35; cf. May 2009: 54–5). These projects (in conjunction with our personal histories or CVs) help to define who we are now, and propel us forward into new projects that will play an important role in defining us in the future. Unfortunately, as mortal beings, our necessary temporal finitude practically guarantees that some of our threads of meaning will be left severed. In addition, the uncertainty surrounding the when of this severing, based to some degree on our susceptibility to accidents, means that whether or not any projects/threads do reach completion is always partially determined by the whims of fortune (cf. BN 687, 689). Given all of the above considerations, if my mortal existence is not already meaningless, the meaning will soon be gone, and until then, it has at best a merely temporary and chance value not entirely chosen by me. Now, perhaps some would complain that I am too quick to belittle this kind of transient meaning. In the course of making his argument that “existential terror” is irrational, Ben Bradley (2015: 416) says the

Introduction  11 impending disappearance of one’s meaning does not in itself render one’s life entirely meaningless. I do not necessarily disagree with Bradley (and I will say more about why shortly), although he does not quite address my concerns about either the trivialization of life’s finite pursuits in comparison with the infinite valuelessness of the coming nothingness, or the way a future lack of agency can muddy the water when trying to determine if the things we value in mortal life are actually worthwhile. However, even if Bradley would not agree that these are legitimate threats to the meaning of a life while it is being lived, there is still not much to  object to in my claim that mortal life offers little hope for lasting meaning.

Hope for Meaning As I acknowledged at the outset, there are surely other factors to take into account when comparing the merits of mortal life and those of immortality. Nonetheless, after consulting both Elina Makropulos and Lazarus, and considering a number of arguments that support the opposing positions they appear to represent, we seem to have reached something of a stalemate (or “dilemma,” according to May [2009: 75–8]) when it comes to the relationship between death and meaning. On the one hand, we have reasons to think death prevents meaninglessness and might actually be a key source of life’s value, and on the other, we have reasons to think death sucks the meaning out of life. For example, while immortality curmudgeons like Scheffler point out that the temporal scarcity of mortal life gives our choices and actions a kind of value-generating urgency, the enthusiast Chappell holds that this same temporal scarcity means our lives will be cut off in the midst of value-laden projects and rendered somewhat indeterminate as to their overall significance. We have also seen the argument that being susceptible to mortal danger provides life with a value-generating sense of risk, as well as the notion that death makes our everyday sense of risk seem rather trivial in the grand scheme of things.17 One helpful way to generalize about the two ­perspectives on death’s relationship with life’s meaning is to put things in terms of consequences and weight (cf. Smuts 2011: 140, 145, 148). Immortal existence might seem inconsequential without ordinary stakes and deadlines, but mortal life also has a remarkable lightness to it given the fact that nothing I do really matters in the long run. Among other things, mortality means that no matter how poor my decisions have been I will not have to live with myself forever (and neither will anyone else). Moving forward, I will argue at length that the concerns about ­immortality are not as worrisome as they initially appear to be, and, thus, that the scales are tipped in favor of the immortality enthusiasts. However, let us grant for the sake of argument that these concerns ­cannot be entirely dismissed, and that we must therefore remain unsure about

12 Introduction whether immortality would end up devoid of meaning. Even in the face of such uncertainty, as long as it is possible the curmudgeons are wrong (and if they are right, meaningful life might just be out of the question for immortals and mortals alike18), there could still be a decisive, or at least persuasive, reason to desire immortality. While immortality might eventually lead to meaninglessness, mortal life seems guaranteed to get there. If my mortal existence is doomed to everlasting meaninglessness because the locus of my first-personal sense of meaning—my individual conscious  experience and memory—is headed for dissolution, and public ­consciousness will soon forget all about me (which might even be for the best in cases where the alternative is, for instance, telling cruel lies about me), then immortality starts to look more appealing in contrast. Despite any possibility of meaninglessness that comes with immortality, what it could offer in return is hope and promise and a lasting voice—which simply are not available to mortal beings.19 Just to be clear, my point is not that the meaninglessness of mortal life somehow makes immortality look more meaningful in contrast. What I am suggesting is that the most prominent and compelling arguments in favor of the meaninglessness of immortality, even if they cannot be definitively refuted, are ultimately less convincing (given an abundance of fairly compelling rebuttals) than  the claims made here about why mortal life seems doomed to meaninglessness. However, if mortal life is necessarily doomed to meaninglessness, why is it that we mortals rarely act like it? Once again, Andreyev’s story might help provide an answer; people just are not very good at thinking about death and taking its implications personally, which is why the mysterious figure of the resurrected Lazarus causes such a stir.20 Left to their own natural devices, people surely have a lot to say about death in the abstract, or about the specific deaths of concrete others, but only occasionally do they feel the profound impact of reflection on their own impending doom (cf. BT 252–4; TDIO 73–5/SKS 5: 444–6). The literary device of Lazarus’ eyes offers a handy shortcut (for those who look into them) to realizing the deeply personal way death touches and corrodes much of what we care about in being alive. But why would anyone want such a realization? Maybe the lesson to take from this discussion, given that means of attaining immortality are not readily available, is that our best option is just to stay the hell away from Lazarus—i.e. to do whatever we can to avoid a deeply personal encounter with the nothingness to come. This is Augustus’ approach, as he tries his best to ignore death and get lost in daily activities, actually burning out Lazarus’ eyes and sending him away. In the moments when this approach is most effective, it seems perfectly possible to appreciate many things about ordinary mortal life.21 It also seems perfectly possible to confuse a life containing a great deal of this somewhat ignorant and self-deceptive appreciation with a meaningful life, and perhaps it is good enough if life has this illusory and deceitful

Introduction  13 sense of meaning that remains as long as one does not inspect it too closely. However, I think Andreyev is right to be suspicious about the effectiveness of this strategy of willful ignorance and self-deception. Given that mortals cannot hide from death forever (as Augustus becomes painfully aware), I doubt that anyone could maintain such a strategy over the course of a normal life; but, more importantly, I am not sure anyone should even want to remain in a state of distraction and delusion when it comes to the question of meaningful life.22 Such an attitude certainly clashes with the famous philosophical dictum to “know thyself.” My most pressing worry is not about sincerity and self-reflection though; it is about the hope mentioned above. In the absence of an encounter with death’s infinite void to shake us mortals free from the distraction of everyday engagements, we might never fully appreciate the hope (however slim it might be) of a meaningful immortality.

Existentialism, Death, and Meaningful Life In the course of arguing that, despite any lingering anxieties about possible meaninglessness, it might still make some sense to long for immortal life, I have made a number of claims disparaging the only kind of life humans have ever known. I realize that in doing so I come dangerously close to espousing full-blown pessimism about the value of human existence, and perhaps even lend support to controversial positions, such as anti-natalism. However, because anti-natalists are primarily concerned with the pervasiveness of human suffering (rather than the lack of meaning), and they do not claim that mortality is always one of its sources (cf. Benatar 2012: 157–60; 2013: 145–50), I do not think we have too much in common. In fact, (although sensitive to the sufferings of others I am lucky not to have to endure) I am inclined to believe that human life need not be so bad, if we could just do something about its literally fatal flaw. So, although there is a strong sense of pessimism to what I have said so far, my argument is actually motivated by a kind of optimism—albeit about a form of life we seem unlikely to achieve. A more pressing worry is that the position I have sketched out might be susceptible to the kinds of criticisms we will see Friedrich Nietzsche level at Arthur Schopenhauer’s (and Plato’s) pessimism in upcoming chapters.23 What gets me off the hook here is that my negative depiction of mortal human existence is mostly intended to facilitate drawing parallels with the pessimism of immortality curmudgeons. Beyond this specific context, I genuinely appreciate the attempts of Nietzsche, and other figures associated with the existentialist tradition, to carve out a sense of meaning in lives that have, up to the present, always been mortal.24 It is, of course, true (especially in the cases where there is no resorting to divine revelation) that this sense of meaning has its limitations, but it seems like the best we are going to get in chronologically finite lives.25

14 Introduction Given that these figures worked exclusively under the assumption of human mortality, they only somewhat infrequently consider the potential for meaning in immortal lives in a direct manner. Thus, it is commonly suggested that many of them believe human life is necessarily mortal, and that mortality itself is what provides life with a sense of value (see e.g. Williams 1993: 73). But the interesting thing about Søren Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Miguel de Unamuno, Martin Heidegger, Sartre, and Albert Camus, for attentive readers, is that not one of them explicitly holds the curmudgeonly view that death is necessary in order for human life to have meaning (Simone de Beauvoir might be an exception). Rather, in taking on the (as we have seen) notoriously difficult task of trying to cultivate something worthwhile in mortal lives, what they actually do is suggest a number of arguments and examples that can help make the case that immortality might also be meaningful. And this is the motivating, and for some, maybe surprising, insight of the present exploration. These easily misunderstood, often-neglected (in the context of the desirability of immortality debate), thinkers—famous for their views on death and the meaning of life—might be the ideal inspiration for making meaning in life without death. After briefly discussing a few earlier ideas that had a significant influence on the relevant views of Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and (to a lesser degree, and perhaps more indirectly) other thinkers associated with existentialism, the rest of this book will be spent clearing up misconceptions about them and laying out the various ways they can be seen as assets for those who aim to defend the prospects of meaningful immortality (or at least some form of indefinite life extension).

1 Early Arguments About the Desirability of Immortality

Immortality, in some form or another, is a common topic throughout the history of philosophy, but many thinkers who argue for its possibility or necessity give little attention to the question of whether it would be worthwhile. Among those who offer some kind of answer to this question, there are a few who have a significant impact on the thought of the philosophers that will feature heavily in the remainder of this book. For instance, Socrates’ emphasis on how a life is lived, rather than on how long it is lived, in Plato’s Apology provides a great deal of inspiration for Kierkegaard’s relationship with immortality, and this inspiration resonates throughout existentialist thought. Other points of departure can be found in the work of Blaise Pascal, Immanuel Kant, and Schopenhauer, despite the criticism they face in the writings of some of the most important figures in the existentialist tradition. Pascal’s calculations related to the potential benefits and downsides of immortality, for example, are widely ridiculed, while the intensity that leads him to his famous Wager in the first place is just as widely adopted. Kant’s infamous postulates about God and the immortality of the soul face similar ridicule, and yet the core insight behind them bears a resemblance to the notion of indefinite progress in Kierkegaard, and even Heidegger. And Schopenhauer’s general misgivings about the value of individual human life, not to mention his specific concerns about the prospect of living forever, prove to be an excellent foil for Nietzsche’s more optimistic outlook. This chapter will briefly consider the relevant views of these earlier influential figures in order to make it easier to understand where Kierkegaard and Nietzsche, in particular, are coming from and what they are reacting against in the chapters that follow.1

Socrates’ Ambivalence Since we know relatively little about what the historical Socrates actually believed, scholars rely heavily on the way he is depicted in Plato’s various dialogues to try to piece together some sense of his views. This piecing DOI: 10.4324/9781003281085-2

16  Early Arguments About the Desirability of Immortality together is, of course, complicated by the fact that Plato likely had his own agenda when he portrayed Socrates somewhat differently in each dialogue’s different setting and context (cf. Tarrant 2000; Waugh 2000). As a result of this and other complications, there ends up being two ­versions of Socrates, and his approach to death and the afterlife, that have a significant impact on the early moments of the existentialist tradition. One version, as I mentioned, has a profoundly positive influence on Kierkegaard’s approach to immortality, while the other version is a serious source of concern for Kierkegaard and Nietzsche alike. This latter version is often considered to be the result of Plato’s own evolving metaphysical ideas, but given the difficulty of distinguishing between the contributions of Socrates and those of Plato, it will perhaps be clearer (at least for the moment) to put things solely in terms of Socrates’ dual impact. In the Apology, Socrates defends the philosophical way of life against those who see in his dialectical method a public nuisance. There is more to the legal proceedings depicted in the dialogue than this single issue, of course, but this is probably a fair description of Socrates’ outlook and intentions. Understood in this way, his defense can be considered a great success (even thousands of years later), but not so much if the goal was acquittal for Socrates himself. In fact, he treats the entire trial with a remarkably cavalier attitude for someone in mortal danger. After he is convicted and sentenced to death, Socrates famously explains to the jurors why he is not afraid to die (see Plato 2002: 40c–41d). Although he does not know exactly what death holds, he is convinced that for someone who lives in the right way—i.e. like a philosopher (a true lover of wisdom)—there is no need to fear. As Socrates sees it, there is good hope that death is a blessing, for it is one of two things: either the dead are nothing and have no perception of anything, or it is, as we are told, a change and a relocating for the soul from here to another place. If death leads to nothingness, it will be like a permanent “dreamless sleep,” which everyone appreciates; and if it leads to a continuation of his consciousness and philosophical activity in the company of heroes and demi-gods in Hades, then that also sounds amazing. Because such activity is itself the good life, and Socrates would pursue it wherever he is, he does not even consider the possibility that a good man like himself will ever be miserable “either in life or in death.” In the eyes of many (including at least one of Kierkegaard’s pseudonyms), the point of Socrates’ optimistic ambivalence about the possibility of an afterlife is that death does not really matter so long as one is living well. This is an idea that will show up in some form or another again and again in the coming chapters, especially the next one.

Early Arguments About the Desirability of Immortality  17 In the Phaedo, on the other hand, the ambivalent version of Socrates is nowhere to be found. As he sits in his prison cell awaiting execution, he offers several arguments in an attempt to prove that the soul is indeed immortal and that his consciousness will carry on after he dies. Many of these arguments are predicated on the notion that life, as a mortal human being, is pretty terrible. It is full of bodily corruption, sensory imperfection, and uncertainty, just to name a few of its many deficiencies. If there were no life beyond this one, then genuine knowledge would be impossible and our time here would seem rather pointless. For philosophers, as long as we have a body and our soul is fused with such an evil we shall never adequately attain what we desire, which we affirm to be the truth. The body keeps us busy in a thousand ways because of its need for nurture… if certain diseases befall it, they impede our search for the truth. It fills us with wants, desires, fears, all sorts of illusions and much nonsense… everywhere in our investigations the body is present and makes for confusion and fear… if we are ever to have pure knowledge, we must escape from the body and observe things in themselves with the soul by itself. It seems likely that we shall, only then, when we are dead, attain that… of which we claim to be lovers, namely, wisdom. (Plato 2002: 66b–e) Thus, a lot rides on Socrates demonstrating the immortality of the soul. It is still true that the best possible outcome for the soul depends on living rightly—again, as a philosopher—but there is really no positive outlook without immortality in the Phaedo. Although no firm conclusions are ever reached (we are talking about a Platonic dialogue, after all), Socrates nevertheless doubles down on the notion of mortal life’s worthlessness in his final words. He tells his friend to “make [an] offering” on his behalf to thank Asclepius, the god of medicine, for curing him of the disease of being alive (Plato 2002: 118a). This more pessimistic version of Socrates serves primarily as a punching bag for thinkers like Nietzsche and, to some extent, Kierkegaard. In his dissertation, for example, the latter associates the lessons of the Phaedo with Plato, rather than Socrates, but he is nonetheless critical of the “weariness with life” he finds there (CI 77/SKS 1: 136).2 A similar criticism is made more frequently, and vehemently, throughout Nietzsche’s writings. For him (as we shall see), Socrates is among the first in a long line of notable philosophers and religious figures who denigrate mortal life, and often combine this denigration with promises of a better existence to come.3 Since the goal of the various thinkers associated with the existentialist tradition is to explain how lives that end in death can be understood as worthwhile, they are generally reluctant to make any such promises. They are also less inclined to join this version of Socrates in

18  Early Arguments About the Desirability of Immortality seeing mortality as an argument against life. Thus, depending on which version of Socrates one has in mind, it is possible to find in him either an inspirational precursor or an example of what not to do when trying to make life meaningful.

Pascal’s Wager Unlike in the case of Socrates, Kierkegaard and Nietzsche both have several complimentary things to say about Pascal alongside their more critical assessment. For example, Kierkegaard praises Pascal for his passionate dedication to a somewhat anachronistic ascetic lifestyle, and sympathizes with his perseverance in the face of personal and social difficulties ­(see e.g. KJN 8: 528/SKS 24: 518–9; also see Maia Neto 1991: 163–4). Nietzsche admires Pascal’s intellect and his commitment to living out his ideals, even if they are Christian ones (see e.g. AC, section 5; D, section 192). As for the criticism, Kierkegaard primarily takes issue with Pascal’s use of reason and evidence in the service of Christian faith, but this is a point of contention that falls a bit outside the scope of the present inquiry.4 Nietzsche’s concern, on the other hand, is roughly the same one he has when talking about Socrates and the other figures discussed in this chapter. The problem is that Pascal offers a rather harsh assessment of life in this world; and, even worse, like the version of Socrates seen in the Phaedo, Pascal connects this assessment with longing for life in a better world to come.5 Interestingly, Kierkegaard’s and Nietzsche’s respective worries appear to converge in Pascal’s most famous argument—the Wager. Although Pascal is suspicious of certain trends and movements within the post-Reformation Catholic Church, he is still an ardent defender of the Christian religion. Faced with growing skepticism about numerous elements of its doctrine in the midst of the Scientific Revolution (to which he in some ways contributed), Pascal wanted to produce an apologetic treatise to offer support (cf. Ariew 2005: xi). While he was unable to complete the project, he did leave behind a collection of fascinating notes, among them one of philosophy’s classic arguments. The purpose of the Wager seems to be to convince people that being a Christian or wanting to be a Christian without having proof of Christianity’s core tenets is not the blameworthy foolishness detractors often say it is. It is not the case, as is sometimes popularly believed, that the Wager is intended to lead directly to faith. Pascal recognizes that faith requires action and divine assistance; it is not something that one can just rationally decide to have. Nonetheless, he argues that since “you are committed”—i.e. you already exist—you have to take a position for or against the existence of God and the afterlife. Practically speaking, to refuse to take a position is to be against, since such a refusal means rejecting the potential benefits of God and the afterlife. Death is coming (and sooner than you might like)

Early Arguments About the Desirability of Immortality  19 regardless of which way you go, so your life is staked no matter what, but because only one option (however unlikely) comes with the hope of ­“infinite gain,” it makes sense to want to believe. In Pascal’s (2005: S680/ L418) words: “Let us weigh the gain and the loss in calling heads that God exists. Let us assess the two cases. If you win, you win everything; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager, then, without hesitation that he exists!” Belief in God—if God exists—brings with it eternal reward in heaven, and this trumps any other possible outcome of the Wager so profoundly that belief is actually the only reasonable option. As I said, this little thought experiment is not sufficient to generate faith, according to Pascal, because faith in God and the promise of an afterlife that comes with him is at least as much about how one lives out a relationship with him as it is about giving one’s mere assent to the proposition “God exists.” Furthermore, living out such a relationship requires a lifelong commitment—only possible by the grace of G ­ od—which­is fraught with difficulty that goes far beyond any momentary struggle with decision-making. Having expanded on this point, it is still worth noting that one of the main reasons the belief option trumps the non-belief option—even if it turns out that God does not exist—is because even the best of ordinary mortal lives is not really worth anything. In Pascal’s estimation, even the slim chance of an infinite reward sounds vastly superior to the relative certainty of absolutely any sort of finite/mortal existence. And this brings the discussion back to what bothers Kierkegaard and Nietzsche about Pascal. The former finds this kind of rational calculation about the benefits of Christian faith to be a distinctly problematic (and perhaps even unchristian) way to provide comfort and support to those struggling with belief (cf. FSE 68/SKS 13: 90; KJN 8: 116/SKS 24: 119). For Nietzsche, Pascal may well be the best Christianity has to offer, but insofar as his desire for immortality gets him caught up in disparaging mortal life in this world, he is complicit in a pathetic and bitter decadence that seeks to undermine all that is natural, healthy, and strong within us (cf. BGE, section 46; WLN 195–7; WP, section 246). As Gilles Deleuze (1983: 37) puts it, Pascal “is governed by the ascetic ideal and the depreciation of life. Nietzsche is right to oppose his own game to Pascal’s wager.” But before we can hear anything more about Nietzsche’s game (or Kierkegaard’s, for that matter), there are still two other modern thinkers to consider who have some things in common (for better or worse) with Pascal when it comes to the valuation of immortal and mortal life.

Kant’s Postulates What Kant and Pascal have in common is that they both come to the conclusion that there are practical reasons for, or benefits in, believing in God even if there are no compelling theoretical demonstrations that such

20  Early Arguments About the Desirability of Immortality a being exists. It is unclear whether or not Kant would approve of the Wager,6 but there is a certain kinship between Pascal’s famous argument and Kant’s account of the Highest Good and the Practical Postulates. The key connection is that they both seem to recommend the subjugation of one’s own immediate and finite interests for the sake of some infinite or absolute good. In Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, this good is largely wrapped up with the rewards of the afterlife. At this relatively early stage in his work, punishment and reward function as the primary motivation for moral behavior. Why would one refrain from following one’s immediate inclinations if not for the hope of something better to come as long as one does so? Since God is the being that is capable of meting out rewards and punishments based on our behavior, and this does not seem to happen in “the sensible world,” we have a practical need to “assume” the existence of “God and a future life” (Kant 1998: A 811/B 839). Putting all of this together, Kant says, “without a God and a world that is now not visible to us but is hoped for, the majestic ideas of morality are, to be sure, objects of approbation and admiration but not incentives for resolve and realization” (Kant 1998: A 813/B 841). In other words, even if we cannot prove that God exists, we need God and the justice he brings to the universe in order to motivate moral behavior (cf. Pasternack 2011: 305–6). Not only does belief in God bring with it the possibility of infinite personal gain in a future world, it also makes possible the absolute value of living in a moral universe. After further developing his moral theory in subsequent work, most notably the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals and the Critique of Practical Reason, Kant provides an argument for belief in God that does not rely so heavily on the desired personal outcome of moral behavior, but more so on the nature and demands of morality itself. We do not need to believe in God in the hope of some future reward, but because God’s existence helps us understand how morality works. Without getting into all of the specifics of his more mature view of moral matters, the main difference is that in this later work morality is more intimately bound up with the Highest Good; the latter is necessary in order for the former to make sense (Kant 1997: 5:114). Morality would be undermined if people did not get what they deserve (good or bad) in the long run. Despite its somewhat different role here, as we see in the first Critique (e.g. Kant 1998: A 810/B 838), the Highest Good is simply moral worth dictating the final distribution of happiness.7 And following a similar line of reasoning, God and the afterlife remain necessary for making this distribution possible. Since pure practical reason establishes the moral law in accordance with the Highest Good, humans are justified, practically speaking, in ­postulating (and even longing for) what is necessary to make it happen ­(cf. Pasternack 2012: 172n43). In Kant’s (1997: 5:134) words, “practical reason unavoidably requires the existence of [God and immortality] for

Early Arguments About the Desirability of Immortality  21 the possibility of its object, the highest good, which is absolutely necessary practically.” Only God is capable of justly pairing reward with desert, so belief in the existence of such a being is warranted. As Lawrence Pasternack (2011: 309) puts it: “In the case of God… the perfect distribution of happiness to moral worth requires that there is some being capable of evaluating worthiness and distributing rewards accordingly.” However, since “such a distribution does not seem to happen during life,” it is quite reasonable to hold that “there must be an afterlife” during which all wrongs will be righted, so to speak (Pasternack 2011: 309). While Kant continues on to offer further variations on this theme in the third Critique and beyond,8 it should be easy enough to see at this point what his discussions of the Highest Good and the Practical Postulates have in common with Pascal’s Wager. Both Pascal and Kant (at  least early on, in the latter case) contend that belief in God makes sense when considering the unlimited potential afterlife benefits, even if it means giving up something of more defined value in the here and now. In addition to this obvious similarity, Kant goes on to argue that belief in God and the afterlife is justifiable also when considering the absolute value of morality itself. Although Kant does not put either of these arguments in terms of gambling, he joins Pascal in suggesting that there are good reasons for such belief that have nothing to do with providing irrefutable evidence or theoretical proofs. But this is not the end of the links between them—their respective defenses of belief both offer the sort of practical justification for religion that Kierkegaard and Nietzsche find objectionable. Not only does this justification depend on disparaging ordinary mortal life as somehow insufficient, but it also trades in the kind of fantasy Nietzsche finds pathetic,9 and relies too heavily on rational calculation for Kierkegaard to tolerate.10

Schopenhauer’s Pessimism Schopenhauer is a bit different from the other thinkers considered in this chapter insofar as he argues that personal immortality is not at all attractive. It might even be fair to say that he is among the first of the immortality curmudgeons, if we keep in mind that this term applies specifically to those who doubt immortality’s desirability, and not merely its possibility or likelihood. But Schopenhauer goes much further than heaping scorn on immortal life; he actually makes the case that individual human existence of any duration is pretty pointless and miserable. In criticizing ordinary mortal life, his ideas and their impact on the thinkers associated with the existentialist tradition are perhaps not so different from what we have seen before. Kierkegaard only encountered the work of Schopenhauer in the last year or two of his life (cf. Stokes 2007: 68–9), but his journals express some qualified appreciation for some of the pessimistic views he finds there. Nonetheless, he ultimately has some of the same

22  Early Arguments About the Desirability of Immortality concerns about these views that will eventually drive Nietzsche away from Schopenhauer’s thought (see e.g. KJN 9: 380, 393–4/SKS 25: 376, 389–90). Unlike Kierkegaard, the young Nietzsche felt the profound influence of this quintessential philosophical pessimist before later managing to escape his intellectual thrall. In doing so, Nietzsche actually comes to see a fair amount of overlap in the views of Pascal and Schopenhauer. Following in Kant’s footsteps in certain ways, Schopenhauer distinguishes between the sole metaphysical reality, which he calls “will,” and the way we represent its mere manifestations. In animal form, will shows up as “will-to-live,” and it is responsible for all variety of phenomena and behaviors that are meant to serve the fundamental reality and preserve life. In the specific case of humans, this happens through brains that have developed to the point of self-awareness, and a corresponding conscious interest in self-preservation (i.e. fear of death) (Schopenhauer 1958: 491). However, the point of consciousness, according to Schopenhauer (1958: 478–84), is not so much to preserve the particular individual, as it is to prolong the life of the species. The problem is that, in order to be as effective as possible at self-maintenance in the service of the species (i.e. to make sure we live long enough to replace ourselves with more vigorous iterations), it helps for individuals to become quite attached to themselves. And, unfortunately, this attachment means that individual consciousness is prone to making the mistake of thinking there is something important about its particular existence. There is, thus, a serious difference between the way we think about the value of our lives, and the purpose of those lives in terms of the underlying natural forces of the universe. Schopenhauer recommends that we come to terms with this fundamental reality, and reject our attachment to our particular selves. Rather than remaining fixated on this “secondary phenomenon,” we should embrace what the major Indian philosophical/religious traditions see as the universal oneness, or interconnectedness, of all things (Schopenhauer 1958: 499, 507–8). Schopenhauer (1958: 491–2) drives his point home with a brutal assessment of individual human existence: the individuality of most people is so wretched and worthless that they actually lose nothing in [death]… To desire immortality for the individual is really the same as wanting to perpetuate an error for ever… something that it would be better should not be… This also finds confirmation in the fact that most, indeed really all, people are so constituted that they could not be happy, no matter in what world they might be placed. If individual existence is as miserable and pointless as Schopenhauer suggests, then all the more reason to detach from it. Not only is nirvana more in tune with the fundamental reality of the universe, but it is also

Early Arguments About the Desirability of Immortality  23 the way out of suffering for individuals who would never escape it otherwise.11 So how does all of this tie back in with Pascal and Nietzsche? For his part, Schopenhauer (1958: 615–6) associates Pascal’s personal asceticism with the sort of denial of the individual attachment to life that he praises as the primary insight of all religious traditions—even if Hinduism and Buddhism do a better job of explicitly acknowledging it. Once Nietzsche abandons his youthful adherence to Schopenhauerian pessimism about life, he sees Schopenhauer as sharing in Pascal’s (cf. 2005: S410/L378) self-abnegating tendencies. Nietzsche states, “In an important sense, Schopenhauer is the first to take up again the movement of Pascal: un monstre et un chaos, consequently something to be negated.—History, nature, man himself” (WP, section 83). And elsewhere he adds, “Schopenhauer… involutarily [sic] steps back into the seventeenth century—he is a modern Pascal, with Pascalian value judgments without Christianity. Schopenhauer was not strong enough for a new Yes” (WP, section 1017). On the more approving side of the comparison, what Nietzsche appreciates about the two of them is their shared disdain for the achievements and capabilities of ordinary humans left to their own devices. Nietzsche sees both Pascal and Schopenhauer as “higher, rarer men,” who are painfully aware of these shortcomings, while the ordinary members of the herd continue to take a thoughtless pride in their prescribed and pathetic accomplishments. He says, “The strong points of [such] men are the causes of their pessimistic gloom: the mediocre are, like the herd, little troubled with questions and conscience—cheerful. (On the gloominess of the strong: Pascal, Schopenhauer)” (WP, section 276; cf. Birault 1988: 283). The difference between them, as suggested by one of the passages quoted above, is that while Pascal believes Christianity offers some hope for the transformation and salvation of human life, Schopenhauer does not. Nonetheless, they both display the tendency to deny life in the present world, and, regardless of this tendency’s origins or corresponding hopes, Nietzsche finds it unacceptable. Schopenhauer’s more Indian ­pessimism, just like Pascal’s Christian version, prevents him from affirming (i.e. finding valuable) personal existence in the here and now (TI, “Expeditions of an Untimely Man”/section 21). Equipped with these brief overviews of the relevant ideas of certain influential precursors to the existentialist tradition, it should now be easier to understand some key points in the thought of Kierkegaard and Nietzsche as we begin to consider the various contributions these and other likeminded thinkers have to offer to the debate about the desirability of immortality. As it turns out, very few thinkers associated with the existentialist tradition (Unamuno is a notable exception) are as unabashedly pro-immortality as Pascal, Kant, and the version of Socrates we see in the

24  Early Arguments About the Desirability of Immortality Phaedo. These latter figures are perhaps the most obvious targets for the kinds of arguments raised by immortality curmudgeons like Williams, May, and Scheffler. What makes the 19th- and 20th-century continental luminaries discussed in the remainder of this book so compelling is that they suggest much more nuanced answers when it comes to questions about the value of radically extended, and even everlasting, lives. It would be very difficult to argue, based on what he says in his published work, that even an overtly religious thinker like Kierkegaard is a full-blown immortality enthusiast; but he and the various thinkers of existence that follow (and, in many cases, take inspiration from) him certainly do not rule out the possibility of meaningful life extension or immortality. And in their more subtle and open approach, they are able to advance a number of interesting ideas that actually prove helpful in defending immortality from the attacks of the curmudgeons.

2 Kierkegaard on Repeatable Pleasures, Perpetual Projects, and Risk

Kierkegaard has a great deal to say about immortality in his various writings. This is perhaps not very surprising since he is, like Pascal, an author thoroughly engaged with religious matters. To raise the question of the desirability of immortality, however, is not necessarily to participate in a religious conversation. As previously discussed, a cottage industry made up mostly of secular analytic philosophers debating the downsides of immortality, however it might be attained, has blossomed in the last few decades. Despite his somewhat different pedigree, this chapter will consider and reply to the growing number of attempts to insert Kierkegaard into these debates. It turns out that his views on not only immortality, but also boredom and what makes life of any length worth living are especially helpful for responding to immortality curmudgeons. The most prominent of these curmudgeons is, of course, Williams, who argues that an immortal of consistent character would necessarily become profoundly bored, and it would not even take very long for it to happen. When it comes to this and other related claims, Kierkegaard and his pseudonyms offer a number of reasons to think Williams and likeminded pessimists are mistaken. But before considering what Kierkegaard has to say, and what others have to say about Kierkegaard, it will be important to provide a more detailed account of why Williams thinks immortality would not be so great.

Boredom and Identity As we have seen, Williams sets up a perilous dilemma for anyone dreaming of immortality. In a life that goes on too long, he claims, one of two things must happen—either a person will maintain his or her identity, but become bored, or, in order to fend off boredom, this person will have to surrender his or her identity. But what does “identity” mean here? It ­primarily means “character” and it is largely bound up with the pursuits, projects, and goals, or what Williams calls “categorical desires,”1 with which one associates oneself. If my current categorical desires, and thus DOI: 10.4324/9781003281085-3

26  Repeatable Pleasures, Perpetual Projects, and Risk my identity or character, have to be abandoned in order to prevent future boredom, then it simply does not make sense for me to want such a future. The hypothetical future person, however engaged and enthusiastic, that results from taking on different categorical desires would not quite be me. Williams (1993: 83) states, it should clearly be me who lives forever… the state in which I survive should be one that, to me looking forward, will be adequately related, in the life it presents, to those aims I now have in wanting to survive at all… since I am propelled forward into longer life by categorical desires, what is promised must hold out some hopes for those desires. This identity condition might seem easy to ridicule at first glance. Surely, we do not become entirely new people after major upheavals such as failed marriages, career changes, or losing one’s faith.2 Looking a little closer, however, Williams’ point is about why we want to survive, about what would propel us forward into an immortality that we can actually hope for right now. If I want to go on living at this moment in order to be with my spouse, then the prospect of “playing the field” as a divorcée is not something that would be able to motivate me. In a sense, I would have to become a different person in order to want such a future. So this explains one half of Williams’ dilemma, but what about the idea that a person of consistent character would simply run out of interesting experiences and ways to find life worth living after only a few hundred years? The length of time here is surely debatable, but if Williams can make a compelling case that some finite number of years would do the trick, then genuine immortality (in which destruction is impossible) begins to look very unattractive. He argues that the limitations inherent in maintaining a consistent character will not allow for an unlimited amount of categorical desires. As soon as I have certain categorical desires, they preclude many others, and while some might be compatible with and even give rise to new ones, it seems to be the nature of categorical desires to exhaust themselves one way or another (often simply by realizing the object of one’s desire). In fact, Williams (1993: 87) cannot imagine a single categorical desire “guaranteed to be at every moment utterly absorbing.” Given such limitations, it seems impossible to avoid “the threat of monotony in eternal activities” (Williams 1993: 88). Thus, it appears that whichever horn of Williams’ dilemma gores you, it does not make much sense to hope for immortality.

The Importance of Repetition Since Williams’ seminal discussion, there have been quite a few challenges leveled at his argument. One effective way of responding consists of demonstrating that ordinary finite life already involves the same problems he

Repeatable Pleasures, Perpetual Projects, and Risk  27 calls attention to in lives that go on too long. If we can handle them in our present state, then we would manage just fine in an extended existence. More specifically, some thinkers go after Williams’ rather strict understanding of identity that does not seem to allow for even the sort of ­shifting interests we often see in lives of ordinary duration.3 For example, instead of demanding a rigid consistency of character and interests for the sake of preserving identity, which might only be possible in the very short term, Chappell argues that a meaningful human life of most durations is made up of a more loosely connected variety of projects and activities.4 As previously mentioned, she thinks a good human life is one in which a variety of projects and commitments are live at any given time… While these projects may be each of limited temporal duration, they do not all finish at once—they overlap like the threads in a rope. (Chappell 2007: 35) According to this indefinitely extending rope metaphor, some categorical desires can be exhausted, while others continue to seek fulfillment, and still others are being born. Even if the categorical desires of some future self do not directly overlap with the ones I have now, the unbroken series of overlapping projects and interests might be enough of a connection to make me identical to this future self. Furthermore, the possibility of constantly renewing categorical desires provided by this account seems enough to stave off indefinitely the boredom that worries Williams. In Chappell’s (2007: 39) words: “On this conception of personal identity… [one] would still count as the same person, because of the continuity—the unbroken overlapping of threads… life has both the variety and the constancy that… Williams require[s].” Chappell (2007: 39–40) goes on to mention that even if a person would eventually run out of entirely new things to do (which she deems unlikely), this does not rule out the viability of a very rewarding sort of repetition. It is Fischer, however, who discusses the issue of an indefinitely satisfying repetition in greater detail. He suggests that even if we eventually ran out of novel categorical desires, Williams gives us no compelling reason to think that all of our existing categorical desires are necessarily exhaustible. In fact, we have already seen that Fischer thinks many of the a­ ctivities we enjoy and look forward to the most are of the indefinitely repeatable variety. He wonders if “some of the proponents of the ­‘necessary boredom’ thesis tend to attend solely or primarily to the s­ elf-exhausting pleasures (and associated activities),” and adds, “But once it is seen that there are also repeatable pleasures, the prospects of a certain sort of immortality are not nearly so grim” (Fischer 2009: 86).5 Fischer takes it as fairly uncontroversial that both types of pleasures and activities are found in an ordinary finite existence and can be eagerly anticipated in such a way that

28  Repeatable Pleasures, Perpetual Projects, and Risk they “propel life forward” (to paraphrase Williams). So long as we do not arbitrarily set “radically different standards for immortal life and mortal life,” Fischer (2009: 90) believes that an indefinite existence consisting largely of repeatable pleasures and activities would be sufficiently attractive, even if hopes for pleasures of the self-exhausting sort dried up ­(however unlikely this may be). While it may be true that working on a PhD was only meaningful and motivating until it was completed, and that it is not an endeavor I would like to take on again, the same cannot be said of watching baseball, discussing the Star Wars universe, and “the pleasures of sex” (Fischer 2009: 85). Of course, even sex (and sex of the most appealing or amusing assortment) could get old if this was one’s only interest and one overindulged, but it is consistent with my character that I have a number of coexisting interests of the repeatable sort. If I engage each of them only periodically, and not at the same time, it seems possible that my life might be propelled forward indefinitely as I eagerly anticipate each new opportunity to participate in one of my favorite activities. Thus, even without a renewable source of pleasures or activities of the “self-exhausting” variety, it seems that the boredom horn of Williams’ dilemma can be avoided. Furthermore, because none of the repeatable interests are necessarily “out of ­character,” it would seem that Fischer has successfully dodged the identity horn as well. So far so good, but it is at this point that Kierkegaard is first brought into the conversation concerning the desirability of immortality. Fischer, making relatively little distinction between Kierkegaard and his pseudonyms, introduces him as a prime example of someone who might have doubts about the value of repeatable pleasures when it comes to shutting down immortality curmudgeons. Fischer does this based on the “Rotation of Crops” essay from Either/Or, in which the aesthete “A” considers something like Fischer’s own approach to fending off boredom (albeit not in relation to immortality) by rotating experiences in such a way that things remain interesting (or fertile, to stick with the crops metaphor). After mentioning a few claims from early in the essay about how boring (and susceptible to boredom) humans are, Fischer (2009: 88) accuses Kierkegaard of “underestimating the repeatable pleasures” because “even with the rotation method ‘A’ finds life boring.” Unfortunately, there are some problems with Fischer’s reading of­Either/Or­ that ­compromise the conclusions he comes to about Kierkegaard and his pseudonym. To begin with, while acknowledging that Kierkegaard’s overall interests might not be those of his pseudonym, Fischer (2009: 89) still holds (based solely on “Rotation of Crops”) that Kierkegaard “ignored the possibility of a range of pleasures” that give “reason to embrace immortal life.” The problem is that it is unclear what ideas can be attributed to Kierkegaard himself based on what his pseudonyms have to say. Kierkegaard explains that he creates pseudonymous authors that possess

Repeatable Pleasures, Perpetual Projects, and Risk  29 a “psychological consistency, which no factually actual person dares to allow himself” (CUP 1: [625]/SKS 7: 569). He also claims that his pseudonyms have their own sort of actuality and perspectives that do not directly correspond to his own; and he even goes so far as to disavow a direct relationship with the views of his creations when he says that “in the pseudonymous books there is not a single word by me” (CUP 1: [626]/SKS 7: 570). It certainly seems plausible that Kierkegaard would have some concerns about the crop rotation that “A” considers, but this is not necessarily because “A” may ultimately have doubts about the idea. Setting Kierkegaard aside for the moment, then, a more significant problem is that “A” never really comes to the conclusion that Fischer attributes to him. That is, he does not actually condemn the rotation method as incapable of combatting boredom. In fact, by the end of the essay he says that, “for many people, this method is an excellent means of stimulation” (EO 1: 300/SKS 2: 288). “A” certainly sees the dangers of boredom and recognizes the common tendency of human beings to end up bored, but he seems to be fairly enthusiastic about the prospects of the rotation method for preventing tedium, provided that it is properly grasped. Unlike Fischer, who focuses on what “A” would call the “vulgar, inartistic rotation” of the “extensive” external activities one might participate in (EO 1: 291/SKS 2: 281), “A” recommends a variation in internal attitudes toward whatever one might be doing. One way of putting this is that “The eye with which one sees actuality must be changed continually” (EO 1: 300/SKS 2: 288). Even if the range of external activities available to a person is somewhat limited, it seems that there is “rich material for amusement” (EO 1: 300/SKS 2: 289) of perhaps unlimited variety once these activities are multiplied by the countless moods and attitudes that can be brought to bear on them. An entertaining example of this internal attitudinal rotation involves “A” running into an acquaintance on a number of occasions and being forced to listen to his extremely boring little philosophical lectures over and over again. From an ordinary perspective this might seem like a kind of torture, but “A” is able to endure and even enjoy these encounters by coming to appreciate something about them that has nothing to do with the most obvious element of the activity (i.e. the content of the lectures). A change in outlook allows him to take immense pleasure in watching beads of sweat roll down the man’s face as he speaks, eventually meeting in “a quivering globule” on the end of his nose (EO 1: 299/SKS 2: 288). Now maybe the element of callousness in this story is a bit off-putting, but this pseudonym’s attention to even such minute and inessential nuances gives the impression that Kierkegaard might provide far more assistance than hindrance to someone fighting against the necessary boredom thesis. “A” may not be as enthusiastic about the sort of external repetition Fischer encourages, but the robust sense of internal rotation he advocates suggests that it was

30  Repeatable Pleasures, Perpetual Projects, and Risk Fischer (2009: 89), not Kierkegaard, who “ignored the possibility of a range of pleasures” that might offer even greater “reason to embrace immortal life.”6

Meaning Beyond Rotation While I think Fischer’s negative assessment of “Rotation of Crops” misses some of its most important elements, I also hold that “A” would ultimately take Fischer’s side against Williams. Interestingly, Iain Thomson and James Bodington (2014: 255), in their assault on the attractiveness of immortality, agree with Fischer’s analysis of “Rotation of Crops,” but claim that he ought to take more seriously “what the aesthete learns from the implosion of [his] strategy.” As I have explained, however, there is no reason to think that “A” believes the rotation method implodes, and so it is unclear what he could have learned from its failure. Side-stepping this rather straightforward problem with their account, what Thomson and Bodington seem to be getting at is a common reading of Kierkegaard’s early pseudonymous works taken as a whole, according to which a fatal flaw in the aesthetic way of life (boredom, allegedly, in this case) leads one to the ethical realm in search of something more reliably meaningful. Unfortunately for Thomson and Bodington, there is another complication for their account of what Kierkegaard is up to. Another notable reading, this time of Either/Or specifically, points out that no such fatal flaw (boredom or otherwise) is lamented in the massive aesthetic part of the book. While it is true that the second part, written by the pseudonym Judge William, offers a critique of the aesthetic way of life from the ethical perspective, there is no indication that such a critique would move a dyed-in-the-wool aesthete like “A” (any more than his defense of the aesthetic way of life moves the ethicist judge).7 Let us say for the sake of argument, however, that the Thomson and Bodington story about the progression through the stages or spheres of existence is viable. Playing it out to its conclusion, the ethical sphere also ends up having a fatal flaw, “and the implosion of the ethical leads to the ‘religious’ sphere of existence, in which one puts one’s unconditional faith in God, who can work miracles to resolve the otherwise irresolvable contradictions that make life absurd and lead us to despair” (Thomson and Bodington 2014: 255). Once the account arrives at the need for miracles in order to make existence enduringly meaningful, Thomson and Bodington feel comfortable side-lining Kierkegaard since (as I  acknowledged at the outset) the contemporary question of the desirability of immortality is more of a secular question motivated by technological progress. This bracketing suggests that Kierkegaard will not “be of much help” (Thomson and Bodington 2014: 255) to anyone who ­disagrees with their curmudgeonly suppositions, but I, once again, feel that Kierkegaard has a bit more to offer.

Repeatable Pleasures, Perpetual Projects, and Risk  31 There are at least a couple of additional reasons to think he can contribute to the conversation without having to rely on any explicitly religious doctrines. First of all, I wonder how the alleged progression through the stages might be affected if contemporary technological developments and near-future speculation were taken into consideration. If advancing to the ethical stage is supposed to be motivated largely by the inability of the aesthetic stage to provide one with durable meaning, my contention is that this so-called “progress” could be rendered unnecessary if technology makes personal immortality possible in the here and now. The problem with repeating, at appropriate intervals, what one personally finds pleasurable across a finite life is not to be found in the pleasurable activities themselves, but in the finitude; the ethical (exemplified by the commitment of marriage) offers a merely temporary individual the opportunity to be part of a tradition or community, which at least seems permanent in comparison with the individual experience. As Ian Duckles (2011: 228; cf. EO 2: 211/SKS 3: 203; Watkin 1990: 66, 71–2) explains, “Judge William rejects the aesthetic because it ties the individual to finitude while the ethical connects the individual to the infinite and eternal.”8 If one were able to maintain and enjoy one’s personal proclivities indefinitely, then there just would not be as much pressure to lose oneself in the ethical, let alone move on to the religious.9 Now I do not want to make too much of this point, because Kierkegaard  (unlike most of his pseudonyms) is ultimately a Christian thinker, and the notion of spending all eternity alternating ordinary worldly activities does not sound exactly like what Jesus or Paul were preaching. However, there is still another way Kierkegaard might support the prospects of meaningful immortality in the here and now without having to get overtly religious. Both Chappell and Wisnewski briefly express confusion about Williams’ apparent refusal to acknowledge that some categorical desires might in fact be inexhaustible. The former claims that there are some goods “that I can readily imagine carrying on without any necessary temporal limit emerging from the structure of my experience and enjoyment of [those] good[s]” (Chappell 2007: 42); and the ­latter argues that “we are entitled to reject the view (at least in some cases) that a categorical desire will of necessity exhaust itself” (Wisnewski 2005: 34). I think Kierkegaard identifies at least one project/categorical desire that is perpetually compelling, even without the benefit of rotation. In both his own name and via pseudonyms, Kierkegaard claims that the task of self-reflecting, and tinkering on oneself based on what the reflecting reveals, is something that cannot be finished or otherwise disposed of so long as one lives. Although our other more specific motivations might come and go (and eventually evaporate entirely, if Williams is right), there is no clear temporal limit to this one. According to the short discourse “At a Graveside,” when it comes to this project it does not matter “whether one is granted a lifetime to complete it well or only a brief

32  Repeatable Pleasures, Perpetual Projects, and Risk time to have begun it well” (TDIO 96/SKS 5: 464).10 The prospect of continual progress, and the ever-present concern that one might (even after long periods of sustained success) make mistakes and fail to be the sort of person one wants to be, especially given constantly shifting ­circumstances, provide precisely the sort of “momentum in life” (TDIO 83/SKS 5: 453) that Williams would demand from an inexhaustible categorical desire.11 One can never be an ideal or perfect person; there will always be another wrinkle to iron out, or at least the danger of one’s earlier efforts being undone and in need of further attention (cf. Ferrero 2015: 356). In Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments, Johannes Climacus builds on these ideas when he says, “the way of the ethical becomes exceedingly long… The more profoundly one makes it, the more one has to do”; it lasts “as long as life lasts” (CUP 1: 162–3/SKS 7: 150, 152). The ethical, in this context, is concerned with the cultivation of subjective selfhood—a personal determination and appropriation of ideals and actions that is to be distinguished from the kind of easy and uncritical “doing what one does” that people often fall into.12 This issue will be of great interest in the next section, but for now, it must be emphasized that while proper subjectivity is deemed necessary, throughout Kierkegaard’s writings, for the sake of a genuinely religious life, trying to cultivate it is not described as an exclusively religious task. It is a task for anyone who seeks a consistent and responsible sense of self. However, even if Thomson and Bodington (2014: 255) were too quick to remove Kierkegaard from the not-so-religious conversation about the desirability of immortality, they would still likely argue that “we have no way of knowing that truly immortal beings might not eventually exhaust [the] meaning” of the supposedly perpetual project he recommends to us.13 Neither Climacus nor Kierkegaard would deny that someone could feel that such meaning has been exhausted, but they would certainly deny that anyone must or should feel this way: “To be finished with life before life is finished with one is not to finish the task at all” (CUP 1: 164/SKS 7: 152).

Immortality as a Thought Experiment In fact, fears of boredom or other disenchantment with an immortal existence might be a sign of a personal shortcoming. While Kierkegaard turns out to be extremely helpful when it comes to defending immortality from those who think it would sap the meaning from life, Mark Wrathall makes the case that he also launches an offensive campaign against the motivations and character of the immortality curmudgeons themselves. This campaign begins right where we left off in the previous section, with Climacus explaining the importance of becoming a subjective thinker. As

Repeatable Pleasures, Perpetual Projects, and Risk  33 an aid in this becoming, he suggests a few topics to ponder—which Wrathall calls “thought experiments”—that can be particularly helpful for cultivating subjectivity. Among these topics is “what it means to be immortal” (CUP 1: 171/SKS 7: 158).14 People (philosophers and theologians especially) often get wrapped up in discussing the issue of immortality objectively, for example, by providing arguments for or against the possibility that humans in general might live on forever. Climacus, in tune with his ancient hero Socrates (specifically, the version from Plato’s Apology), redirects the inquiry and claims that each individual should instead ask “how he, existing, is to conduct himself in expressing his immortality, whether he actually does express it, and for the time being he is content with this task, which can easily be sufficient for a person’s lifetime, since it is to be sufficient for an eternity’’ (CUP 1: 177/SKS 7: 163; cf. CUP 1: 201–2/SKS 7: 184–5).15 But what exactly does it mean to express one’s immortality? Wrathall (2015: 435–6) provides a compelling analysis of what Climacus seems to have in mind: to imagine myself as living an immortal life requires me to determine whether my character is centered on something that will be eternally worthwhile—an aim worth pursuing forever, an affect worth having forever, and so on… I need to find in my personality and my individual way of pursuing meaning something that provides a normative distinction that I can embrace eternally. The thought experiment Climacus provides here involves answering the very personal question, “am I suited for immortality?” (Wrathall 2015: 434). It just does not matter much whether or not immortality is possible if one is not capable of a sustainably meaningful existence (cf. CUP 1: 176/ SKS 7: 162). It also does not matter much (at least not at this point in Climacus’ discussion) what this “eternally worthwhile” something might be. What does matter is that a negative answer to this question about being “suited for immortality” is not an indictment of the prospects of immortality itself, but rather a pessimistic statement about the quality of one’s own existence and the value of the projects that define it. For a healthy, coherent, and flourishing individual, thorough imaginative projection of life into the indefinite future would provide no reason to think that growing tired of oneself is inevitable. If, on the other hand, imagining oneself as immortal sounds terribly boring or otherwise horrible, as it does to someone like Williams, then one has an impoverished sense of who one is or could be. Again, in Wrathall’s (2015: 436–7) words, Suppose, for example, that I think the thought of immortality and ­realize that I find intolerably boring the prospect of endlessly repeating

34  Repeatable Pleasures, Perpetual Projects, and Risk the activities that now give structure to my life… what does my inevitable boredom show me about my character or personality?… Kierkegaard would suspect that those who are persuaded by “inherently unsuited for eternity”-type arguments are confessing to a kind of despair… [Such arguments] are persuasive to the degree they convince me that, within some finite time limit, I will no longer be able to tolerate being who I am… I learn whether I am well disposed enough toward who I am that I could imagine projecting myself forward indefinitely. Thinking about the meaning of immortality in this personal manner “is one way to exercise my capacity for reflective self-evaluation” (Wrathall 2015: 440), which I have already argued is a task meant to last however long life does, according to both Kierkegaard and Climacus. In addition to this broader purpose, the thought experiment more specifically suggests a way to detect flaws in how one attributes meaning to life that might go undetected if simply carried out over the course of an ordinary human lifespan. Just as Nietzsche does with his eternal recurrence scenario, Climacus’ treatment of immortality advances more exacting criteria for determining what constitutes a meaningful existence (Wrathall 2015: 437; cf. GS, section 341).

Risk and Value Thus far, the possibility that boredom would set in has been the primary worry about immortality under consideration in this chapter. Although Kierkegaard seems well positioned to dispel this particular worry, we have already seen in the introductory chapter that there are a number of other concerns raised by immortality curmudgeons. Several of them will be discussed in greater detail later in the book, but given what has been said up to this point, it seems there is at least one other naysaying argument to which Kierkegaard has a ready response. This is the argument that life is precious and meaningful primarily because of the constant danger of losing it. In a life without death, the meaning-laden risks we take in each course of action would go missing. Take, for example, the decision to run into a burning building in order to save someone. What makes this decision so significant (for the rescuer at least) is the fact that the rescuer is risking his or her own life. Contrary to what summer movie ticket sales might tell us, and obviously leaving aside the means of rescue, it is simply less remarkable when Superman saves someone than it is when a more fragile person does so. May (2009: 50), Nussbaum (1994: 227–9), and Scheffler (just to name a few of those mentioned previously) all offer versions of this risk argument.16 For instance, Scheffler (2013: 97) says that “In a life without death, the meaning of” many concepts currently associated with a good life “would be called into question,” including “health,

Repeatable Pleasures, Perpetual Projects, and Risk  35 gain, safety, security, and benefit.” Lacking concerns about health and safety, just to focus on a couple of examples, many of my decisions and actions would lose the ability to contribute much to the meaning of my life. Of course, one’s life is not the only thing at stake when deciding and acting in one’s present finite situation. In fact, even the proponents of the risk argument listed above acknowledge that there are many n ­ on-existential hazards that one might consider before choosing a course of action. When playing the game of office politics (which is, after all, not the Game of Thrones), my dignity and a pay increase might be on the line, but it is unlikely that my life is in jeopardy. And yet, many people still feel quite passionate about workplace drama and seem to find a great deal of significance in “climbing the ladder.” Why would our ability to find such things meaningful be any different if life had no end? The response of Nussbaum (1994: 229) and Scheffler (2013: 204) seems to be that the possibility of death provides our lives with a more profound background risk that underlies all of the more superficial risks associated with specific activities. If the sense of courage and sacrifice that we currently think is required to “do the right thing” in an office setting is derived from the more profound sense of courage and sacrifice associated with putting one’s life on the line, then it is questionable whether the activities of office politics could offer the same kind of value to an immortal.17 Perhaps Scheffler and company are right that the meaning of certain risks would evaporate or become unrecognizable, but Kolodny argues that other risks would only intensify in a life that cannot end. In this category, which was briefly touched on in the introductory chapter, we might find the risk of a life sentence in prison, the risk of losing someone’s affections, or the risk of being jettisoned into space. To be sure, all of these things would be pretty miserable in an ordinary finite life, but without the sweet relief of death the misery might be unimaginable. Kolodny (2013: 167) states, “Far from immortality removing risk, danger, and so forth… immortality would make risk and danger… crushing.” Given such intensification, avoiding these crushing scenarios would have to weigh heavily on all of our decisions and actions. I believe Kierkegaard provides one more example of a risk that could provide life with a great deal of significance, especially when there is no danger of dying. Just as there would be intensified pressure, given immortality, to avoid being sentenced to life in prison or jettisoned into space, Kierkegaard (or at least Climacus) thinks there would be intensified pressure to cultivate a character that one can tolerate being around forever. One may never be a finished and perfect person, but Wrathall’s characterization of Postscript’s immortality thought experiment suggests that one ought to project a sense of self that one can embrace and work on indefinitely. If one cannot die, then the prospect of failing to project such a sense of self, whether that means ultimately reaching the dead end of boredom, or worse, becoming the kind of person that one finds despicable, would

36  Repeatable Pleasures, Perpetual Projects, and Risk have to be fairly terrifying. Being an unredeemable asshole in a finite life sounds pretty bad, but “having to live with oneself for eternity” (Kolodny 2013: 167) sounds infinitely more unpleasant. The risk of being stuck with oneself in this way is both something that (at least some) people can relate to even as mortal beings,18 and serious enough that it would be hard for immortality curmudgeons of Scheffler’s stripe to dismiss it as insignificant in comparison with the risk of death.19 In addition to his more explicit discussions of immortality, Kierkegaard’s writings obviously provide a variety of other helpful insights to those interested in debating the merits of living forever. But why are these insights suddenly attracting more attention than they have before? I can think of a few reasons for this development, beginning with a growing interest in Kierkegaard generally and a corresponding diversification in the application of his ideas. It also helps that continental philosophers like myself, Thomson, and Wrathall are increasingly welcome in what have traditionally been purely analytic debates. And from the analytic side, it was Fischer’s attention nearly three decades ago, of course, that was the catalyst for Kierkegaard’s further involvement in this particular debate. While this expanding involvement is both interesting and laudable, Kierkegaard’s potential for contribution has not always been properly understood. It seems that certain interpretive errors and perhaps an oversimplification of his complex oeuvre are to blame for these misunderstandings. Once the details are cleared up, a more consistent picture of his views begins to emerge. Even if Kierkegaard, who does not take on the question of the desirability of immortality in exactly the same sense as Williams et al., comes down on neither side of the debate unequivocally, I think it is fair to suggest that he leans more in the direction of immortality enthusiasts like  Fischer. What is particularly compelling is the number of ways Kierkegaard’s ideas support the notion that living forever could indeed be meaningful and attractive. From the image of crop rotation to various claims about perpetual progress and the cultivation of responsible selfhood, Kierkegaard and his pseudonyms appear to be friends of immortality.

3 The Dark Side of Desire Nietzsche, Immortality, and the Roots of Transhumanism

Nietzsche has become embroiled in two interesting 21st-century debates that have to do with advancing technology and its impact on human life and its meaning/value. The first focuses on Nietzsche himself, and it is concerned with the extent to which his views line up with those of transhumanism. The second involves the not so blatantly Nietzsche-centric question of whether or not immortality, or radical life extension, is desirable. Given that the desire for immortality, or at least some more feasible (but not so permanent) approximation of it, is strongly associated with transhumanism, it would seem these two debates have some fairly significant overlap. And yet, they mostly carry on within their own little scholarly circles, avoiding any meaningful interaction.1 While the debate about Nietzsche’s proximity to transhumanism is likely to rage on no matter what, because of the many different points of contention concerning several key concepts in his work (most notably the Übermensch and the eternal recurrence), I cannot imagine how it would be possible to come to a reliable overall conclusion without first determining how he would respond to the immortality problem. Establishing what Nietzsche ultimately believes about (what has become) such a core transhumanist issue will go a long way toward providing an accurate assessment of how sympathetic he would be to the transhumanist cause in general. I will argue that while his views do not commit him to an all-encompassing disdain for immortality, his intolerance for immortality-seekers means he might only be open to some of the more fringe understandings of transhumanism. Before getting into Nietzsche’s actual ideas, though, it will be helpful to have a better sense of the two debates mentioned above and the role he plays in each of them.

The Transhumanist Agenda and the Desirability of Immortality It would be a mistake to suggest that transhumanism has a universally accepted set of core beliefs and goals. However, most of the scientists, philosophers, futurists, and science fiction enthusiasts who consider themselves to be transhumanists would agree they are interested in DOI: 10.4324/9781003281085-4

38  The Dark Side of Desire the radical enhancement of human being, the enhancement of all its psycho-physical capacities and functions in the way that specifically presupposes the application of non-traditional means, those of biomedicine (neuroscience, genetics, pharmacology) and those of technology (molecular nanotechnology, informational technology, ­ artificial intelligence, robotics). (Agatonović 2018: 430) More specifically, some common transhumanist goals—to be reached through hoped-for future medical/technological advances—include increased intelligence, physical strength and endurance, and longevity. In the latter case, the hope is that developments in cryonics, cellular medicine, cyborgization, and mind-mapping/-uploading will lead to much longer lives and (according to some) eventually to the elimination of necessary mortality.2 Given this brief characterization that highlights the transhumanist desire to overcome ordinary human capabilities and transition to higher forms of existence, one might start to notice certain parallels with the ideas found in Nietzsche’s work. This is what happened to Stefan Lorenz Sorgner (2009: 29), who says, “When I first became familiar with the transhumanist movement, I immediately thought that there were many fundamental similarities between transhumanism and Nietzsche’s philosophy, especially concerning the concept of the posthuman and that of Nietzsche’s overhuman.” But he is just talking about first impressions; upon further scrutiny, is it really fair to view transhumanists as aspiring Übermenschen? Well, it depends on whom you ask. After his initial observations, Sorgner (e.g. 2010; 2017a; 2017b) went on to become the greatest champion of the Nietzsche/transhumanist connection, repeatedly replying to an ever-growing number of critics of his position. By focusing on the elements of Nietzsche’s thought that seem most compatible with transhumanist ideas (e.g. certain descriptions of the Übermensch, certain pro-science claims, and opposition to dualistic metaphysical views of the sort found in many traditional religions), and de-emphasizing or radically reinterpreting less compatible elements (e.g. the elitist aspects of the Übermensch, certain critical claims about modern science, the apparent embrace of human mortality, and the notion of the eternal recurrence of the same), Sorgner and the handful of others who see things his way manage to produce a few interesting arguments about views and values shared by Nietzsche and transhumanists.3 The best example concerns a broad notion of education that encompasses both Nietzsche’s more classical sense of character cultivation, and also the technological interventions transhumanists propose for bringing about the enhancements they seek (see e.g. Sorgner 2010: 3–5; 2017b: section 8). Sorgner’s critics, on the other hand, tend to think that wanting to transcend ordinary human biological limitations demonstrates an interest in

The Dark Side of Desire  39 being superhuman in the cape and tights sense, but it is not exactly what Nietzsche has in mind when he discusses the creation of new ­life-affirming values. In fact, transhumanism seems entirely compatible with the herdlike mentality that uncritically props up traditional values. Michael Hauskeller (2010: 5–6) claims that Transhumanists may want to revaluate certain aspects of our existence, but they certainly do not, as Nietzsche did, advocate the revaluation of all present values. On the contrary, they emphasise the continuity between (past and present) humanist, (present) transhumanist, and (future) posthuman values and see themselves as defenders of the Enlightenment’s legacy against its modern (bioconservative) enemies. Furthermore, many construals of transhumanism actually seem predicated on the same sort of dissatisfaction with life and the suffering humans must endure while embodied in the world that is among the main problems for religions like Christianity and Buddhism. Numerous commentators remind us that Nietzsche famously chastises the values of these and other traditional religions (not to mention several secular ­philosophies) for this very pessimism about, and hostility toward, life in the world (see e.g. Graham 2002: 75–6; Hauskeller 2010: 6; Babich 2017: 123; Aydin 2017: 320; Tuncel 2017: 223–4; Woodward 2017: 237; Lipowicz 2019: 205–6). One common religious strategy for coping with the misery of life that Nietzsche finds particularly disturbing, as we know from Chapter 1, is the invention of an afterlife in which the faithful—i.e. those “ascetic” idealists who refuse to indulge in the goods of worldly existence—will be rewarded with a peaceful, pleasurable, and immortal existence. This is where things get interesting when thinking about transhumanists because, although they seem motivated by pessimism about the way things are now, the salvation they seek is not in some other realm no one has ever seen. Does this divergence from the traditional religious strategy spare transhumanism from Nietzsche’s withering criticism? Again, the answer seems to be: it depends on whom you ask. Sorgner (2009: 40) apparently thinks it does. In considering Nietzsche’s notion of eternal recurrence, he even suggests that “both Nietzsche and transhumanists reject the idea of an eternal afterlife in a transcendent world and develop concepts of a prolonged life within this world” (Sorgner 2010: 12). It is unclear how literally Sorgner means to take this notion—which seems quite a bit further removed from the kind of radical longevity transhumanists seek than Sorgner acknowledges—but, according to him, Nietzsche would not be opposed to transhumanists on the topic of life extension.4 At least one notable contributor to the debate about the desirability of immortality would beg to differ, but in order to appreciate the Nietzsche-related specifics of A. W. Moore’s argument, it will be important to see how Moore and Nietzsche fit into the larger debate.

40  The Dark Side of Desire Obviously, the catalyst for the ongoing, and relatively heated, discussion of this interesting philosophical problem was Williams’ claim that an immortal life—by which he really just seems to mean any radically extended life—would eventually end up irreparably boring for anyone who attempts to maintain a consistent character or identity. As we have seen and will continue to talk about in subsequent chapters, other immortality curmudgeons follow his lead in arguing that an immortal life would necessarily be devoid of recognizable meaning, not only because of boredom, but also due to lack of a clear life structure, a sense of mortal danger, and an ultimate deadline. While many of these curmudgeons are a bit friendlier to the possibility of radically extended (but still finite) lives, choosing instead to aim their arguments more explicitly at true god-like indestructibility, several other previously discussed thinkers who are more enthusiastic about the prospects of never-ending life defend even this extreme and rather unrealistic scenario, and thereby every other lesser version of extension. It is on the side of the curmudgeons, and Williams in particular, that Moore situates Nietzsche. Moore (2006: 327) claims that For Nietzsche… a life in which life itself was not always at issue, that is to say a life in which death was not always a possibility, would be a standing invitation for meaninglessness to reassert itself. Here… there  would be some sort of convergence between Nietzsche and Williams. Along the lines of what other curmudgeons think about the conditions necessary for meaning or value in general, Moore believes Nietzsche’s notion of creating new values requires a kind of riskiness and urgency that might go missing in genuine immortality. But even when talking about merely extended lives, however long they might last, Moore still sees in Nietzsche a Williams-esque concern. On his view, for both Williams and Nietzsche, the problem is that preserving one’s identity or character will inevitably preclude the novelty necessary to make life worth living. Although Nietzsche is not as concerned about boredom (more on this below), it would be difficult to generate new interpretations and values continually, while remaining firmly attached to the person one has been. In Moore’s (2006: 327) words: Where allowing the subject to die, in favour of those other subjects, would open up new possibilities of narrative, new opportunities for sense-making, and new ways of defying nihilism, preserving the subject would impose restrictions and constraints on subsequent ­ interpretation that would constitute an overall burden.

The Dark Side of Desire  41 I am not entirely convinced by Moore’s curmudgeonly view of Nietzsche, but I was not exactly persuaded by Sorgner’s suggestion that Nietzsche might be OK with transhumanist life extension ambitions either. At this point, it will be best to turn to Nietzsche himself, and see what he actually says about immortality and other relevant topics. Questions that will eventually require an answer include: Is he opposed to all longing for immortality/life extension, or is it really just the longing for the otherworldly variety that bothers him? And is he opposed to immortality/life extension itself, or just the pessimism and hostility about mortal life that lead people to desire something more?

Nietzsche on Life Affirmation, Novelty, and Immortality There is no doubt Nietzsche is highly critical of philosophies and religions that posit some kind of life to come in another world. Throughout the works of his last lucid decade, he offers a remarkably consistent judgment about them. In one late statement of some of his main concerns, Nietzsche argues: If one shifts the centre of gravity of life out of life into the “Beyond”— into­ nothingness—one has deprived life as such of its centre of gravity. The great lie of personal immortality destroys all rationality, all naturalness of instinct—all that is salutary, all that is life-furthering… So to live that there is no longer any meaning in living: that now becomes the “meaning” of life… Christianity has waged a war to the death against every feeling of reverence and distance between man and man… against everything noble, joyful, high-spirited on earth, against our happiness on earth. (AC, section 43) The two main takeaways from this passage, and the many others like it in Nietzsche’s writings,5 are that he puts no stock in the metaphysical views that underwrite notions of a personal afterlife, and that he believes these “lies” are dangerous obstacles to a healthy life in the world. Moving forward, I will focus my attention on the latter problem, but it should be noted that Nietzsche spends a lot of time cynically engaged in heaping scorn on the Christian “lies” themselves, and their origins in ancient myths, Platonic philosophy, and the “subterranean cults” that were active in the early days of the Church (see e.g. AC, section 37; D, section 72). He is particularly critical of the idea of hell, and the way Paul appropriated this fiction from preexisting movements, awkwardly appended it to Jesus’ teachings, and used it to coerce obedience to his cause while disrupting what had been a flourishing social order.6 According to Nietzsche, “he grasped that to disvalue ‘the world’ he needed the belief in immortality,

42  The Dark Side of Desire that the concept ‘Hell’ will master even Rome—that with the ‘Beyond’ one kills life” (AC, section 58). Although Christianity is often the target of his barbed remarks, Nietzsche makes a point of calling out various other traditions—whether or not they have a sense of personal immortality in some “real world” to come—for a similar hostility to life in this one. Hinduism and Buddhism, for example, do not escape unscathed, nor do “Western” philosophical luminaries such as Socrates, Plato, Pascal, Kant, and Schopenhauer.7 Given all of this shared criticism, it seems pretty clear that it is not the metaphysical make-believe itself that ultimately worries Nietzsche about Christianity, but rather its use of the afterlife—both hellish and h ­ eavenly—to disparage our accomplishments in the here and now. Even our best and most “righteous” actions in this “corrupt” and impermanent realm, we are told, really only matter in light of what they mean for the next one. However, afterlife or no, any movement or outlook that devalues the body, the only world we have, or life itself, because of sinfulness, transience, or any other perceived shortcoming, seems likely to face Nietzsche’s wrath. Instead of allowing our complaints about ubiquitous suffering, physical limitations, social inequality, or human mortality to embitter us toward life, Nietzsche argues that we ought to affirm “all that is questionable and terrible in existence,” and do something creative and interesting with it (TI, “‘Reason’ in Philosophy”/section 6; cf. EH, “Thus Spoke Zarathustra”/section 6). On the affirmation of our mortality in particular, Zarathustra proclaims, The consummated one dies his death, victorious, surrounded by those who hope and promise. Thus one should learn to die; and there should be no festival where such a dying person does not swear oaths to the living! To die thus is best… Free for death and free in death… Do not allow your death to be a slander against mankind and earth. (TSZ, “On Free Death”; cf. GS, section 278; TSZ, “Zarathustra’s Prologue”/section 3)8 Like his rejection of otherworldly immortality, his affirmation of worldly mortality is aimed at empowering and enriching life. But would it be possible to conceive of some worldly version of immortality, or even just radical longevity, that might also enrich life and encourage creativity? Without access to transhumanist ideas, Nietzsche seems to have thought of personal immortality and life extension mostly in terms of existence in some supernatural realm, but he does occasionally make some more general critical comments about immortality and its ­desirability. For example, in a section titled “To the dreamers of immortality,” Nietzsche states, “let us be indulgent towards a being of a mere seventy years!—he has not been able to imagine the ‘everlasting boredom’ he himself would experience—he has not had enough time to do

The Dark Side of Desire  43 so” (­ D, section 211). While this passage, which sounds as though it comes straight from Williams, might seem to settle the question of whether or not Nietzsche was an immortality curmudgeon, there are a few important mitigating factors to note. First, Nietzsche tends to reiterate ideas he finds important over and over again, but the sentiment expressed in this passage is not one he is in the habit of repeating. Second, it is a claim from a relatively early book (Daybreak) that still shows signs of his rapidly fading appreciation for the pessimistic views of Schopenhauer (1958: 491),9 who had himself anticipated Williams in arguing that the rigid unalterability and essential limitation of every individuality as such would, in the case of its endless duration, inevitably and ­necessarily produce ultimately such great weariness by its monotony, that we should prefer to become nothing, merely in order to be relieved of it.10 Third, it is often hard to tell how straightforwardly to take Nietzsche in his more hyperbolic moments, and this somewhat isolated/unique ­passage—in which he also claims that everyone else would get so sick of an actual immortal person that they would be driven into a suicidal rage—seems especially hyperbolic. Nonetheless, this last caveat actually points to a different Nietzschean problem with desiring immortality: very few of us would be worth preserving, despite what the democratic impulses of Christianity have to say. The vast majority of humans are not particularly impressive or interesting insofar as we just propagate traditional values uncritically, and there is little reason to believe we would do anything differently if we had more time (cf. Hauskeller 2010: 6–7; Stambler 2010: 17). In Nietzsche’s words: “Finally, they even want to have the ‘crown of eternal life,’ all these little provincial people: what for? why? it is the ultimate in presumption. An ‘immortal’ Peter: who could stand him?” (GM, 3rd essay/section 22; cf. AC, section 43). If one’s mortal life is not being used to create new values and meaning, to push at the boundaries of what has hitherto been thought and achieved, then it seems like immortality is simply beside the point. I believe this is an absolutely crucial issue for understanding Nietzsche’s views on immortality, and I will say more about it after discussing one other possible worry. As it turns out, there might be some reason to believe that immortality is, in fact, not beside the point, and that Nietzsche actually thinks a life that goes on too long would end up stunting creativity. The problem is that evidence for this interpretation—Moore’s interpretation—is somewhat scant and obscure. Consider the following passage from Beyond Good and Evil: Oh, what are you anyway, my written and painted thoughts! It was not long ago that you were still so colorful, young and malicious, so

44  The Dark Side of Desire full of thorns and secret spices that you made me sneeze and laugh— and now? You have already lost your novelty, and I am afraid that some of you are ready to turn into truths: they already look so immortal, so pathetically decent and upright, so boring! And was it ever any different? So, what subjects do we copy out and paint… we immortalizers of things that let themselves be written—what are the only things we can paint? Oh, only ever things that are about to wilt and lose their smell! Only ever storms that have exhausted themselves and are moving off, and feelings that are yellowed and late! Only ever birds that have flown and flown astray until they are tired and can be caught by hand… We only immortalize things that cannot live and fly for much longer, only tired and worn-out things! (BGE, section 296)11 Here Nietzsche claims that thoughts grow stale as time goes by, and that novelty is required to keep thinking fresh, creative, vibrant, and exciting. Nowhere, however, does he say one must literally die in order to make way for a new thinker who will bring about this requisite novelty; affirming death and destruction generally, perhaps in the service of physiological development or progress of the species (cf. EH, “The Birth of Tragedy”/ section 3; GM, 2nd essay/section 12), does not imply that some particular individual must actually die. It may well be the case that some future being who takes my place will generate new and exciting ideas, but it is also conceivable that a future version of myself, free of rigid adherence to old and stale views and values, will be just as creative and productive of novelty. Williams would obviously not agree that this future self would still be “me,” but I see little in Nietzsche to suggest he would get hung up on such concerns. What he actually says seems compatible with the notion of a life that continuously overcomes—or metaphorically “dies to”—old values that have run their course (cf. EH, “Thus Spoke Zarathustra”/section 5; HH, “Assorted Opinions and Maxims”/section 17). In fact, this seems like a good way to describe the life of the Übermensch (cf. Aydin 2017: 313–4). Having said all of this, I do not mean to give the impression that I think Nietzsche is secretly harboring hopes for the right form of immortality (for the right people) in the here and now. I think that even a form of immortality that manages to avoid the myriad difficulties plaguing the Christian version, if Nietzsche could have envisioned such a thing, would simply be beside the point for him. Since he is consumed with living intensely and creatively, how long life lasts just is not all that important (cf. Stambler 2010: 17–8; Steinmann 2017: 187–8). In a slightly different context, in a late unpublished note, Nietzsche asserts that “‘Permanence’ in itself, can have no value: that which ought to be preferred thereto would be a shorter life for the species, but a life richer in creations” (WPb, section 864). Not only does this idea fit in well with what he has said

The Dark Side of Desire  45 about individual life in the published writings cited above (also cf. TSZ, “On War and Warriors”), but it also gets at what I believe is his ultimate indifference to long life and (this-worldly) immortality. However, despite all we have seen so far, some would still argue that Nietzsche actually has a more invested disposition toward a certain kind of eternal life. Understanding this argument involves looking closer at one of his most significant and famous concepts.

Eternal Recurrence and Immortality There is a relatively small minority of Nietzsche scholars, led by Paul S. Loeb, which holds that he believes in the metaphysical reality of the eternal recurrence of the same—the idea that every event in the universe will repeat itself over and over again in exactly the same fashion. This is a somewhat controversial position that has had difficulty catching on with most commentators, given that the eternal recurrence is usually put in hypothetical and allegorical terms when it comes up in Nietzsche’s published writings (cf. Anderson 2017: section 6.3). In the earliest and most famous expression of this idea (in The Gay Science), Nietzsche poses the following scenario: What if some day or night a demon were to steal into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: “This life as you now live it and have lived it you will have to live once again and innumerable times again; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and sigh and everything unspeakably small or great in your life must return to you, all in the same succession and sequence…” Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: “You are a god, and never have I heard anything more divine.”… how well disposed would you have to become to yourself and to life to long for nothing more fervently than for this ultimate eternal confirmation and seal? (GS, section 341) Relying in part on a very literal and straightforward reading of such hypothetical and allegorical presentations of the eternal recurrence idea, Loeb makes his case that Nietzsche is actually a supporter of the kind of immortality in which one lives out the exact same finite life infinite times. Loeb (2017: 86–7, 90–9) focuses quite a bit on the various allusions to the idea in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, which is a fictional tale involving fictional (or at least fictionalized) characters whose words drip with metaphor, poetry, and symbolism. In sections such as “On the Vision and the Riddle” and “The Sleepwalker Song,” one can indeed find characters referring to the eternal recurrence, but it is unclear whether the reader is

46  The Dark Side of Desire meant to take from these interesting, but rather obscure, discussions some indication of Nietzsche’s actual metaphysical beliefs. Furthermore, there is nothing in these passages that definitively rules out the more common interpretation of the eternal recurrence scenario as a thought experiment­ meant to demonstrate the intensity of one’s appreciation for life. Loeb (2017: 87, 90) also relies pretty heavily on Nietzsche’s unpublished notes as evidence for the view that the scenario is no mere thought experiment (see e.g. WP, section 1066). Setting aside the fact that repeating the same life over and over again just is not the kind of personal immortality most transhumanists or immortality enthusiasts are interested in (cf. Moore 2006: 318–9; Smuts 2011: 143–4), the evidence Loeb finds in these notes is hardly beyond reproach. Acknowledging some of the same passages Loeb points to, Moore (2006: 319), for instance, thinks he can “lay to rest any notion that Nietzsche wants to defend the idea of a recurring cosmic cycle as a theory about the actual nature of the universe.” Moore goes on to say that “there are issues about what exactly Nietzsche is doing with these arguments. And in any case, the passages in question occur in The Will to Power,” which is a text cobbled together from his notes by his sister without his awareness. Besides the evidentiary issues, my main worry about Loeb’s account is that he makes it sound like Nietzsche is engaging in precisely the kind of metaphysical wishful thinking about immortality that he criticizes in other philosophers and philosophical/religious traditions. According to Loeb (2017: 86–8), this particular bit of metaphysical speculation is not problematic for Nietzsche because it is based on the science of the day. But even so, I am not sure such speculation would essentially differ from that of Late Medieval Christian apologists who relied on the dominant Aristotelian worldview to support their claims about all variety of dubious religious doctrines that Nietzsche mocks, including the existence of an afterlife.12 Loeb also seems to think that because the notion of eternal recurrence does not involve a “better world” in the great beyond, it is less likely to encourage complaining about this world. However, in his account of Zarathustra, Loeb (2017: 90) suggests that one of the reasons Nietzsche needs the notion of eternal recurrence to be true is to provide comfort in the face of mortality. Why would such comfort be necessary unless one was disappointed by, or had a complaint about, at least this one aspect of bodily life, as it appears in the world? In this case, the complaint stems from the apparent impermanence of the achievements of mortal existence, which has historically been one of the main motivations for the invention of immortality fantasies. The supposedly comforting idea here is that the endless repetition of one’s existence would guarantee that one’s accomplishments could not be swallowed up by an objectionable eternal nothingness. Given everything we saw in the previous section about embracing mortality and refusing to engage in denigrating the body, the world, and life itself, this does not seem like the most plausible

The Dark Side of Desire  47 account of what Nietzsche is up to in discussing eternal recurrence. If Loeb is right, Nietzsche would appear to be just another metaphysician with a highly speculative theory about a reality that includes posthumous preservation of individuals—just like Plato or Paul, but without the additional problems that come with the dualistic elements of their views.13 But Loeb is not the only thinker to offer a somewhat unorthodox reading of Nietzsche’s notion of eternal recurrence. Moore is also unconvinced by the standard thought-experiment reading, and puts forward his own rather interesting take. Like Loeb, he supports his position with unpublished notes from work Nietzsche never completed and likely never meant to, and Moore even relies on the same part of “On the Vision and the Riddle” from Zarathustra, although he sees in it something very different than Loeb does. (It should go without saying that the same c­ oncerns raised above about taking Zarathustra too literally, or the unpublished notes too seriously, still apply.) On Moore’s view, eternal recurrence in Nietzsche is not really about a recurring cosmic cycle, even if only intended as a thought-provoking scenario. Instead, the important idea (especially in “On the Vision and the Riddle”) is that each moment of life reflects the eternal past and the eternal future, but always from a slightly different perspective (Moore 2006: 322–3; cf. Parkes 1998: 95–6). Since eternity stretches in both directions, everything that can happen has happened and must happen again,14 but the continual generation of new perspectives… allows for the continual generation of new interpretations and new evaluations. Through these the past can be continually transformed, so that, although it keeps returning, it keeps returning differently. The past can be continually lived, continually developed, continually cultivated. (Moore 2006: 324) Moore’s fascinating account (which certainly resonates with what Kierkegaard’s pseudonym says in “Rotation of Crops”) of what he believes is Nietzsche’s attempt to attribute meaning and novelty to an existence that is always just more of the same has the virtue of not betraying Nietzsche’s other views in the way Loeb’s account seems to. However, it does depend quite heavily on a single, somewhat obscure, passage from one of Nietzsche’s most metaphorical, poetic, and symbolic texts. In the end, even if there is some merit to what Moore (or Loeb, for that matter) says, there is simply no denying that the dominant thoughtexperiment interpretation of Nietzsche’s discussion of the eternal r­ ecurrence is much harder to dismiss.15 This interpretation holds that Nietzsche intends to use the idea, as the passage quoted above from The Gay Science suggests, to determine “how well disposed… you have… become to yourself and to life.” The goal is to live a worthwhile life, which (according to the criteria Nietzsche introduces) is one that you would be proud and

48  The Dark Side of Desire ecstatic to have preserved in an endlessly recurring cycle, whether or not it actually will be. And this brings us back to Nietzsche’s ultimate indifference to (non-recurring) long life and this-worldly immortality. What the eternal recurrence thought experiment helps to illustrate is that however long life lasts, the most important thing is that one must be able to affirm and take ownership of it in its entirety. Although Nietzsche would not be a fan of immortal life, or even want a particularly long one, I cannot see any good reason to think he would necessarily disapprove of such a life. In fact, such disapproval would seem like an indication that he had failed to meet his own criteria for a worthwhile existence.

Not Quite a Curmudgeon or a Transhumanist After considering Nietzsche’s various claims about immortality, eternal recurrence, and other relevant issues, the evidence largely suggests he does not find immortality, or even life extension, desirable. Is it, then, fair to say he is an immortality curmudgeon, as Moore (in more sympathetic terms) claims? I think the answer to this question is: yes and no. Insofar as the curmudgeons are characterized as finding immortality, and in some cases even very long life, undesirable, Nietzsche seems to fit right in. However, while the curmudgeons predicate the undesirability on the meaninglessness of an existence that either cannot end or does not end soon enough, this is not really an issue that bothers Nietzsche all that much. As I have argued, his sense of meaning and value does not seem to be dependent on chronological finitude, let alone some specific number of years. His problem with the desirability of immortality is the desire itself, and the petty and hateful attitude toward mortal life that seems to accompany it every time it comes up. So what does Nietzsche’s stance on the desirability of immortality tell us about his proximity to transhumanism? Well, it seems highly unlikely he would support any formulation of transhumanism that includes, as one of its central hopes or desires, the extension of the human life span. Even though transhumanism obviously does not posit a traditional supernatural sense of an afterlife, some of its ideas are not so easy to distinguish from what Christianity or other traditions have in mind. For example, when it comes to mind-uploading, the hope is that we can live on (roughly) forever in a virtual realm in which we will be free of all the suffering and limitations that plague human beings in this unfair and corrupt world.16 The danger of such a hope, according to Nietzsche, is that it leads to a diminishing, disparaging, and devaluing of this world and the embodied life one is currently living in it.17 Indeed, as this ­example illustrates, the hope and the devaluing seem to go hand in hand. Furthermore, it is not at all clear, given both technological and conceptual problems (e.g. about the nature of personal identity), that this kind of non-supernatural (but still in some sense “otherworldly”) immortality is any more

The Dark Side of Desire  49 likely to be realized than the supernatural version propagated by Christianity and other religions.18 Thus, Nietzsche might view it as just one more troubling lie about the “beyond.” But mind-uploading is a pretty extreme example of what transhumanists hope to achieve. What about hoping for a more modest body-bound sort of life extension (perhaps with cyborg enhancements)? On the ­off-chance that it is somehow possible for certain transhumanists to maintain the intense life of affirmation and creation in the here and now that Nietzsche recommends while continuing to harbor hopes that it will not end, or at least not yet, then he might not be critical of these particular individuals. However, this attitude would seem to be a pretty uncommon and unstable one, and I think Nietzsche would always be suspicious that their hopes are coming at too high a cost, that transhumanism is leading them, in some sense, into the old bitter Christian trap (cf. Woodward 2017: 239). Of course, it is always possible to adopt a version of transhumanism that abandons hope for personal life extension, and perhaps Nietzsche would be more amenable to it. As mentioned in an earlier note, Sorgner (see e.g. 2010: 13) might be willing to bite this particular bullet, but it seems fair to suggest that most transhumanists would sooner call off the quest for the proverbial stamp of approval from Nietzsche than jettison one of their most dearly held goals. Throughout this chapter I have argued that, when it comes to living a worthwhile life, Nietzsche’s emphasis is on certain qualities and not at all on quantity (which he is predominantly indifferent about). If a person just happened to be immortal, this fact alone would not determine, one way or the other, the potential for cultivating value in his or her existence. For Nietzsche, so long as a life is lived affirmatively and creatively, it makes no difference if the individual living it continues to exist or not. Short life, long life, radically extended life, immortal life, or eternally recurring life—it simply does not matter; (like Kierkegaard in some ways) Nietzsche advocates making something of oneself that is worth having around for any length of time, or any number of times. And this is what really distinguishes him from transhumanists, or at least most transhumanists, because for them the amount of time matters a great deal. Without his support for such an important part of their agenda, it is hard to believe transhumanists would find in Nietzsche a genuine ally. However, none of my conclusions rule out the possibility of transhumanists using aspects of Nietzsche’s thought to stimulate and defend all kinds of ideas. In the course of suggesting that the notion of eternal recurrence might not be very helpful to transhumanists, Russell Blackford (2017: 203) makes a similar point: “this in no way precludes them from taking inspiration from whatever they find attractive in any of Nietzsche’s work.” Sorgner is obviously someone who finds a great deal attractive,

50  The Dark Side of Desire and he invests a lot of time and effort in trying to tie Nietzsche and transhumanism together. While not every one of his arguments is entirely compelling (in part because he engages in a bit of cherry-picking), he makes a few really interesting connections. It would appear that he will need to be satisfied with this somewhat limited accomplishment, because his larger project flounders once radical life extension and immortality come up. Given a more evenhanded overview of Nietzsche’s thoughts on these topics, and the fact that most transhumanists are unlikely to abandon their core concerns, Sorgner’s broader claims wedding Nietzsche and transhumanism just cannot be true.

4 Unamuno on Having the Strength to Long for Personal Immortality

In Tragic Sense of Life, Unamuno claims that longing for immortality is what motivates nearly all of human behavior. However, in a world in which many people despair of ever achieving true personal immortality, they increasingly turn to what he calls mere “shadow[s] of immortality” for comforting ideas about how our names, energy, or basic material substance will carry on in our absence (TSL 47, 52). Unamuno advocates fighting against such despair, staying out of the shadows, and longing for personal immortality even when it seems impossible: “he above all deserves immortality who desires it passionately and even in the face of reason” (TSL 265). On these topics, Unamuno has a lot in common with Kierkegaard; their similarity becomes especially apparent when considering Unamuno’s views on preparing to continue on indefinitely, despite uncertainty, and acting as though it would be a great injustice if death turns out to be a definitive end. Unamuno’s relationship with Nietzsche is just as interesting, given that complaining about such injustice is precisely what the latter despises about immortality-seekers. Nietzsche thinks it is a pathetic waste of the only lives we do have to spend them feeling slighted because this is all we get. He sees longing for immortality as a sign of being too weak to make the most of mortal life, while Unamuno counters that it is a sign of strong appreciation for life to demand, without surrender, that there be more of it. I do not think they are quite as far apart as it may initially appear, but exploring Unamuno’s critique will help clarify how exactly he might fit into the contemporary desirability of immortality debate. I will make the case that Unamuno would see a curmudgeonly attitude toward immortality as indicative of a flawed character and an impoverished relationship with life.

What We Really Want In making assertions such as “Nothing is real that is not eternal,” Unamuno sounds a lot like the Socrates of Plato’s Phaedo (TSL 39; cf. Candelaria 2012: 49). And like that version of Socrates, he also sees a clear connection between a life’s meaning and what happens to a person DOI: 10.4324/9781003281085-5

52  Strength to Long for Personal Immortality at its conclusion. As one commentator puts it, “For Unamuno there is no meaning in this life if there is not another life in which the self he currently is remains” (Evans 2013b: 60; cf. Ariso 2017: 91; Culpepper 1961: 280; Evans 2013a: 48). In Unamuno’s own words: If at the death of the body which sustains me… my consciousness returns to the absolute unconsciousness from which it sprang, and if a like fate befalls all my brothers in humanity, then is our toil-worn human race nothing but a fatidical procession of phantoms, going from nothingness to nothingness… If we all die utterly, wherefore does everything exist?… it is the Wherefore that corrodes the marrow of the soul… our thirst of immortality, of survival, will always stifle in us this pitiful enjoyment of the life that passes and abides not. (TSL 42–4) This tethering of the hope for personal meaning to the prolongation of the person suggests that Unamuno would have some affinity for the position I laid out, with the help of Andreyev’s Lazarus, in the introductory chapter.1 However, Unamuno goes a bit further than I did there. Whereas I remained somewhat cautious in my conclusions about the potential for meaning in immortality, knowing that I would need to spend subsequent chapters carefully rebutting curmudgeonly arguments, Unamuno seems like an enthusiastic advocate of what Metz (2003) calls “The Immortality Requirement for Life’s Meaning.”2 It will eventually be necessary to consider what Unamuno might have had to say to contemporary curmudgeons, if given the opportunity to encounter them, but his enthusiasm for immortality should be more thoroughly explained first. Unamuno believes that every human being longs for immortality, and he cites the ubiquity of commemorative rituals and religious traditions as evidence supporting this belief (TSL 41). We simply cannot tolerate the notion that we will be entirely swallowed up by nothingness. It is not pride, however, that drives this intolerance, “but terror of extinction” (TSL 57; cf. 47). Unamuno even claims that total annihilation is more abhorrent to him than the everlasting torments of hell: “It is better to live in pain than to cease to be in peace” (TSL 43–4).3 But even those who do not share this rather extreme, and perhaps naïve, sentiment, would have to admit that many of their attitudes and behaviors seem directed toward their own preservation in some form or another.4 In the modern world, where traditional beliefs about the immortality of the soul no longer seem viable, people still have children and create works of art and literature in the hopes of passing on a genetic legacy or etching their names in the history books. We may not always be fully cognizant of the nature of these hopes, but Unamuno sees them all as manifestations of the human hunger for immortality. He states, “When doubts invade us and cloud our faith in the immortality of the soul, a vigorous and painful impulse is given to the anxiety to perpetuate our name and fame, to grasp at least a

Strength to Long for Personal Immortality  53 shadow of immortality” (TSL 52; cf. 46, 51, 55–6).5 One other “shadow” Unamuno considers is the tendency of certain religious and philosophical worldviews to offer comfort in the face of personal annihilation through pan(en)theistic or monistic “tricks” that promise preservation in the allencompassing mind of God, or conservation of mass and energy in the universe (TSL 46–7, 57).6 What all of these “shadows” have in common is that they just do not get at what we really want when we grow nervous about our impending annihilation (cf. Candelaria 2012: 55–6; Evans 2013b: 64). It is for this reason that I previously referred to them as consolation prizes.7 What we really want, when we are desperately trying to preserve something of ourselves through any means available, is personal immortality. As Unamuno famously puts it, I do not want to die—no; I neither want to die nor do I want to want to die; I want to live for ever and ever and ever. I want this “I” to live—this poor “I” that I am and that I feel myself to be here and now, and therefore the problem of the duration of my soul, of my own soul, tortures me. (TSL 45) It is worth noting that, although he frequently speaks of the soul, which suggests a desire for immortality in some kind of an afterlife that only God can provide (cf. Candelaria 2012: 49), there is nothing in this passage that clearly rules out the kind of technologically achieved life extension that most transhumanists hope for. In fact, if Unamuno had known about cryonics, cyborgization, and the types of medical interventions hypothesized these days, he may very well have been on board.8 He seems to be a strong advocate for bodily longevity (see e.g. TSL 47; cf. Culpepper 1961: 285), and, unlike the Socrates of Plato’s Phaedo, he does not seem all that opposed to continuing on in something like worldly life. Unamuno states, “What we really long for after death is to go on living this life, this same mortal life, but without its ills, without its tedium, and without death” (TSL 231). Since many of the medical/technological interventions proposed by transhumanists are meant to eliminate life’s various ills, and thinkers such as Chappell, Fischer, and Kierkegaard have convincingly argued that tedium need not be a serious concern in lives of any length, it seems plausible that the kind of immortality/life extension Unamuno describes can be desired by the religious and the irreligious alike.

Death and Injustice Of course, whether or not the technological limitations of his era are part of the explanation, Unamuno simply does not place his hopes for personal immortality in scientific advancement. From his conflicted religious perspective, science, and reason in general, seem to work against these

54  Strength to Long for Personal Immortality hopes (cf. Baker 1990: 44; Evans 2013a: 50; Weinstein 1976: 47). According to Unamuno, It must remain established… that reason—human reason—within its limits, not only does not prove rationally that the soul is immortal… it proves rather… that the individual consciousness cannot persist after the death of the physical organism upon which it depends. And these limits, within which I say that human reason proves this, are the limits of rationality, of what is known by demonstration. Beyond these limits is the irrational, which, whether it be called the superrational or the infra-rational or the contra-rational, is all the same thing. Beyond these limits is the absurd… And this absurd can only base itself upon the most absolute uncertainty. (TSL 103–4; cf. 90)9 Unwilling to be constrained by rationality’s borders, Unamuno is able to remain open to something like a faithful way of life (cf. Kant 1998: B xxx). For him, “uncertainty, doubt, perpetual wrestling with the mystery of our final destiny… may be the basis of an ethic” (TSL 261).10 In combination with Unamuno’s desperate need not to be utterly annihilated, his preservation of uncertainty about what will actually happen when he dies is what makes it possible for him to attribute meaning to his life (cf. Baker 1990: 47; Culpepper 1961: 281). As we have seen, if he were absolutely certain of annihilation, he would be thoroughly convinced his life is pointless. So, his uncertainty about it provides an opportunity for him to act as though his life matters. There are at least two crucial, and not entirely unrelated, ways of doing this. First, even if it seems unlikely that death will lead to an unending flow of experience that is continuous with the personal consciousness of ordinary mortal life, the essential task for each of us is to live like we deserve to carry on. Paraphrasing Étienne Pivert de Senancour, Unamuno states, “If it is nothingness that awaits us, let us make an injustice of it; let us fight against destiny, even though without hope of victory; let us fight against it quixotically” (TSL 268). Like a Don Quixote mixed with Dylan Thomas,11 Unamuno advocates a contra-rational refusal to go quietly, even though such a refusal will not change the facts of one’s situation (cf.  Cummings 2017: 141). Every individual is somewhat unique, and Unamuno thinks it would be a shame—maybe even a crime—if the universe were just snuffing out each unique perspective one by one. His response to such a thought is to fight to be more unique, more irreplaceable, so the injustice of exterminating him, and the corresponding indictment of the universe, will be greater. You should “Act so that in your own judgement and in the judgement of others you may merit eternity, act so that you may become irreplaceable, act so that you may not merit death” (TSL 263). What Unamuno seems to have in mind here is something like

Strength to Long for Personal Immortality  55 Christian service to others—the more others depend on us and value our contributions to their lives, the worse it will be if the universe permanently takes us away. This indispensability becomes a kind of argument for not taking us away. Importantly, the kind of service to others Unamuno recommends is not reserved for the religious or political elite and can be engaged in regardless of one’s occupation or station in life. Even the shoemaker can make himself so indispensable that others will see his death as a great ­injustice—e.g. by caring so intensely for their foot-related worries that they can be free to focus on the deeper questions in their lives (see TSL 273–4). Not many people see their work like this, almost as a religious calling; in most cases we do the bare minimum to get paid. By focusing in this way on how we go about whatever it is we happen to be doing,12 Unamuno, not unlike Kierkegaard in “At a Graveside,” thinks it is possible to attribute a hint of meaning to our lives even if all the signs suggest we are approaching utter destruction and meaninglessness. At least we will be worthy of more if the signs turn out to be wrong. But this is not the only relevant connection between Kierkegaard and Unamuno. The latter’s other way of acting as though his life matters involves struggling to respond to his reasonable doubts about personal immortality with desire and hope, instead of “resignation” or agnosticism. Unamuno can understand those who believe personal immortality does not have reason and evidence on its side, but he simply cannot relate to those who abandon desire for it (even if they still harbor hopes for some “shadow of immortality”) (TSL 266–8; cf. Culpepper 1961: 289–90). In fact, as Kierkegaard’s Climacus suggests, the failure to desire immortality might be an indication of a character flaw or moral failing; Unamuno calls it “wicked.” Both Climacus and Unamuno see life as an opportunity to take self-ownership and mold oneself into something unique and worthwhile (cf. Evans 2013b: 59). According to Culpepper (1961: 286–7; cf. 284, 294–5), Unamuno has a view of the person as being produced by life and therefore as being in process of formation up to one’s death… the end of life is to make for one’s self a soul. Man comes to the end of life with his self being formed. He passes through death to a life beyond which is in keeping with what he has become thus far. Giving up on the desire for personal immortality means giving up on the self one has spent an entire lifetime working on, the self that is the sole locus of meaning for Unamuno. More specifically, it means giving up on the project of self-development, which has the potential to generate meaning indefinitely (yet another point of agreement with Climacus). The immortality Unamuno longs for consists “of a continual discovery of the Truth, of a ceaseless act of learning involving an effort which keeps

56  Strength to Long for Personal Immortality the sense of personal consciousness continually active” (TSL 229). If we do not fashion a self that we want to continue cultivating throughout life and even beyond death, then we simply have not done a very good job of self-cultivation.

Running Afoul of Nietzsche Having seen something of Unamuno’s relationship with Kierkegaard on the topic of immortality, what about the relationship with his other existentialist precursor? The most obvious thing to say here is that Nietzsche would probably see in Unamuno just another Kant, Pascal, or Socrates from Plato’s Phaedo. Like these earlier figures, Unamuno certainly seems both critical of life that ends in annihilative death, and led by his criticisms into desiring a postmortem afterlife. It is not that Unamuno is caught up in the old metaphysical fantasies of everlasting life, which Nietzsche so mercilessly mocks; whatever he ultimately hopes for, Unamuno has his fair share of doubts about all of that. What would seem to drive a lasting wedge between them is that Unamuno has such a hard time accepting a life that cannot give him exactly what he wants. Whereas Nietzsche looks to affirm his existence—including its limitations and so-called “shortcomings”—in passionate creativity, Unamuno cannot ­ seem to get over his disappointment at the thought that his personal being will probably have a permanent conclusion. If my speculative application of Nietzsche’s ideas to a thinker he never had the chance ­to encounter is accurate, I believe his ultimate conclusion about Unamuno would be that, like Pascal, the Spaniard’s strength—his will to affirm his existence—has been sapped and “depraved by his Christianity” (AC, ­section 5).13 But even though Unamuno is undeniably another “dreamer of immortality” (to use Nietzsche’s expression) in some sense,14 it does not mean that this Nietzschean critique is entirely fair. What sets Unamuno apart from Kant, Pascal, Socrates from Plato’s Phaedo, and most understandings of Christianity is that his hope for future life is not so thoroughly predicated on the perceived shortcomings of ordinary mortal life. Obviously, Unamuno sees annihilative death as a serious shortcoming (even an injustice), and he is not insensitive to life’s “ills,” but overall, he is actually quite supportive of life in the world. The sort of immortality he craves would be both bodily and continuous in many ways with the life he is living up until the moment of death.15 From his perspective, the desire for more life springs from a deep appreciation for the worldly existence he already has and the self he is using it to cultivate. It would be difficult to find a similar appreciation in the earlier figures Nietzsche picks on. I do not mean to suggest that this important difference should spare Unamuno from all of Nietzsche’s attacks, but the latter should at least recognize a certain affinity in their shared lust for life.

Strength to Long for Personal Immortality  57 In fact, Unamuno seems to think it is Nietzsche who comes up short in the “lust for life” department. The latter turns out to be one of those “wicked” individuals who allow reason to persuade them to abandon desire for personal immortality and replace it with some pathetic “shadow of immortality.” According to Unamuno’s critical account of Nietzsche: His heart craved the eternal All while his head convinced him of nothingness… Bursting with his own self, he wished himself unending and dreamed his theory of eternal recurrence, a sorry counterfeit of immortality… And there are some who say that his is the philosophy of strong men! No, it is not. My health and my strength urge me to perpetuate myself. His is the doctrine of weaklings who aspire to be strong, but not of the strong who are strong. Only the feeble resign themselves to final death and substitute some other desire for the longing for personal immortality. In the strong the zeal for perpetuity overrides the doubt of realizing it, and their superabundance of life overflows upon the other side of death. (TSL 50–1; cf. 231)16 So, from Unamuno’s point of view, Nietzsche is the dreamer who invented an outlandish metaphysical scenario because he could not accept going entirely out of existence. In Nietzsche’s case (which differs from Unamuno’s “dreaming”), if he only had the strength to continue the inexhaustible project of self-development, he would not so easily have given up hope for its continuation, and the invention of the eternal recurrence would not have felt so necessary.17 Despite his exuberant claims about creative self-cultivation, Unamuno thinks Nietzsche simply does not have the will to keep it up forever. Just as the Nietzschean critique of Unamuno was slightly off target, it is probably fair to say that Unamuno’s assessment of Nietzsche is not exactly a direct hit either. Unamuno’s very literal interpretation of the eternal recurrence idea (see TSL 100–1), which lines up almost perfectly with Loeb’s (despite their opposing appraisals of the idea), is particularly problematic. As explained in the previous chapter, such a literal reading is less than convincing both because of the questionable evidence supporting it, and because it implausibly makes Nietzsche into a hypocrite. Nietzsche ruthlessly ridicules outlandish metaphysical scenarios meant to provide comfort to people nervous about their mortality. It simply does not make sense that he would intentionally and unironically turn around and propose his very own comforting fantasy, and it is not a very charitable reading of his ideas to suggest he contradicted himself unwittingly. The more sensible and fair interpretation is that Nietzsche means the eternal recurrence idea as a kind of thought experiment, not to be taken literally, but useful for testing how affirmatively disposed one is toward the self one has become and the life that has been spent cultivating it.

58  Strength to Long for Personal Immortality If running it all back again, over and over, in every minute detail sounds good to you (whether or not you believe it will actually happen), then you have passed the test. Seen in this way, Unamuno is wrong to suggest introducing the eternal recurrence is proof Nietzsche is chasing some “shadow of immortality.” However, he is not necessarily wrong to suggest Nietzsche is a little too willing to surrender his life when there is still meaningful work to be done. Like Unamuno, Nietzsche wants to encourage a strong and passionate appreciation for life, but in one notable sense, he does not seem to want it as much as Unamuno. Nietzsche is preoccupied with the quality of life and is somewhat indifferent as to its length. This is not to say that he wants his life to end or thinks mortality generates some sort of essential value in his life; so long as life is lived in the right way, death, longevity, and mortality are just kind of irrelevant. Given Unamuno’s rather intense interest in continuing to work on himself, he obviously sees these issues as very relevant, but this difference between them is not as profound as it might seem when he is taking Nietzsche to task. After all, neither of them is actually opposed to personal immortality. But if Unamuno would have little tolerance for the “take it or leave it” attitude I attribute to Nietzsche, he would have far more serious concerns about the decidedly “leave it” views of the immortality curmudgeons.

Giving Up on Oneself Before finally getting into the weeds of Unamuno’s hypothetical response to immortality curmudgeons, one other important question remains: how have his ideas been treated in the desirability of immortality debate? His famous “I do not want to die… I want to live for ever and ever and ever” declaration is quoted occasionally by thinkers on both sides of the debate, but especially by those on the curmudgeonly side. It is, after all, a succinct and fairly straightforward example of the view naysayers about worthwhile immortality mean to undermine. Unfortunately, beyond this superficial exemplary role, Unamuno’s more nuanced ideas related to the desirability of immortality are rarely given thorough attention.18 One notable exception can be found in the closing pages of Williams’ groundbreaking curmudgeonly analysis. After quoting Unamuno’s declaration, and distinguishing its message from other views discussed earlier in his paper, Williams (1993: 91–2) appears to settle on an interpretation that suggests Unamuno simply wants to exist for the sake of mere existence. This is a position that Williams finds hard to accept or even understand: “his desire to remain alive extends an almost incomprehensible distance.” What he finds especially troubling is Unamuno’s preference for the eternal torments of hell over personal extinction. While I can sympathize with his struggle to wrap his mind around that particular claim, I am not sure Williams’ overall reading is the most accurate or charitable one

Strength to Long for Personal Immortality  59 available. As we know, what makes life worth living for Williams are categorical desires; they define who we are and give us reason to go on, even if doing so means we will have to endure suffering. The problem with categorical desires, according to Williams, is that no one can maintain personal identity forever without exhausting them. In the eventual absence of categorical desires, Williams cannot believe Unamuno would really prefer to suffer endlessly just so he can prolong an empty existence. Why endure pointless suffering if personal annihilation is an option? The mistake I see in Williams’ account of Unamuno’s position gets back to the argument I made in Chapter 2. Like Kierkegaard, Unamuno believes there is at least one categorical desire that cannot be exhausted: the project of self-cultivation (which, in Unamuno’s case, partially involves making oneself indispensable to others). Because a thoughtful and responsible person can always rely on this project to give meaning to life, by Williams’ own logic, it is not so ridiculous to go on suffering. Williams obviously does not consider this kind of inexhaustible categorical desire, and he might even complain that too much self-development is somehow incompatible with his very strict standard of personal identity, but I  have already pointed out that there are good reasons to reject this standard.19 It should be clear by now that Williams is not someone who sees a lot of potential in individual human beings. He thinks we would be doing well if we are able to keep life worth living for a typical human lifespan. After that, he thinks it is relatively easy for us to grow weary of personal existence. This is no mild Nietzschean indifference, but a full-blown pessimism about the prospects for meaning in radically extended life and immortality. When it comes to this type of curmudgeonly pessimism, Williams is probably at the high end of the scale, but insofar as curmudgeons in general tend to think it is impossible for a truly immortal life to be worth living, they fail to recognize the full value of the kind of selfmaking project Unamuno recommends. At some point or another in an extended lifetime, they will all give up on themselves (by which I mean they, by their own admission, will cease to see value in their lives), or at least they assume they will. This is the greatest sin against oneself, according to Unamuno; relinquishing a fundamental human task with indefinite potential after some finite amount of time suggests an impoverished sense of who one is or could be. However, what Unamuno does not explicitly discuss, and what I would argue makes curmudgeons far more problematic on his view than someone like Nietzsche, is the attack against the desirability of immortality itself. Nietzsche attacks the desire for immortality (mostly because it is often predicated on disparaging ordinary mortal life in the world), and this is bad enough, but to attack its desirability, i.e. the (potential for) value of immortality, is an additional transgression that shows an even more profound lack of faith in one’s capabilities for growth and improvement.20

60  Strength to Long for Personal Immortality Setting Nietzsche aside, then, if Unamuno had encountered the contemporary curmudgeonly tendency, I suspect he would diagnose it as an even more acute form of the despair he sees in those who feel compelled by reason and evidence to abandon hope for personal immortality (often exchanging it for the more modest comforts of one of its impersonal “shadows”).21 These poor souls “resign [themselves] to fate” and say, “since we are not immortal [in the personal sense], do not let us want to be so” (TSL 50). There is certainly a hint of “sour grapes” and bad faith in this kind of claim, in denying that one wants something only when it appears one cannot have it anyway, but the curmudgeons seem to take the “sour grapes” a step further. It is as though they say, “since we are not immortal, do not let us want to be so, and in fact, immortality is not really worth wanting in the first place.” This addition becomes necessary as curmudgeons, rather than merely resigning themselves to mortality, lash out argumentatively in “hostility” and “spite,” to use Unamuno’s terms. From his perspective, it looks like they are personally bitter about being unable to hope for something more, and also like they inflict their bitterness on those who dare to preserve such hope for themselves. This might not be an entirely fair assessment of the motivations of every curmudgeon, and I do not want to follow Unamuno too far down the psychologizing rabbit hole, but it does not seem too outrageous to believe there might be a kernel of truth to it in at least some cases. A charitable interpretation would not simply assume that curmudgeons have such bitter motivations when they produce arguments against the desirability of immortality, but I think it is worth mentioning that this is a possibility self-reflective curmudgeons should be on guard against.22 Of all the thinkers associated with the existentialist tradition, especially those discussed in this book, Unamuno is the most openly desirous of personal immortality. His intense expression of desire for it, despite his awareness that reason and evidence cast doubt upon its possibility, is almost certainly what makes his views on the matter more susceptible to criticism than those of Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and, as we will see, Heidegger. However, what Unamuno has in common with his more northerly existentialist comrades—a focus on the cultivation of selfhood in an uncertain/indeterminate world—is ultimately what makes him another compelling (albeit underappreciated) contributor to the desirability of immortality debate. Furthermore, when it comes to criticism, Unamuno demonstrates that he can give as good as he gets. He knows that if he wants to see his personal consciousness persist eternally, he will need to envision a self capable of perpetual progress, and this will turn out to be precisely what immortality curmudgeons have a hard time doing. As if in anticipation of their arguments, Unamuno seems to go on

Strength to Long for Personal Immortality  61 the offensive as he raises troubling questions that could be posed to them about the nature of their approach to life and their polemical motivations. While it will be necessary, moving forward, to revert to a more even-handed construal of the pessimists who follow Williams, it will be helpful to keep in mind that the curmudgeonly tendency of Scheffler and  others may not always come from a place of neutral intellectual curiosity.

5 Heidegger on Finitude and Value

In the third lecture of his provocative and increasingly influential Death and the Afterlife, Scheffler joins what Fischer (2013: 350) has disparagingly called “the Parade of the Immortality Curmudgeons.” In Scheffler’s case, the idea is that a life without end would be undesirable because the value or meaning we often attribute to life depends upon its temporal finitude. Without the urgency provided by an impending deadline, the orienting stages often experienced between birth and death, and the sense of risk and caution in the face of potentially premature demise, he finds it hard to believe the things we ordinarily value about human life would continue to be meaningful. Although not entirely without precedent, his account is (as I have previously suggested) importantly different from Williams’ better-known boredom argument. Scheffler is not so worried about the danger of tedium in lives that go on too long, which obviously includes immortal lives. Rather, his concern is that “an eternal life would, in a sense, be no life at all” (Scheffler 2013: 95). As was the case for the earlier continental thinkers, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and Unamuno, the contemporary analytic debate about the desirability of immortality pays relatively little attention to the extremely relevant views of Heidegger, who famously introduces the notion of human life (or something like it) as essentially “Being-towards-death.”1 On its surface this idea appears to line up quite nicely with the account Scheffler provides, and, in fact, on the rare occasions Heidegger’s name comes up in the surrounding literature, it is usually placed on a list of likely immortality curmudgeons. When properly understood, however, it turns out that his sense of the importance of death for structuring the meaning of life allows for a rather uncurmudgeonly view of immortality. Since I think Scheffler and those with similar sentiments are unnecessarily pessimistic about the prospects of an unending life, I would like to consider the critical and corrective insights the often-misunderstood and (in this context at least) mostly neglected Heidegger has to offer. In order to see how he might help to curb the pessimism, it will first be necessary to dig a little deeper into some of the key curmudgeonly arguments I have only briefly touched on so DOI: 10.4324/9781003281085-6

Heidegger on Finitude and Value  63 far; and before doing that, it will be helpful to say a bit more about exactly what is meant when speaking about immortality.2

The Higher Bar: God-like Immortality As mentioned in passing in preceding chapters, many post-Williams curmudgeons focus more on the problems of a life that cannot end than on the drawbacks of a life that need not end (cf. Fischer 2013: 337). I find it fascinating that there is so much interest in discussing a god-like immortality in which destruction is impossible,3 when most of the scenarios that make this general line of inquiry more than just idle speculation offer more down-to-earth possibilities of medical or other technological advances that, at best, render human finitude merely unnecessary. Maybe a life that cannot end would cease to be meaningful, but the more ­pressing issue (if any issue related to unlikely future technological breakthroughs can be called “pressing”) is whether we could continue to find value in indefinitely extended, yet still potentially finite, lives. On this issue, immortality enthusiasts seem to face less opposition. Despite his focus on criticizing god-like immortality, Scheffler, for example, briefly mentions the indefinite extension scenario in a footnote and acknowledges that it complicates the conclusions he comes to about the important role of temporal finitude in the creation of human values.4 The specifics of these conclusions, and how he arrives at them, will of course need to be discussed in greater detail below, but what Scheffler recognizes in his marginal digression is that this scenario is compatible with the sorts of temporal finitude arguments he relies upon. In his words, cases of mere indefinite life extension “raise the question of whether what we really need is actually to die or only to be subject to the possibility of death” (Scheffler 2013: 95). I am not so sure that this question-raising means Scheffler would ultimately embrace indefinite life extension, but if immortality curmudgeons are willing to concede that this more flexible sense of immortality might not be so problematic—because it allows for the sorts of limitations and risks that they see as making possible the significance of ordinary finite life—then much of my disagreement with their position will simply evaporate. For my part, I am more amenable to the idea that only some types of immortality, which are probably unattainable anyway, would be truly undesirable or meaningless. There are two reasons, however, that the present discussion cannot be curtailed by this hypothetical compromise. The first is that some opponents of immortality continue to have reservations about really long lives that would or could still end at some point. Williams, who does not explicitly distinguish between types of immortality (cf. Rosati 2013: 359), is an obvious example. But even if one is not as concerned about the likelihood of boredom setting in, one might still worry that the longer life

64  Heidegger on Finitude and Value gets, the harder it is to relate to given current human limitations and the values we have that depend on them.5 New norms and values may be formed over the course of million year lives, but they might no longer be recognizably human—they might no longer be what have traditionally made our lives meaningful. My immediate response to this worry is that given the choice, I would rather take my chances with the possibility of finding new norms and values than begrudgingly embrace death in the next few decades so that I can retain my old ones; and if this opens up the chance of becoming somehow inhuman, or just ending up disenchanted, then so be it. But, after further reflection, I wonder if I perhaps lack the proper perspective for such a bold claim, and perhaps I can offer a more nuanced response anyway. At what point in the extension of a life would our sense of meaningfulness begin to crumble? Williams’ Elina Makropulos is sick of life after more than 300 years, and despite strong curmudgeonly sympathy, Seana Valentine Shiffrin (2013: 146) acknowledges that she would happily take an extra hundred years. What about 1,000? 10,000? 100,000? One might shy away from the big numbers because one thinks they are beyond our current abilities to relate to, but the point is that the moment at which life would no longer be recognizably valuable seems somewhat arbitrary or dependent upon individual constitution and preferences (not to mention future developments). Personally, I am unconvinced that my most cherished values would necessarily fade after any amount of time. A major component of attributing meaning to my life, which seems unlikely to be lost in the indefinite extension scenario, is the taking on of projects. While I would imagine my projects might change dramatically over a million years, especially in the sense that their scope would become grander, I do not see why having projects in general would necessarily lose its appeal; and if I am right, this would make my indefinitely long life importantly comparable to my finite one. I will return to some of these ideas later in the chapter (and in later chapters). The second (and, as it turns out, probably more important) reason why I cannot abandon my criticism of those who base their immortality pessimism on the perceived necessity of temporal limitations, even if they share some of my hope for indefinite life extension, is that I am not so sure I ultimately agree that a god-like immortality would be meaningless. Although a life that must go on and on would be, in a notable respect, qualitatively different from both a finite life and an indefinite one, I wonder if these lives would be all that different in the ways that really matter. And, of course, if necessarily infinite life could be meaningful, then most lingering doubts about a merely indefinite life would be assuaged. Setting aside what I take to be the more realistic sense of immortality then, it will be necessary in what follows to consider what sorts of death-related limitations thinkers like Scheffler find indispensable for a meaningful existence, and how a god-like immortality that cannot end seems to dispense

Heidegger on Finitude and Value  65 with them to the peril of such existence. That is, it will be necessary to focus on the “higher bar” of god-like immortality and examine what elements of meaningful existence it seems to lack.

Stages, Risk, and Urgency There are clearly a number of reasons why philosophers have argued that the meaning of human lives depends on those very lives being snuffed out, but we do not need to rehearse them all again here since other thinkers have provided helpful catalogues (e.g. Fischer 2013), and I consider several noteworthy cases in other chapters. Nonetheless, there are three main arguments that are especially relevant to the present discussion of Heidegger and the significance of temporal limitations: the stages argument, the risk argument, and the urgency argument. The stages argument claims that human values are dependent upon and organized by the stage of life in which one finds oneself. As Scheffler (2013: 96) puts it, “Our collective understanding of the range of goals, activities, and pursuits that are available to a person, the challenges he faces, and the satisfactions that he may reasonably hope for are all indexed to these stages.” Of course, the specific stages might vary from place to place, or era to era, but, Scheffler emphasizes, they always begin with birth and end in death. While particular activities and goals derive their meaning from the stage they belong to, the particular stage one is in makes sense largely in reference to a complete normal series of stages that ultimately comes to a conclusion. The problem Scheffler sees in an infinite life is that there can be no notion of a complete series. It is certainly possible that an infinite life might still have stages of some sort, but without such completeness, the significance of these stages, and the values they generate, would be essentially different from what ordinary finite human lives are founded upon (Scheffler 2013: 203). A related idea suggests that the meaning of a human life is essentially narrative in structure. According to this view, given that stories generally require endings in order to make sense (although there may be different ways of telling stories), a human life would not be properly meaningful if it just dragged on forever without arriving at a point (cf. May 2009: 68, 72). Endings shed light after the fact on the plans and activities that came before. In explaining the narrativity thesis, Rosati (2013: 376) claims that “whether a person successfully completes a project or fails… affects the welfare value of her life by determining whether her earlier efforts were vindicated or wasted.” Furthermore, the kind of ending that death ­provides seems to fix or permanently define the value of a life, insofar as no sequel is possible and nothing more can be added: “If a life is to be good for the person living it, it must play out and conclude a successful narrative arc, thereby resolving in a satisfying way what to think and feel about that life, considered as a whole” (Rosati 2013: 376; cf. Fischer

66  Heidegger on Finitude and Value 2013: 347). In a life that has no possible conclusion, it seems the meaning  of our decisions and actions would always remain somewhat indeterminate.6 The risk argument, which was already discussed in some detail in connection with Kierkegaard, holds that human lives derive much of their meaning from the constant danger of premature death. Although we know on some level that death will eventually come for us, we spend our lives weighing risks and taking chances (or not) in the shadow of its everpresent possibility. For example, I might go out with friends in the middle of winter even though it is flu season, and I could get sick, or I might not take that trip to Egypt due to concerns about civil unrest. As we have seen, Scheffler claims that many of our fundamental concepts related to health and security would be disrupted, or even cease to make much sense, if our lives could not end, and Nussbaum says much the same thing about more abstract ideals like courage, moderation, and justice. With such concepts compromised, they think that decisions about whether to socialize or travel to unstable destinations just do not matter as much. This may be true, but, as in the case of life stages, Scheffler and various others (see e.g. Bortolotti 2010: 46–7; Ferrero 2015: 361–2) do acknowledge that some kinds of risk—e.g. losing one’s job—might still persist even in an infinite existence.7 Nonetheless, given that our current understanding of these risks, and the values associated with them, have been formed against the backdrop of finite life, it might be a mistake to suppose infinite beings would have similar notions and cares. The urgency argument relies upon the idea that value and scarcity go hand in hand—it says that human values can only exist if there are l­ imited opportunities for our pursuits. “Every human decision is made,” according to Scheffler (2013: 99), “against the background of the limits imposed by the ultimate scarce resource, time”; “our assignments of value are a response to the limits of time.” In a life that cannot end, in which time is no longer scarce, there would be less need to prioritize certain activities over others, or rule any out altogether. There is nothing that one could not eventually get around to under such circumstances, and so it seems that nothing one might do would matter as much. May (2009: 63; cf. Nussbaum 1994: 229; Smuts 2011: 140–1) explains that “the urgency we associate with our engagements, and urgency that stems from the fact that sooner or later we will have lost the time to complete or at least to participate in them, goes missing in immortality.” Now someone might counter that having unlimited time is not the same thing as being absolutely free from all chronological constraints; after all, as Lisa Bortolotti (2010: 46), Kolodny (2013: 168), and Thompson (2019: 257–8) have suggested, certain activities have temporal deadlines built right into them. Roald Amundsen only had so much time to plant his flag at the South Pole before someone else could beat him to it. While Scheffler (2013: 99, 206) grants that this sort of example might add a bit of temporal scarcity,

Heidegger on Finitude and Value  67 and therefore urgency and value, to an infinite life, he is unconvinced that this much weaker, and merely situational, limitation would lead (on its own) to the kinds of values humans have developed in the face of the more profound and all-encompassing scarcity caused by death. Having presented several of the major cases for thinking that a godlike immortality would undermine the specific values and general sense of meaning that exist in ordinary finite human life, we are now in a position to consider some rebuttals. In fact, the beginnings of some possible responses by immortality enthusiasts have already been put forward (and subsequently, but perhaps prematurely, rejected by curmudgeons like Scheffler) along the way. The problem I mentioned at the outset, however, is that some of the best sources available for generating thoughtful responses have been ignored, or at least misunderstood. As will become clear, making the effort to get Heidegger straight will show immortality enthusiasts that they might find a hint of support where at first glance they saw only more opposition.

Being-towards-death Just as he says about Nietzsche, Moore (2006: 327) claims that “for Heidegger, a life in which life itself was not always at issue, that is to say a life in which death was not always a possibility, would be a standing invitation for meaninglessness to reassert itself.” Chappell (2007: 35) adds: “Some people—perhaps the Heidegger of Being and Time is one— will respond that a life without death at the end of it would be meaningless because it would be shapeless.” Passing comments like these (see also Fischer 2013: 340; Holmen 2018: 141–2; Ribeiro 2011: 51), from proponents and critics of immortality alike, are really all that has been said about Heidegger in the course of the debate about its desirability. My hope for this chapter is twofold: while I ultimately want to undermine the arguments of the curmudgeons that have been presented so far, I also want to correct this somewhat problematic reading of Heidegger so that I might enlist him in my subversive efforts. It seems to be quite common to see him as arguing that death provides the limit or boundary necessary to give life shape and meaning, but I believe the reverse is true of his notion of death as “a way to be” (BT 245); it is meant to demonstrate a kind of indefiniteness and thereby liberate individuals, rather than constrict and define them. A life surely has its limitations, but, according to Heidegger, these come primarily from other aspects of existence—aspects that would not necessarily be threatened by immortality.8 Heidegger’s main goal in Being and Time is to provide a phenomenological account of what exactly a human is without importing the assumptions or narrow scope of inquiry that the various sciences take for granted. Thus, rather than considering the biological characteristics of a species or the theological implications of God’s creation, for example,

68  Heidegger on Finitude and Value Heidegger is interested in the much broader project of describing the way existence generally shows up for beings like us—especially our own ­existence. Even the word “human” is too loaded with biological and anthropological baggage for his purely phenomenological project, so he adopts the term “Dasein,” which stands for the sort of “entity which understands what it is to be” (Guignon 1983: 68); it is the entity that is capable of having a meaningful existence (BT 151). Embarking on his quest, then, to provide a thorough characterization of Dasein, problems arise once it appears that “there is in every case something still outstanding” about it (BT 233). As Dasein shows up to itself (or, in more common terms, as I  experience my life), there is never a conclusion, and so, it seems the task of providing a thorough account of Dasein cannot be completed. In line with Epicurus’ (1994: section 125) famous observation that “when we exist, death is not yet present, and when death is present, then we do not exist,” Heidegger adopts the view that death, at least in the ordinary sense of the cessation of life, is not a part of existence (cf. Watts 2011: 103); “Dasein” literally means “being-there,” while death actually means not being there.9 Heidegger avoids this apparent difficulty by pursuing a complete structural account of the way Dasein is “in-the-world,” rather than a description of what transpires between the literal birth and death of this entity. The latter type of inquiry would seem to have the shape of a biology, physiology, anthropology, or some other science that deals with a specific sense of human development, and this is precisely what Heidegger says he is not interested in seeking (BT 247–8). Instead, he spends much of Being and Time making a case that Dasein can be understood in its entirety as “ahead-of-itself-Being-already-in-(the-world) as Being-alongside (entities encountered within-the-world)” (BT 192). This is what he calls Dasein’s “care structure,” and he says that “the authentic potentiality-for-Being-awhole­becomes visible as a mode of care… In terms of temporality, the articulated structural totality of Dasein’s Being as care first becomes ­existentially intelligible” (BT 234). Dasein is a moving into and relating to its rather indefinite future from its current set of involvements, which has arisen from a fairly defined background or past. It is the moving forward, or “ahead-of-itself,” characteristic of Dasein that Heidegger somewhat misleadingly discusses in terms of “Being-towards-death.”10 I  say “misleadingly” because this expression might give the impression that Heidegger is especially concerned with Dasein’s end point, when his emphasis is in fact on the “Being-towards.” Although death in the sense of “Dasein’s own concluding event” is not part of existence, death in the sense of “a way to be towards future possibilities” very much is. Heidegger states, The “ending” which we have in view when we speak of death, does not signify Dasein’s Being-at-an-end [Zu-Ende-sein], but a

Heidegger on Finitude and Value  69 Being-towards-the-end [Sein zum Ende] of this entity. Death is a way to be, which Dasein takes over as soon as it is. (BT 245) This distinction has been one of the most difficult issues to grasp for scholars of Heidegger’s thought, if the disagreement and confusion in the secondary literature is any indication.11 Sartre is among the first (and perhaps the most notable) in a long line of critics and commentators to struggle with it when he conflates Heidegger’s sense of proper Beingtowards-death with waiting for biological demise. In attempting to criticize Heidegger, Sartre argues that Sudden death is undetermined and by definition can not be waited for at any date; it always, in fact, includes the possibility that we shall die in surprise before the awaited date and consequently that our waiting may be, qua waiting, a deception or that we shall survive beyond this date; in the latter case since we were only this waiting, we shall outlive ourselves. (BN 686) Piotr Hoffman (1983: 82, 107–8) wonders if Sartre “has missed Heidegger’s point” given that Heidegger’s more technical use of “death” has nothing to do with an event that can be waited for at an uncertain time (cf.  Schumacher 2011: 99), but refers instead to a way of being toward available possibilities, however long one exists. The interesting thing about Sartre’s mistaken critique of Heidegger is that he ends up relying on something like the Epicurean position Heidegger has already granted. For example, Sartre states, Thus death haunts me at the very heart of each of my projects as their inevitable reverse side. But precisely because this “reverse” is to be assumed not as my possibility but as the possibility that there are for me no longer any possibilities, it does not penetrate me… Death is not an obstacle to my projects… And this is not because death does not limit my freedom but because freedom never encounters this limit… Since death escapes my projects because it is unrealizable, I myself escape death in my very project. Since death is always beyond my subjectivity, there is no place for it in my subjectivity. (BN 700) This passage sounds precisely like something Heidegger would agree to when it comes to the event of physical passing away. What Sartre and numerous others seem to miss is the fact that Heidegger has moved on to another way of talking about death in which it does come to mingle with life.

70  Heidegger on Finitude and Value Now, this is not to say that Heidegger is completely uninterested in talking about the more ordinary sense of death. He actually thinks reflection upon common everyday issues and the often-thoughtless ways we respond to them can provide some indication of the structure or form of Dasein. Frank Schalow (1994: 311) describes Heidegger’s method of “formal indication” as looking to everyday “factical life as the inroad for developing concepts to bring what is hidden on a pre-philosophical level to an explicit philosophical understanding.” The important thing to notice about this method is that while reflecting on common ideas, such as “everyone must die,” can highlight aspects of existence that often go unseen, the common ideas themselves are not the deepest and most essential insights about what we are. As suggested above, it is not having an end point that essentially defines Dasein, but rather its forward projection as long as it exists. Unsurprisingly, it is through thinking about the often-uncritical and disowned everyday attitudes toward death that Heidegger is able to get a handle on the nature and significance of this projection. For example, he draws attention to the everyday failure to acknowledge that physical demise can come at any moment and that it often disrupts the projects and relationships one cares so much about (BT 258). Just to be clear, it is not the fact that we can expire that makes it true that our specific engagements can be dissolved at any moment. This is always true; I can always sever ties and abandon projects. Heidegger simply finds reflection on the cessation of life helpful (perhaps as a sort of reminder) for bringing this truth into the light. Some might wonder about the point of harping on about something so obvious, but, as Heidegger’s observations of everydayness suggest, we do not always pay attention to the obvious. Instead, we tend to get wrapped up in our day-to-day affairs, rarely giving even a moment’s thought to our impending doom. When death does occasionally force itself onto our radar, we do our best to remove the bogey as quickly as possible and get back to life as usual. Thinking through this ordinary situation leads Heidegger to the conclusion that it is not any specific projects or relationships that allow Dasein to find itself meaningful, but rather its capacity for engaging in them. Despite various pressures (especially social and cultural) to see certain items, associations, and activities as necessary for living a good and meaningful life, the fact that one’s engagements can be dissolved at any moment is an indication that they are perhaps not so compulsory after all. For Dasein, it seems the only thing necessary is that it “at the most basic level is a reaching forward into possibilities” (Guignon 2011: 197); and realizing this has a liberating effect. Consider the following, admittedly very obscure, passage: Death, as possibility, gives Dasein nothing to be “actualized”, nothing which Dasein, as actual, could itself be. It is the possibility of

Heidegger on Finitude and Value  71 the impossibility of every way of comporting oneself towards anything… the anticipation of this possibility… signifies the possibility of the measureless impossibility of existence. In accordance with its essence, this possibility offers no support for becoming intent on something, “picturing” to oneself the actuality which is possible, and so forgetting its possibility. Being-towards-death, as anticipation of possibility, is what first makes this possibility possible, and sets it free as possibility. (BT 262) What Heidegger is getting at here is that Dasein, as Being-towards-death, has a sort of freedom in the sense that it is somewhat indeterminate when it comes to its specific engagements in the world. Hubert L. Dreyfus (1991: 312; cf. BT 264, 266) agrees that Heidegger’s point is “that Dasein can have neither a nature nor an identity, that it is the constant impossibility of being anything specific.” Obviously, we define ourselves, intentionally or not, through all kinds of activities and relationships, but the idea is that no particular involvement or approach to life can ever be definitive for Dasein in the same essential manner as its pure possibility. The benefit of understanding itself in this way is that it allows Dasein to take ownership of itself and the choices it makes in the face of the aforementioned pressures to conform and “do what one does.”12 Realizing that you are not essentially determined to be anything specific means accepting that you are free from necessary determination by thoughtless everyday norms and expectations (even if you end up doing the things these norms and expectations would have dictated).13 In accepting this freedom, however, Dasein simultaneously loses the comfort and ease of carelessly going along with the ready-made decisions it previously depended upon. The price of taking on responsibility for attributing  meaning to oneself is an anxious awareness of one’s independence (BT 265–6).14 Although Heidegger believes a bit of anxiety is an important aspect of Dasein (especially conscientious Dasein), he is careful not to overstate this independence or suggest that Dasein’s freedom makes absolutely anything available. Dasein may well be a somewhat open-ended pursuing of possibilities, but it does not determine which possibilities are available to pursue; it has been thrown into circumstances that leave some options open and others closed. Heidegger states, “every Dasein always exists factically. It is not a free-floating self-projection; but its character is determined by thrownness as a Fact of the entity which it is” (BT 276). At any given moment, we have already been delimited by where and when we exist, our various capabilities, and our ever-growing and changing assortment of previous decisions and experiences, just to mention a few key examples. As Dreyfus (1991: 308) sees things, Dasein is especially in debt “to the culture for an understanding of itself.” Within a horizon of

72  Heidegger on Finitude and Value predetermined possibilities, Dasein is responsible for making something of itself that it can find valuable. In the structural terms introduced above, Dasein is “Being-already-in” as much as it is “ahead-of-itself” and “Being-alongside.” To summarize, Heidegger’s understanding of the limitations that help to give shape and meaning to existence does not include necessary chronological finitude. In fact, apart from the foundational boundary setting he describes, we experience existence as a rather open-ended projection into the future. Thus, it seems that Heidegger need not see immortality as a threat to meaningfulness. In the one place where he brings up the possibility that “Dasein ‘lives on’ or even ‘outlasts’ itself and is ‘immortal’,” he actually does not have much to say, for or against (BT 248);15 he just does not find it especially relevant to his discussion of Being-towards-death. I do not want to make too much out of this point given that Heidegger (like Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and Unamuno) seems to be entertaining a more religious or “other-worldly” sense of immortality (transhumaniststyle techno-optimism was even more marginalized when Being and Time was written than it is now), but he has a clear opportunity, at this point in the text, to call attention to the axiological perils of immortality of any kind by making common chronological finitude part of his account of the structure of Dasein, and he does not do it (cf. Call 2013: 127–8; Watts 2011: 103–4). If he does not express concern that an afterlife—which, at least in most Christian accounts, has a sense of continuity with what came before—would jeopardize the possibility of meaning for the recently deceased, then it is not obvious to me that he would be concerned about the prospect of such continuity in the here and now. Just to be clear, I am not suggesting Heidegger would be an advocate for immortality of any sort (and again, he does not seem to feel that what might be “after death” is a crucial issue in Being and Time), but I do not see any reason to think his views on death and meaning commit him to opposing immortality. Thus, it is not out of the question that he might offer helpful ideas to those hopeful that it could be meaningful. Because he never introduces a mandatory ending for Dasein, Heidegger’s account could apply to mortal and immortal Dasein alike. However long Dasein exists, it will always be engaged in the process of meaning-making described in this section. On this view, mortal and immortal existence could be relevantly similar, and this is precisely what Scheffler and his sort of immortality curmudgeon doubt.

Immortality and Inhumanity In response to Heidegger’s account of Dasein, perhaps some naysayers would cling to the fact that Heidegger just is not speaking about what humans actually find meaningful in their own lives. Heidegger’s very broad view of what we are appears to allow for specific notions of

Heidegger on Finitude and Value  73 significance and value that might be too far removed from our own current notions to find worthwhile. Maybe so, but this is a fairly contingent and superficial point. Specific interests, values, and projects are always malleable; I imagine that early humans, and maybe some of our other ancestors in the genus Homo, had interests, values, and projects that would be difficult for contemporary humans to relate to. I also find it somewhat difficult to relate to the interests, values, and projects I had early in my own finite life. Nonetheless, what I have in common with both my ancestors and my younger self, what is most characteristic and interesting about us (what makes us all Dasein), is our capacity to take an interest in our own existence. Given this shared essential ability to find ourselves meaningful, despite the variety of specific ways we might go about it, I have difficulty understanding why thinkers like Scheffler (2013: 207) worry so much about the way humans happen to see things at any particular moment: If we never died, then we would not live lives structured by the kinds of values that now structure our own lives or by the kinds of values that have structured the lives of other human beings now and in the past. There is no doubt some truth in this statement; things would be different without death. However, few (perhaps, for instance, Williams) would deny that, in both our own particular histories and the general history of beings like us, there is evidence of a capacity to develop and adapt to new values without losing all connection to what came before (cf. Chappell 2007: 34–5; Smuts 2011: 138).16 What Heidegger shows us is that our sense of meaning comes not from any particular point of view or set of specific circumstances (including human fragility and deterioration), but from the basic constitution of our encounter with existing. Even though each Dasein has a certain starting point, its thrownness is constantly shifting and expanding as long as it is, and it is this malleability that contributes to the possibility of taking on new values and projects in the future, including those an earlier version of oneself might have had a hard time imagining. It may be the case that no human has ever had the perspective of an immortal, but this fact does not preclude the possibility that an immortal could find his or her existence deeply meaningful in a way that is not relevantly dissimilar from the way ordinary humans find meaning in their mortal lives. Scheffler’s claim that the absence of chronological finitude would necessitate too great a leap in this regard is at best unfounded speculation. Returning to the various curmudgeonly arguments considered earlier, we have already seen that some comparable conceptions of stages, risk, and urgency, which were all deemed necessary for generating a sense of  significance and value, might still persist in an immortal existence.

74  Heidegger on Finitude and Value Of course, Scheffler is quick to point out that “comparable” is not “the same” as the conceptions mortal humans currently have, but if we, equipped with a Heideggerian sensibility, can be more flexible than Scheffler in accepting the many ways stages, risk, and urgency manifest themselves, then immortality really does not appear so threatening to many of our current ideas of value and significance.17 In the cases of risk and urgency, our notions of value obviously depend upon our having limitations. Heidegger’s position is that our most important and relevant limitations (e.g. our spatiotemporal location, our various personal capabilities, and our previous choices) have little to do with our current mortal situation, and it would appear that many of our experiences of risk and urgency line up with this idea.18 Although I am a philosopher of death who gives his own impending doom considerable attention, it is rarely the case that my decision-making process involves concerns about how my actions might lead to my premature demise. In fact, most of the value-generating risk I encounter has to do with things such as the repercussions of landing a new job, my comfort level when teaching unfamiliar material, and what I might be missing when I have to rule out certain activities in order to engage in others. That is, the risk is inherent in the situation I am thrown into and the activities it allows me to choose from. In the same vein, most of the value-generating urgency I experience has to do with my ability to meet the responsibilities I have taken on. That is, I usually worry about things like whether or not I will be able to write a good paper by the submission deadline, while my bucket list only occasionally comes up. Even in a thoughtful and self-aware existence, as Heidegger might see it, for the most part one does not so much fear death as feel anxious in the face of one’s limited, but still significant, capacity for choice and action. Now some might argue that the threat to notions of risk and urgency posed by immortality is more profound than I have acknowledged thus far. Aaron Smuts (2011: 140), for example, claims that even if certain activities have their own sense of risk and urgency built in given “the forward march of time,” the prospect of infinite duration would practically guarantee that anything one might want to do or experience would eventually come around again. If so, then failure to succeed at or complete a task on time would cease to matter much (Smuts 2011: 143). Smuts supports this claim by pointing out that the sorts of limitations Heidegger attributes to Dasein seem to make one’s set of realistic goals, hopes, and projects finite. In his words, “If we could grow no smarter, no more powerful, then we would run out of projects that we would be capable of completing” (Smuts 2011: 144), and end up in a state of perpetual boredom or frustration. Even if we could expand our capacities and be meaningfully occupied for billions of years, given unlimited time and any limitations at all on our capabilities, we would eventually run out of ways to see our lives as unique and valuable.

Heidegger on Finitude and Value  75 There are a few things to say in response to this line of argument. First, while it might be true that beings like us are essentially limited, Smuts has not established that the world in which we live holds only finite worthwhile possibilities for beings like us.19 He seems to believe this to be true, even dismissing the notion that he might simply be “suffering from a dearth of imagination” (Smuts 2011: 144), but without a proper demonstration, it remains unclear why one should deny that there are infinite possibilities to occupy infinite time. I also think Smuts (2011: 135–6) is too quick to dismiss Fischer’s notion of repeatable pleasures and activities. After all, I have already experienced a variety of pleasures and activities that continue to drive me forward, and it is not at all obvious to me that there is some limited number of times I might enjoy them. Maybe I will get irreparably sick of ice cream cones, sexual encounters, and reading my favorite books granted infinite time (even if I am careful to space these experiences out), but the opposite seems just as likely. Furthermore, it is not immediately apparent that a life consisting of such pleasurable experiences is somehow beneath my human dignity, as some authors seem to suggest (see e.g. Burley 2009a: 83–4). But perhaps the primary reason why I am unconvinced by the argument that infinite time with only finite capabilities would necessarily spell disaster is that certain existing human projects and activities might be perpetually interesting, despite our basic limitations (cf. Ferrero 2015: 369). I agree with Heidegger that the process of self-cultivation and ownership is not something to be finished with or actualized; it is a project that lasts however long you do. As previously discussed in connection with Kierkegaard and Unamuno, the possibility of continual progress is one issue to consider here, but there is also the constant need to adjust to shifting external circumstances and the danger of backsliding to worry about.20 And speaking of never being finished, it will be helpful to say a little more about the alleged significance of the normal stages of a complete human life, and the idea of meaningful life as a concluded story. Heidegger points out that we never really experience such completeness or culmination, and he seems to suggest that it would be misguided to try to base the meaning of one’s existence even partially on something that is not really part of one’s existence.21 If a conclusion in the ordinary sense of death is not part of any potentially meaningful mortal existence, it should not matter if it would not be part of an immortal existence.22 Freed from the sort of dubious completeness stipulation Scheffler and some narrativists insist upon, it seems possible to embrace a variety of meaningful stages (or chapters), familiar or otherwise, without needing to die. Scheffler himself admits that the specific stages of finite life are already somewhat contingent and variable, so I can see no reason to think finite life and infinite life are essentially different in this respect. Surely, they would diverge in relatively superficial ways, but they could both still be understood in terms of orienting stages. With a renewed confidence in the

76  Heidegger on Finitude and Value value-generating capabilities of mostly ordinary notions of stages, risk, and urgency, and an optimistic attitude about the prospects of a relevantly similar life laden with particular values we may have yet to consider, I remain largely undaunted by the concerns of the immortality curmudgeons. The contemporary discussion of the desirability of immortality largely revolves around a dispute about how integral the sort of chronological finitude promised by death is to meaningful existence. While Scheffler, for example, believes it to be quite essential, many others do not. The interesting thing about bringing Heidegger into the conversation is that he does not have a horse in the race. He is obviously unaware of the debate about immortality over the last few decades, but after considering some key issues that happen to be involved in it, he simply does not find them all that relevant to his consideration of the possibility of meaningful existence. What we get from Heidegger, then, is an unbiased take on the role of death in life that does not explicitly conclude in favor of either the curmudgeons or the enthusiasts, but which also does not rule out hope for the sort of meaningful immortality the enthusiasts champion. In other words, he provides a kind of independent corroboration of the idea that immortality need not be meaningless.

6 Immortality Online Reasons to Be Wary

A complete examination of the desirability of immortality demands a consideration of forms of immortality/extension beyond the first-personal sort that is the primary focus of the present volume. Such a consideration will be aided by a brief review of some of the main strategies in humankind’s long history of trying to overcome death. As previously discussed, everything from holding religious beliefs about the afterlife to the planning of a family might fall into this category. The idea is that even though my body will one day collapse, some part of me might carry on, be it my soul or my genes. We even build structures and create works of art and literature in the hope that our legacies will last well after we are gone. These days we have innumerable means of passing on pieces of ourselves to posterity: digital images and video, websites of every imaginable variety, and cryonic preservation accompanied by dreams of profound future medical advances. Unsatisfied by these more modest approaches, the wealthiest and most desperate among us seek ever more unlikely and hazily defined innovations—e.g. the transfer of the mind into an artificial brain or computer program.1 Just as death separates people into two classes (the living and the dead), there seem to be two perspectives from which to approach this mass of death-defying strategies. There is the perspective of the one dying (bracketing the possibility of an afterlife, surely the dead have no perspective), and there is the point of view of the one who is, or will be, left behind.2 If the goal is first-personal survival, such strategies are always somehow dubious from any perspective, but when it comes to other types of survival these strategies seem to be increasingly effective, especially from the latter perspective. What I mean is that, on a grand enough scale, it remains hard to see how any emerging technologies could change the finite human condition (and even on a less grand scale, we have not done much to extend the upper reaches of human life expectancy), but we are becoming better and better at leaving the not-yet-dead with less to miss. However, even if technology cannot provide for every sort of survival, its successes—in terms of preserving more of the dead for the DOI: 10.4324/9781003281085-7

78  Immortality Online living—have a significant impact upon both perspectives, and this impact raises a variety of interesting questions. On the one hand, how might expanding posthumous legacy quality and durability affect the way we feel about dying? Does one’s own approaching demise become even more isolating and painful as we eliminate certain reasons for others to be upset about the loss? Or would it provide people with some consolation to know that their loved ones will not have such a sizeable void to fill when they are gone? On the other hand, before we address these ­fascinating questions about how preserving more of the dead changes how we face death, we should first address questions related to the changing preservation itself, and then consider the effects that some of our “advances” might have on long-held beliefs about our moral duties to the dead. Perhaps a few of our attitudes and beliefs are incoherent or simply in need of revision, but it may also be the case that certain kinds of “progress” leave us in danger of losing valuable aspects of what makes us good survivors, descendants, or bearers of legacies—especially if we are not paying attention.3

What Gets Left Behind The first thing to do is clarify exactly what it means to say we are getting better at leaving our survivors with less to miss. What I want to emphasize is how much easier it has become to keep memories alive and stay connected to those long gone. Despite the rise of family tree research websites, most people with less notable lineages would have a very difficult time finding much information about their family history beyond four or five generations back. This is unlikely to be the case for our descendants. Whereas the dead used to fade fairly quickly from the communal memory of the living, they will have an increasingly longer and more robust “afterlife” as we come up with new ways to keep them around. Before raising concerns about any of these developments, the range of benefits they offer must be acknowledged. Consider the situation of a person living in the most technologically advanced of societies 200 years ago. Suppose this person recently lost a loved one, their mother. What does this person have left of consolation and reminder of their departed parent? In addition to ever-fading memories, perhaps a family shrine or a small tombstone in a graveyard nearby, some letters, and other personal effects, which must take on great meaning for this surviving child. If the mother had been wealthy, famous, or particularly talented, perhaps there would be portraits, works written by or about her, and the esteem (or contempt) of a large number of other survivors (and maybe the likelihood of some of this would be diminished in the case of a mother given gender inequalities in this period). But the bereaved will never again hear the mother’s voice, see her mannerisms, or engage her in any reciprocal interaction.

Immortality Online  79 Things have changed rather rapidly in the last 200 years. Both the rich and famous and the (relatively) poor and common alike have access to vast quantities of technological gadgetry that helps to preserve the memory of the dead. When my mother dies, I will have no trouble finding pictures and video recordings that prevent my forgetting what she sounded like, looked like, and thought (this is still, of course, not true of everyone, but I am hardly an exceptional case). I can even have her ­cremated and her physical remains pressed into a diamond to wear in a necklace, or mixed in with vinyl and pressed into a record, if that helps me to keep her close (Spitznagel 2012; Biehl 2005). While I leave the question about the value of making one’s mother into a decorative ornament open for now, most of these developments sound like steps in a very a positive direction. Who would not want more ways to commemorate and stay close to their deceased loved ones? In addition to the potential comfort offered by things like video recordings of the deceased, such resources also make it easier to pass along practical advice, create a record of personal stories, and connect with members of nonoverlapping generations. I would find it fascinating to hear my greatgrandfather tell the story of his experience traveling to America in the early 20th century. What is made possible along these lines by relatively recent technological achievement is truly remarkable if one pauses to think about what we previously had to do without, and this is before taking into account what is now available to us when it comes to the movers and shakers of bygone eras. It is a wonderful thing to be able to watch Martin Luther King’s “The Other America” speech, for instance, during a quick visit to YouTube, and it would be similarly wonderful to have this sort of access to Abraham Lincoln delivering his “Gettysburg Address.” Given all of the benefits provided, on what grounds would anyone criticize the array of ever-emerging technological strategies for the preservation of the dead? Perhaps it is necessary to reach forward a bit in order to offer an example that will make the potential dangers stand out.

An Imagined but Not So Far-Fetched Scenario Without looking too far beyond our current cutting-edge methods of sustaining significant aspects of the dead, it seems like something even more impressive is on the way. Voice recognition software, for example, is always improving, and when this is combined with existing high-end digital audio and video recording/editing devices and the more and more advanced motion-capture technology used in big-budget films, I believe we are on the road toward Interactive Personality Constructs (IPCs). I am not suggesting some highly advanced science fiction scenario of artificial intelligence, but rather something like an app on our phones (say, for the iPhone 25) that is, admittedly, still beyond our present capabilities.4

80  Immortality Online Imagine this: while your mother is still flourishing and lucid, she makes arrangements to have her appearance, mannerisms, voice, memories, and thoughts on a wide array of topics collected and synthesized through advanced recording and motion-capture techniques. With the addition of sophisticated voice recognition, you would be able, in a way that is similar to playing a video game, to access her moving, speaking image and engage it in conversation (one might eventually consider holographic projection of the image for a more embodied feel5). The quality of interactive conversation is, of course, the issue in need of the most progress, but rudimentary question and answer is already possible with primitive and generic IPCs that many people have in their pockets (e.g. Siri) or in their living rooms (e.g. Alexa). The applications and implications of such a development are legion, but on the topic of preserving the dead, I am curious about its hypothetical impact on the way we relate to the deaths of others. Like the technology that is currently available, the appearance of IPCs looks like a wonderful innovation that would provide the living with access to more of the dead. In this case, however, it seems possible to preserve (at least some of) their personality and camaraderie, which would be lost if it were necessary to rely only upon existing technology. Among the various benefits of such a resource, it might feel less demoralizing to lose a loved one if we did not have to go entirely without their company (in more advanced versions, it would be a bit like having a video-chat with someone who lives too far away to visit easily [cf. Stokes 2012: 370]). Clearly, there is nothing about this scenario that would remedy the loss of a good oldfashioned motherly hug, but one could in theory have a conversation with an IPC that possesses a great many of her traits just after attending her funeral.6 Would the funeral then be less significant; would we still feel the need to bring flowers to the cemetery? Would there still be discussion of psychological practices such as “saying goodbye” and “letting go”; would there not be less to let go of? What new death-rituals would arise?7 Surely, any advancing technology alters social practices and the ­morality/etiquette that goes along with them. For example, with the rise of email, texting, and social media comes the rise in expectations of an almost immediate response to messages; a delayed response could give the impression of a lack of interest or enthusiasm and lead to hurt feelings. Perhaps this growing impatience and sensitivity is a minor nuisance easily dismissed when compared with the wonders of instant mass communication, but maybe it is worth noticing anyway, and maybe other advances generate more serious worries. It might be the case that there is something especially troublesome about the alteration of practices and values portended by IPCs. Consider the difference between the following means of preservation after a loss: recollection and replacement. The ­former aims to keep us aware of what has been taken from us—it is thus in part an attempt at preservation of an irremediable void; the latter seeks

Immortality Online  81 to overcome, ignore, or at least mitigate the fact that anything has been lost at all—it is an attempt at preservation of the status quo.8 While IPCs are simply a plausible extension of the trend of technological preservation that can be traced back for quite some time, they seem to possess an intensified aspect of longing for replacement that has perhaps always been present to a lesser degree in earlier technological strategies mostly aimed at reminder. Focusing on one fairly recent, yet (relative to IPCs) still earlier, bit of technology, Elaine Kasket provides several examples of memorialized Facebook pages filling in for the dead. Speaking of a deceased friend, one of her interviewees says, “When I’m communicating with him on Facebook, there isn’t that immediate reminder that he’s gone” (Kasket 2012: 254; cf. Lombard and Markaridian Selverian 2008: 316; Stokes 2012: 367).9 As our recollection aids become more about replacement, we might be concerned about an increasing insensitivity toward the meaning of losing someone significant and the value of the simple recollection that maintains feelings of loss. I suppose the level of concern here has at least something to do with what sorts of responsibilities one thinks the living have with respect to the dead—a topic that must now be considered.

Duties to the Dead Some might argue that we can have no obligations to the nonexistent. This argument usually has its roots in the Epicurean position that since death begins nonexistence and is not a part of life, it is not a state that allows for either benefit or harm; in fact, it is not a state at all.10 The idea is that with no possibility of harm or benefit, it makes no sense to think the living can do right or wrong by the dead. There is surely something compelling about this line of reasoning, but despite any appeal, it does not fit in well with our everyday intuitions and practices related to the dead. Wisnewski (2009) points to serious contemporary worries about the morality surrounding archaeological digs, access to private materials (e.g. email accounts), and the execution of wills (cf. Stokes 2012: 368), arguing (by reductio ad absurdum based on the nature of p ­ romise-making) that there may indeed be a rational grounding for our common sensibilities. While the present chapter cannot delve fully into these issues, it will nonetheless proceed with something like Wisnewski’s view that our sensibilities are not entirely misguided, and, thus, that there are indeed legitimate moral norms pertaining to what we owe the dead. One familiar norm suggests a perhaps nebulous period of mourning during which certain activities are frowned upon.11 For example, although remarriage after the death of a spouse is now commonplace in many parts of the world, it is still often considered distasteful to reenter the dating pool too soon after the death. Whether or not one agrees that the allegedly premature dating is a genuinely moral matter, there is a common

82  Immortality Online rejection in such a situation of what appears to be an eagerness to replace, and a corresponding undervaluing of, the deceased. If one is willing to consider the possibility that there is an obligation to hold out, at least for a little while, for the sake of the nonexistent in scenarios like this, then perhaps there could be other sorts of more durable holding out on behalf of the dead that might also be obligatory. In Works of Love, Kierkegaard includes a short discourse titled “The Work of Love in Recollecting One Who Is Dead.” While he means to describe the proper way of relating to the dead, in the end, the discourse is less concerned about actual practices, such as burial, visiting the cemetery, and speaking of loved ones long gone, than it is about using love for the dead to teach oneself how to love the living properly. Kierkegaard declares, The work of love in recollecting one who is dead is thus a work of the most unselfish, the freest, the most faithful love. Therefore go out and practice it; recollect the one who is dead and just in this way learn to love the living unselfishly, freely, faithfully. In the relationship to one who is dead, you have the criterion by which you can test yourself. (WL 358/SKS 9: 351) The main idea here is that loving the dead in the right way helps people identify and do away with their selfish love for others who are still alive. This selfish sort of love, Kierkegaard explains, is the preferential love of certain individuals, such as friends and family members, over the rest of humanity; it is contrary to the Christian love he advocates, which is meant for every member of humankind, even one’s enemies (WL 19/SKS 9: 27). Because the dead can do absolutely nothing for the living, and, in  some sense, have entirely ceased to be (as Kierkegaard reiterates throughout the discourse), there is nothing about the dead that one can prefer. Thus, loving the dead is practice for loving non-preferentially, or unselfishly. Before there can be any discussion of this application of love for the dead,12 however, one must acknowledge all that Kierkegaard has to say about the recollection itself that manifests such love. His major concern is that “one who is dead merely crumbles away more and more into certain ruin” (WL 350/SKS 9: 344). The fact that the dead cannot do anything to compel the living to prefer or even take notice of them makes it easy to forget about them. Kierkegaard points out that “The untrustworthiness of human feelings left to their own devices perhaps never manifests itself more than in this very relationship” (WL 348/SKS 9: 342). While the recently dead are lavished with tears and all sorts of promises and oaths, social pressures and maybe the human psyche itself are structured in such a way as to encourage individuals to overcome their

Immortality Online  83 immediate passionate response to loss over time. There are surely good reasons not to wallow in sorrow for too long, but mourning is not solely about the feelings of the survivor, according to Kierkegaard. In death, something valuable and unique has been lost; if what is lost is to have any continued meaning and significance then it depends upon the living, for whom such things are possible.13 Patrick Stokes (2011: 265) claims, “in the absence of their object, our feelings of loss eventually dissipate, leaving the value of what actuated those feelings—the specific other who has died—seemingly unattested to.” A conscientious, sustained, and patient commitment to the one that is now missing is necessary if this value is to be maintained once the turbulent period just after a death subsides. Kierkegaard explains: the loving recollection of the dead has to protect itself against the actuality around one, lest through ever-new impressions it acquire full power to wipe out the recollection, and it has to protect itself against time—in short, it has to guard its freedom in recollection against that which wants to compel one to forget. (WL 354/SKS 9: 347) He is not all that interested in offering comfort to the living here, and not interested at all in filling the void left behind with new stimuli. Rather, Kierkegaard suggests that one must preserve instead of cover over the painful emptiness—something special is gone, never to return. In doing so, what was special is allowed to remain, in some sense as what it was, by way of its notable absence. As Stokes (2011: 268) puts it, “in recollecting the dead we simultaneously testify to the distinctive individuals that they were and in so doing constitute their continued being in the world.” What I (and perhaps Stokes as well) have in mind here relies on something like the phenomenology of absence that Sartre offers in Being and Nothingness. Sartre describes the situation of looking to no avail for a friend he expected to meet in a café: “my expectation has caused the absence of Pierre to happen as a real event concerning this café” (BN 42). In other words, his disappointed expectation has the effect of constituting Pierre as the sort of thing that is-not-there, which is quite different from the rather unremarkable absence of Sartre’s dentist, for example, whom he was not even thinking about meeting in the café. I believe there is a strong analogy between the creative/constitutional force of Sartre’s expectation in this case and Kierkegaard’s recollection of the dead. Such recollection also allows an absence a genuine place of prominence in the foreground of an otherwise busy and crowded scene—everyday life. Even though, at first glance, the technological trajectory under consideration seems to help us meet (what is, according to Kierkegaard at least) our  ­responsibility for what we might call “continued postmortem constitution,” it should be

84  Immortality Online possible by now to see that the relevant ­developments can also push us away from our obligation and into something else.

Inhuman Resources Insofar as the trajectory that leads to IPCs seeks more and more to overcome and mitigate the absence of those who die, it might actually work against the sense of preservation found in the sort of continued postmortem constitution Kierkegaard is after. Overcoming an absence in this way is what I earlier called “replacement,” and it has little to do with the dead themselves. It is more about filling a role in someone’s life, which has been vacated due to a death, with something else capable of playing the part. As it shows up in the case of IPCs, replacement is concerned with taking what can be extracted from the dying before they are gone and using this material as just such a gap-/role-filling resource once the dying is finished. To be sure, this technology could also have less sinister applications, but if there is a genuine duty to engage in (perhaps painful) Kierkegaardian recollection, then the danger of something like IPCs lies in the possibility of confusing the preservation of (aspects of) the dead as resources with the preservation of the absence of the dead.14 These specific worries related to treating the dead as resources find ­compelling support in a certain, more general, critique of modern technology. Heidegger’s The Question Concerning Technology considers the essence of technology and the path it has traveled from its ancient conception to the way it dominates the 20th century. Heidegger begins his account by examining the original Greek notion of technē, which he carefully connects with other key concepts, most importantly poiēsis—a being responsible for letting something come forth or show up. He states, Technē belongs to bringing-forth, to poiēsis; it is something poietic… technē is [also] linked with the word epistēmē. Both words are names for knowing in the widest sense. They mean to be entirely at home in  something… Such knowing provides an opening up… it is a revealing. (QCT 13) Ancient technology, on this view, is thus a know-how that opens up the possibility of events happening in such a way, as Heidegger continues on to point out, that human ends are met. For example, consider the understanding of when and where to plant and harvest; with this sort of knowledge, humans can allow the world to present them with dependable sustenance. Modern technology, on the other hand, seems to have little interest in the openness of the Greek sense, in simply providing the opportunity for

Immortality Online  85 things to come into being as they do; it seeks instead to master, exploit, and extract all that is useful or profitable. The field is no longer a place to care for, where growth and life happen, but a natural resource that must be yoked and employed for all it is worth (QCT 14–5). On Heidegger’s view, the modern technological tendency is one that challenges the world to put out what it wants, when it wants, and as much as it wants. In his words, “Everywhere everything is ordered to stand by, to be immediately at hand, indeed to stand there just so that it may be on call for a further ordering… We call it the standing-reserve” (QCT 17). This is not to say that the ancient world never coldly stockpiled resources, or that the ordering of standing-reserve has no hint of poiēsis, but Heidegger’s concern is that the essence of modern technology is an all-encompassing, yet very narrow and closed-off, type of revealing. Things are no longer allowed to be what they are—they are only what they are available to do for us.15 The worst part for Heidegger is that we turn this ordering on ourselves—we make a standing-reserve of human resources, and we ­ hardly notice or care.16 Humans get caught up in “enframing” and become the resource that orders and stockpiles resources for use. For Heidegger, “Enframing means the gathering together of that setting-upon which sets upon man, i.e., challenges him forth, to reveal the real, in the mode of ordering, as standing-reserve” (QCT 20). We even come to know ourselves primarily by the particular narrow approach to ordering that we are caught up in—i.e. our occupation. Just as it does with the natural world, the modern technological tendency forecloses human freedom and forces us to appear to ourselves and others as only what we “are good for.” But this is a mistake, according to Heidegger, because a human, no less (and probably more) than a field, need not be so narrowly interpreted. Furthermore, as the entity that does the interpreting (or the more sinister “ordering”), human interpretation of other entities and events need not be so constrained (e.g. a butcher need not see animals only as meat). While we can be both the agents and the victims of a rigid and comprehensive enframing, we can also be the free and open space that allows things simply to come forth however they are. A human “becomes truly free only insofar as he… becomes one who listens and hears… and not one who is simply constrained to obey” (QCT 25). Although Heidegger does not consider how we might turn our own dead into standing-reserve to be on hand when needed and set aside when we are otherwise occupied, there is much in his discussion of the essence of technology that may be fruitfully applied to this topic. In a world dominated by enframing, the dead, if not forgotten outright, exist only insofar as they can play pre-ordered roles in our lives (e.g. the role of one who would have given me advice or been proud of my accomplishments). Whereas the living, even on Heidegger’s fairly bleak view of things, still have some hope of extracting themselves from the realm of human

86  Immortality Online resources (cf. QCT 28–35), the dead, according to Kierkegaard, depend entirely upon the living for their continued meaning and value. If such meaning and value has any hope of staying true to the person who has been lost, then it must be constituted by a survivor who remains open to all that is now missing (however painful that might be), not simply to what suits the survivor’s own purposes. This sort of Heideggerian openness is what is intended by Kierkegaard’s notion of recollection, which allows the dead to show up in some sense as they were. The trend of replacement in our current technological dealings with the dead, however, covers over and distracts, making it easy to lose sight of the fact that a unique and valuable person is now gone (cf. Kasket 2012: 254).17

Facing Death Having addressed different senses of preserving the dead (neither of which involve formaldehyde), associated moral responsibilities, and technological developments that impact both, it is now possible to consider how new ways of encountering and dealing with the dead might affect the experience of the dying. Given that IPCs and related innovations do not solve (or even attempt to solve) the problem of subjective or firstpersonal finitude, any more than the aforementioned strategies of writing books, having children, or taking pictures,18 it still seems likely that one might feel acute anxiety over his or her own impending demise. However, it is also conceivable that some would find comfort (or maybe a depressing sense of insignificance) in the idea that their loved ones could be looked after somehow by this new sort of “living” will. While the groundwork has been laid for an array of fascinating inquiries, it will only be possible to discuss a few key issues here. As was the case in exploring our relationship with the dead, such inquiries may well suggest some downsides to the relevant technological gains when it comes to our relationship with dying. Perhaps an example involving an analogous scenario of technological preservation will help shed some light on both these gains and their potential drawbacks. On sportswriter Martin Manley’s sixtieth birthday (August 15, 2013), he did two notable things: he launched a new website and he shot himself in the head. The website is a complex and detailed testament to the life of a man who apparently enjoyed his existence but did not want to see a day when this was no longer true. Although Manley apologizes to those who might be hurt by his actions, he provides a rational defense of his decision and anticipates the arguments of naysayers who will claim he was sick or selfish. Here is a key passage from his explanation: I know the question you are asking. “Why did you want to die?… or Why didn’t you want to live?” Here is the answer. I didn’t want to

Immortality Online  87 die. If I could have waved a magic wand and lived for 200 years, I  would have. Unfortunately, that’s not an option. Therefore, since death is inevitable, the better question is… do I want to live as long as humanly possible OR do I want to control the time and manner and circumstances of my death? That was my choice (and yours). I chose what was most appealing to me. Let me ask you a question. After you die, you can be remembered by a few-line obituary for one day in a newspaper when you’re too old to matter to anyone anyway… OR you can be remembered for years by a site such as this. That was my choice and I chose the obvious. (Manley 2013) This record of his decision-making process is more digital diary than IPC, but it possesses a similar potential to comfort someone facing death given a similar, albeit less detailed and interactive, potential for a certain kind of preservation. Manley is hardly the first person to leave behind a digital record related to one’s own suicide—there have even been some cases of live-streaming suicides (Gross 2013)—but he does offer a reflective account that makes a couple of interesting claims about the value he finds in what he preserves. First, even though Manley (2013) is “thrilled to death that [he] left this website,” it is worth noting that there is nothing about leaving behind a website that changes his desire to go on living indefinitely, if only that were possible. He is well aware that the technological afterlife he achieves is what I call “a consolation prize” (or what Unamuno calls a “shadow of immortality”); it is simply something he can feel good about passing on to posterity given that his own first-personal perspective must be snuffed out eventually (cf. Stokes 2012: 372). Second, he feels confident that the digital/online realm provides a more accessible and durable medium, particularly for the sorts of ruminations and characterization he wants to convey, than traditional ways of publicly summing up a life. Manley believes there is a (relatively) new resource available, and he embraces the opportunity to put it to work for him. Just after saying, “the thought that my memory or legacy would come to an abrupt end was unacceptable to me,” he laments the fact that most legacies do end so abruptly, “especially considering existing technology has enabled us to store everything ever said, done or thought by every person on earth” (Manley 2013). My present goal is not to heap doubt and scorn upon something that obviously meant a great deal to this man, but insofar as I think Manley’s views and actions could be representative of a growing trend, I do feel that there are some important concerns to acknowledge when it comes to the comfort one can justifiably take from such beliefs and behavior. In connection with Heidegger’s views on the dangers of making oneself into a resource, for instance, we might be nervous about overvaluing the

88  Immortality Online record we make. It might be very difficult to open the flood gates and consider all that will be lost when my unique perspective is snuffed out, but, as in the case of Kierkegaardian recollection of the dead, perhaps doing so offers a more genuine testament to the person that I am. Websites and IPCs are great ways to preserve aspects of myself, but focusing too much on these aspects—what Stokes (2012: 377) calls the “thinner” me—could be a distraction that prevents me from appreciating all that I am. With a little caution, and likely a few tears, maybe it is possible to avoid being distracted like this and have it both ways. A more pressing concern has to do with the future of the thin me that survives my death via IPC or Internet. Kasket’s (2012: 256) research participants talked about on one hand seeing this representation as incredibly durable – forever, eternal – and on the other hand being aware of its non-durability, that it could disappear into nothing at the act of a Facebook employee, at the behest of a bereaved family member. Despite Manley’s belief that he had left something behind “potentially lasting forever,” Yahoo—the company he paid to host the website—took it down due to its supposedly disturbing and controversial content (Gross 2013).19 While his website lives on, now hosted by more open-minded and less mainstream parties, the fear of Kasket’s research participants seems warranted in light of Manley’s treatment. However, such fear should not be limited only to existential issues but should also stem from the possibility of continued existence under degenerate, or otherwise unpleasant, circumstances. Here we have an interesting parallel with certain worries about medically prolonged impaired or vegetative conditions. Manley (2013) accepts the idea that “Anyone can do with [his website] whatever they wish,” but he surely did not intend for it to be taken down immediately by the people he paid to host it, and it is unclear what he would think if it, say, became the founding text for a massive suicide cult. The point is that the prospect of some possible futures of the bits of ourselves we choose to preserve may not be so comforting, and along the lines of what was discussed in the introduction to this book, once we are gone we have no further influence over which future comes to fruition. As I have held throughout this chapter’s consideration of the deathrelated implications of emerging technologies, there is nothing entirely new about the kind of problem described here, even if there are some novel aspects to it.20 Unable to explore the significance of the digital realm in his World War II-era magnum opus, Sartre still managed to recognize the potentially bleak situation of the nonphysical remains of the dead (comrade Lenin, Chairman Mao, and Jeremy Bentham aside, I think we all recognize the generally bleak situation of the physical remains). His claim about the dead being “prey for the living” means that the aspects of a

Immortality Online  89 person that last beyond death—the stories, the reputation, the projects and interests—are in the hands of the survivors. Sartre, echoing Kierkegaard, explains that “to die is to exist only through the Other, and to owe to him one’s meaning” (BN 696). However, in the antagonistic interplay between oneself and others that Sartre details, it is not only possible, but also likely, that individuals’ legacies will not end up as they had hoped, even if they followed a carefully crafted plan until the end. My death is the final victory of the other over my way of seeing myself (BN 691). This somewhat ominous account can easily be applied to IPCs, memorialized social media pages, and Manley’s website. The versions of our personalities that we intentionally create for posterity can easily be suppressed, co-opted, or interpreted in unflattering ways once we are no longer around to fight on their behalf, and we have not yet even considered the things we accidentally leave behind and hope no one ever discovers. Although predicting such things can be difficult, it might turn out in some cases that the less we leave behind, the better. Having said all of this, it must also be mentioned that I need not become embroiled at this point in disputes about the possibility of posthumous harms that arise with Aristotle and Epicurus and continue to the present day. For the sake of my argument, it does not matter if the deceased Manley was somehow wronged by Yahoo. What is at stake is whether the living Manley was justified in taking comfort in producing something that is supposed to be more dependable than his deteriorating body, but is in reality fraught with peril. When dealing with the fairly low bar of what people find comforting, maybe it is enough simply to have left something that is likely to last awhile and unlikely to be grossly misappropriated, even if it does not work out that way in the end. Still, I think there might be a hint of self-deception, or perhaps just a less than thorough self-reflection, if one does not at least consider the more disturbing possible repercussions of what one is eager to find comforting. Despite the exciting recent developments and near-future possibilities that have the potential to enrich and extend the legacies of the deceased, it would appear that this ever more robust “afterlife” is not free of worries. In addition to perennial problems related to attempts at keeping more of the dead around, new technological strategies also seem likely to generate new concerns, or at least exacerbate the old ones. If we are to avoid overlooking important aspects of our traditional ways of relating to the dead and facing death ourselves, special caution must be exercised as we incorporate emerging technologies into our death-rituals and ­preparation for dying. Furthermore, if honesty, even when it makes us uncomfortable, is something we value, then we must be careful to acknowledge the limitations of what we can hope to achieve through these technologies.

90  Immortality Online

Appendix On February 9, 2020, I was thinking about my father. It had been exactly five years since he died, and as I had not heard his voice in a long time, I  thought this anniversary might be a good opportunity to rummage through some old voicemails. Many were of the standard “haven’t heard from you in a while; give me a call” variety, but a few were more substantial. I smiled when I heard him laugh at some goofy joke he made, I felt guilty when he asked me to do something I distinctly remember not doing, and I just generally missed him and the relationship we had. Most importantly, at the end of it all, I had an overwhelming sense of appreciation for both the 37 years we overlapped in life, and the chance I had that night to remember him. The next morning, I checked my email and discovered that my cousin (completely unaware of the anniversary of my father’s death) had sent me a link to an article about a “Korean TV special called Meeting You,” in which virtual reality is used to “reunite” a mother with her somewhat recently deceased 7-year-old daughter (Plunkett 2020). The technology that makes this all possible is no doubt impressive, but the video is hard to watch. The editing and background music are definitely played up at times for sentimental impact, but seeing this woman cry into a VR mask while desperately pawing (with “touch-sensitive gloves”) at a computerized ghost is unsettling with or without the editorial/musical garnish. I imagine it is the stuff of some people’s nightmares. It certainly does not help to hear the “daughter” ask where the mother has been and if she still thinks about her. Eventually, the trimmed-down version of the experience presented to viewers at home settles down emotionally, as mother and “daughter” have a small birthday celebration in a virtual playground. In the final scene, they exchange goodbyes at bedtime before the little girl transforms into a luminescent butterfly and flutters away. What struck me about all of this, besides immediate empathy for a fellow human being in obvious emotional distress, was how different my experience of remembering my dad while listening to old voicemails had been from the way this grieving mother seemed to experience her time with her virtual daughter. At this point I need to mention a number of very important caveats, beginning with the fact that I have no access to the ultimate psychological impact of this woman’s experience. The purpose of the televised exercise seems to have been to help a bereaved mother “move on,” which is not really something I need help with anymore; perhaps she found the help she needed, despite what seemed to me to be a traumatic encounter. Furthermore, there are cultural differences, and differences in age (at least of the deceased) and gender (and the way they are performed) that must be taken into consideration. It also matters quite a bit that I lost a parent, while this woman lost a child. Given all of these extremely salient differences, I want it to be clear that in no way do I mean to criticize the manner in which this woman reacted to seeing her

Immortality Online  91 daughter digitally recreated (even if I may share Luke Plunkett’s qualms about televising the experience and making it available online). Having acknowledged all of this, the contrast between my experience and hers still got me thinking about IPCs. To be sure, the “daughter” in this case may not be as interactive as the show is sometimes edited to make her appear, and she may not make it all of the way across the “uncanny valley,” but it certainly looks like another technological step toward IPCs has been taken. In any case, it occurs to me that another way to understand the problem I get at in terms of “recollection vs. replacement” has to do with trying to generate novel “shared” experiences with a deceased individual. I am imagining a scenario in which the encounter with the “daughter” is truly interactive and is not a one-time opportunity to say goodbye and “move on,” but rather a regular occurrence in which the mother attempts to prolong the living relationship as though no significant break has taken place. The better the technology gets, the more seamless the transition will be from interacting with a living person to interacting with a bot version of a deceased person. In fact, such seamlessness seems like precisely the goal of people working on this kind of technology. Ultimately, it is not the mother’s distress that worries me; tears seem like a sign of recognition that a significant break in a relationship has indeed occurred, and an appropriate reaction when confronted with memories of the relationship. But the birthday party  seems like it has the potential to become something else. Death usually means there will be no more birthday celebrations with the deceased, and all we have been able to do up to this point in human history is reflect (perhaps with the aid of old letters, pictures, videos, and voicemails) on the ones we shared in the past. If we get to a point where it is possible to continue, in fairly seamless fashion, having birthday ­celebrations “with” the deceased, then it will be less clear why it matters that the dead are actually gone. Will tears even seem appropriate anymore? Now before I come across as some hopeless technophobe, I say again that I can also envision benefits related to this kind of technological advancement. Furthermore, I have to admit that given the opportunity to hang out with my “dad” in VR every once in a while, I probably would not be able to resist purely on principle. However, as I suggested before, I think it is important that we try to anticipate and reflect on the potential pitfalls of near-future technologies. It is possible they might change us and our values in somewhat unwelcome ways, but if we see them coming, we might be better prepared to reap the benefits of new developments while still managing to preserve the important elements of the way things used to be. This idea applies to technologies promising first-personal immortality, or at least radical life extension, as much as to those promising the kinds of extension considered in this chapter.

7 Sartre and the Importance of Always Having an Exit

In several important ways, Sartre has already made an impact on the preceding chapters, and the time has come to provide a more thorough treatment of his relevant ideas. His Being and Nothingness makes a powerful case that mortality can never be the source of life’s meaning, both because death cuts us off before a certain sense of meaning can be determined, and because (as we have seen) any sense of meaning that survives is no longer our own. These claims already put Sartre at odds with immortality curmudgeons who think the limitations provided by our temporal finitude are essential to human meaning, but then he takes it a step further and joins Heidegger (albeit without realizing it) in arguing that the relevant limitations of our temporal situation would remain intact regardless of extension or immortality. Thus, Sartre seems like an obvious resource for anyone defending the desirability of immortality. However, in his famous play, No Exit, Sartre does suggest one major reason to be wary of immortality. The story itself focuses on the way we understand ourselves through the look of “the Other,” and how this can be uncomfortable and even torturous, but it is the notion that the encounter with others could be used as a form of eternal torment in hell that is most relevant here. The possibility of ending up in any perpetually miserable scenario makes truly indestructible immortality seem less attractive, and this diminished attractiveness suggests that the ability to die should not be taken too lightly. But this is not to say that we should be happy remaining vulnerable to accidents and other dangers beyond our control. Relying on Sartre’s example, as well as some others, I will argue that the ideal form of life extension is indefinite, but with the possibility of voluntary death as a last resort in the face of an eternity that happens to end up irreparably intolerable.

Death and the Indeterminacy of Meaning In many ways, Sartre’s views on death and meaning are diametrically opposed to those of curmudgeons like May, Scheffler, and Smuts. Whereas they hold—based on arguments about the importance of complete series DOI: 10.4324/9781003281085-8

Sartre and the Importance of Always Having an Exit  93 of life stages, mortal dangers, and literal deadlines—that death is necessary for the generation of human meaning, Sartre is content to highlight the ways death is destructive of human meaning.1 He states, death is never that which gives life its meanings; it is, on the contrary, that which on principle removes all meaning from life. If we must die, then our life has no meaning because its problems receive no solution and because the very meaning of the problems remains undetermined. (BN 690) At this fairly late juncture in my account, these are hardly new ideas, and I have no intention of relitigating the question of the potential for meaning in mortal existence.2 However, at the very least, Sartre offers some compelling reasons to doubt the relatively rosy depiction of mortality provided by pessimists about immortality, reasons that should be fully explained. The first is one that has already come up a couple of times in different contexts. In the previous chapter’s discussion of the potentially bleak situation of digital remains, I mentioned that Sartre’s early understanding of interpersonal relations is a necessarily antagonistic one. This is the case insofar as each human subject is constantly objectifying the others it encounters (as explained in the Being and Nothingness section on “The Look”). It is the nature of our interaction that in order to assert my freedom, I need, in some way or another, to deny you yours. According to Schumacher’s (2011: 100) reading, The appearance of another in the world corresponds to a decentralization of the original for-itself: his look strikes me in my being, reveals my slavery and thus my shame. The other objectifies me, therefore, before becoming in turn an object to me as I try to “recover” my ­subjectivity, my “being”, for my being can be realized only insofar as I seize another’s freedom, subjecting it to my freedom. This seizing and subjecting can be the result of some kind of explicit competition over something, in which I defeat you and prevent you from getting what you want, or it might simply involve an interpretation of your behavior and character as that of a certain kind of person you may or may not want to be. As long as we live, we are constantly asserting our self-understandings and interests against the interests and interpretations of others. In fact, the truth of what I am can be found somewhere in between what others say about me and the ideal I aspire to. I am always a work in progress that is capable, to some degree, of transcending what I objectively appear to be. Unfortunately, as a mortal being, I cannot keep it up forever, and my ­self-understanding disappears from the world, while my unfinished projects

94  Sartre and the Importance of Always Having an Exit and reputation remain behind for others to do with as they wish. As Sartre puts it, death confers a meaning from the outside on everything which I live in subjectivity. Death reapprehends all this subjective which while it “lived” defended itself against exteriorization, and death deprives it of all subjective meaning in order to hand it over to any objective meaning which the Other is pleased to give it. (BN 696)3 Of course, it need not be the case that others interpret my life in cruel fashion once I am no longer around to defend it. It is certainly possible that my actions and achievements are viewed charitably, or even that they are simply forgotten. In the latter case, it is not quite accurate to say the objective meaning of my life is “annihilated”; it is rather “dissolved into” some more “collective” category—e.g. the work of unremarkable, yet handsome, philosophers of the 21st century (BN 693). But even if my individual memory is preserved and treated kindly by survivors, it is questionable whether the meaning attributed to it can still rightly be called “mine.” It is dictated by others for their own purposes. And whatever it is others ultimately do with my “remains,” simply by putting an end to the first-personal subjective element, death leaves the meaning I  spent my life cultivating in, at best, a severely diminished state (cf.  O’Donohoe 1981: 343; Schumacher 2011: 102). But what about the meaning my life contains while I am still living it? Sartre’s other main reason to think death is a destructive, rather than contributing, factor in the formation of meaning (which was hinted at in  the quotation at the beginning of this section) is that it cuts us off before meaning can be determined. For Sartre, like many others, meaning in human life is bound up with the projects we are engaged in. The meaning conferred on life by these projects depends on what happens next— e.g. whether or not the projects are brought to a successful conclusion (BN 688–90). As discussed in connection with Chappell’s rope metaphor, death often interrupts projects, leaving the meaning I was attempting to cultivate unfinished and poorly defined. In terms my fellow educators can relate to, my projects, and thus my life, get a nebulous “incomplete” rather than a clear-cut “pass” or “fail.” In Sartre’s words, “the final value of [my] conduct remains forever in suspense” (BN 690). It is of no use to plan ahead and choose projects that are properly suited to the time available because it is rarely, if ever, the case that people know precisely when they will die; even a carefully coordinated suicide can go awry (BN 691). Death can come too early or too late, and either way, the meaning in the lives we are living is probably not what we think it is.4 Given the dependence of our meaning on the future, and our uncertainty about what the future holds, any meaning mortals try to attribute to their own lives while they are still being lived is precarious and illusory.

Sartre and the Importance of Always Having an Exit  95 It is also worth mentioning the implications of this precarious and i­llusory quality for notions of meaningful life put in terms of concluded narrative. Whether or not my life culminates in the successful and remainderless completion of projects, the end result can hardly be credited to me since it is merely by chance that things wind up as they do. Sartre states, it is only chance which decides the character of our death and therefore of our life… luck by determining it for me removes from it any character as an harmonious end… A death like that… will therefore resemble a resolved chord but will not be one. (BN 687) For Sartre, as for Heidegger in his own way, the uncertain or chance element of death has a rather significant role to play in how we should understand life’s meaning. Of course, as we have seen, even if I could be certain and wanted to lay claim to a genuinely resolved chord or neatly concluded story, only others will be left to tell it (or sing it), so it is hard to say its meaning is mine anyway.

The Finitude of Immortal Life Although he does not always notice or understand the connections, Sartre’s views on death owe a lot to Heidegger’s. One thing these pillars of 20th-century philosophy have in common (even if Sartre does not see it [cf. BN 698]) is that, while neither of them are particularly desirous of personal immortality or radical life extension, they both think immortal/ extended lives and the lives of ordinary mortals would be similarly structured, at least when it comes to the way we attempt to cultivate meaning. Sartre is even more explicit than Heidegger in making this kind of claim about the similarity between mortality and immortality, and I have already argued in some detail that it is precisely this kind of claim that makes it clear the latter is no friend of immortality curmudgeons. All the more reason, I will argue, to think of Sartre as a resource for anyone hopeful about the prospects of meaningful immortality. Beginning with the idea, popular among curmudgeons, that certain human limitations are crucial for the development of meaning and value, Sartre and Heidegger argue that the relevant ones do not come entirely, or even primarily, from death. Sartre, rather straightforwardly, states, human reality would remain finite even if it were immortal, because it makes itself finite by choosing itself as human. To be finite, in fact, is to choose oneself—that is, to make known to oneself what one is  by projecting oneself toward one possible to the exclusion of ­others… If I make myself, I make myself finite and hence my life is unique… it is the irreversibility of temporality which forbids me… if I am immortal and have had to reject the possible B in order to

96  Sartre and the Importance of Always Having an Exit realize the possible A, the opportunity may be offered me later to realize the refused possible. But by the very fact that this opportunity will be presented after the refused opportunity, it will not be the same, and consequently I shall for all eternity have made myself finite by irremediably rejecting the first opportunity. From this point of view, the immortal man like the mortal is born several and makes himself one. Even if one is temporally indefinite—i.e., without limits—one’s “life” will be nevertheless finite in its very being because it makes itself unique. Death has nothing to do with this. (BN 698–9)5 There is a lot to unpack in this long passage, but the upshot is that our most important limitations—the ones that can tell us something about what our lives mean—are related to the range of possible projects that lay before us, and the choices we make about which ones to pursue. As discussed in connection with Heidegger, each of us is thrown into a particular set of circumstances and characteristics that dictate what is possible for us and what is not in any particular moment. What Sartre is focused on is the way we add to and adjust this set through each decision we make. When I arrive at a metaphorical fork in the road and pick a direction, that selection says something about the kind of person I am in that moment and want to be moving forward, insofar as it plays a role in determining where I can go at the next crossroads. Taking a broader perspective on my overall body of choices, I am the more or less idiosyncratic course I have walked so far through the various forks in the road. Now, it is clearly true that I can start making different kinds of decisions if I am unhappy with my life course so far, but there is really no way to change my previous decisions. They have become part of the set of circumstances I am thrown into that define my current options. The forward march of time fixes my meaning on one end in such a way that even if I wanted to go back and try the road not taken, I cannot undo what got me to this point. It could happen that a similar option will present itself in the future, and I can certainly go a different way next time, but the fact that it is “next time” means it is not so much a redo as it is a completely new choice only made possible by the self I have cultivated through my previous choices. Each new choice comes with a certain amount of risk built in because opportunities are surrendered forever when I opt to go one direction rather than another, and I cannot know in advance what I might later regret. As Kathryn Jackson (2013: 242) puts it, “with every choice we make, we forever negate (or nihilate) all other imminent possibilities. The existential anxiety this entails is onerous.” Each new choice also comes with a certain amount of urgency built in because most decisions cannot be postponed indefinitely; they are intimately tied up with

Sartre and the Importance of Always Having an Exit  97 particular passing moments. Time marches on and refusing to make a decision often amounts to one being made anyway.6 Thus, without ever involving death in his account, Sartre manages to explain how other limitations that show up in life are sources of the same kinds of stakes and pressures that curmudgeons demand from a truly meaningful existence.7 Unfortunately, the curmudgeons seem unlikely to be moved. I have already considered Smuts’ objections to the kind of “forward march of time” argument Sartre employs to generate risks and a sense of urgency, so I will not rehash his claims here, but the same counterpoints I made in discussing Heidegger’s views apply just as well to Sartre’s.8 I would also add that, from Sartre’s point of view, Smuts just is not taking seriously enough the permanent closing off of opportunities that results from deciding to go one way rather than another in a particular moment. Smuts treats similar future opportunities as though they are the same in the only ways that matter, while Sartre offers a more nuanced account. The metaphor of charting a unique course through life that I have employed in describing Sartre’s understanding of the meaningbuilding task of self-cultivation suggests that Smuts is indeed insufficiently sensitive to the importance of past choices. Smuts focuses too much on particular activities, and not enough on the life-consuming process of making a self. As we have seen, he is not the only curmudgeon who makes this mistake (see e.g. May 2009: 58–9), and this is not the only point on which Sartre and the curmudgeons disagree. Just to recap, not only does Sartre think death has a detrimental impact on the meaning in our lives, but it is not even necessary to provide the all-important meaning-producing limitations the curmudgeons think it does.

“Hell Is Other People” and the Dangers of Necessary Immortality Given everything said so far, it seems pretty clear that Sartre, if not a fullblown immortality enthusiast, is at least open to the possibility of meaningful immortality.9 However, perhaps without intending to, Sartre does raise one serious worry about a certain sort of immortality—the indestructible sort in which one necessarily lives forever. In No Exit,10 Sartre depicts the first interactions of three recently deceased individuals upon their arrival in some kind of an afterlife. One by one, Garcin, Inez, and Estelle are escorted by a valet to a fancy, yet somewhat out of fashion, room that is the setting for the duration of the play. The valet does not offer much in the way of details about their situation, but repeated comments by other characters about implements of torture and the uncomfortably high temperature suggest they are in hell. At different points, both Garcin and Inez explicitly claim this is the case, and by the end of the play, even Estelle comes to accept that they are stuck in their miserable situation forever (see e.g. NE 16–7, 36, 40, 45–6).

98  Sartre and the Importance of Always Having an Exit What is notable about this particular version of unending torment is that the room is missing “racks and red-hot pincers and all the other paraphernalia,” as well as demonic torturers trained to use them (NE 4). Instead of witnessing any overt physical suffering, the audience finds three people from different walks of life having a conversation about the circumstances that led to their posthumous coming together. This scene might not seem all that hellish at first, and it is not immediately clear why these three are even deserving of punishment, but as the details of their cruel, callous, and cowardly behavior begin to emerge, the nature of their eternal comeuppance comes into focus. The main point of the play seems to be to illustrate Sartre’s Being and Nothingness claims about coming to know ourselves through the way we appear to others. Besides red-hot pincers, one other thing missing from the room is mirrors. This odd feature of the afterlife is a handy literary device that suggests the room’s occupants are even more acutely reliant on others for self-understanding than they were when they were alive. Thus, as Garcin lays out his marital infidelity, lack of compassion for his wife, and military desertion, he feels the judgment of Estelle and (especially) Inez and despairs when he realizes it is not the charitable interpretation of his life that he longs for. It eventually dawns on him that his eternal punishment is the unwelcome and unavoidable assessment of the kind of person he is by his fellow sufferers—the two women that he will, in turn, torment with his own assessments. This, for many commentators, is the meaning of Garcin’s famous declaration, “Hell is—other people” (NE 45). But not everyone is so willing to view the play this straightforwardly and take the characters’ word for it about where they are and what is going on. Jonathan Webber (2011: 49; cf. 52), for instance, argues that it is far from certain they are “intended to be in hell,” rather than some kind of “purgatory where sinners are punished until purged of their sins.” Garcin may well be suffering because his own preferred self-understanding is frustrated by the way the others see him (cf. Webber 2011: 50), but this does not mean the suffering will be everlasting. At the same time, Inez’s unperturbed confidence about their current predicament, combined with her insistent antagonizing of the other two, suggests to Webber (2011: 50–2) that she might be in cahoots with whomever is running this operation. But the main reason Webber gravitates toward this somewhat far-fetched reading is that he sees signs of progress or character development from Garcin. Indeed, Garcin does frequently recommend that each of them reflect on his or her own worldly behaviors, and he also speaks of hope for salvation (see e.g. NE 18, 23, 29, 39, 43). If he feels that his interactions with Inez and Estelle are miserable, even hellish, perhaps it is because he is coming to realize through these interactions what a miserable person he has been (Webber 2011: 52–3). Should it turn out that he is not, in fact, forever damned, but is merely being purged of sin through

Sartre and the Importance of Always Having an Exit  99 some period of cross- and self-examination, this realization might help him move on to a more pleasant form of afterlife. While I find Webber’s account interesting, there are several reasons I cannot quite get on board. For example, the claims about Inez are highly speculative and not clearly supported by the text, and Webber (2011: 49n7) himself admits that Sartre did seem to have hell in mind, rather than purgatory. But more importantly, I am not convinced Garcin is showing genuine signs of progress, even though he badly longs to be saved; I see a man who does not so much want to be different or behave differently as he wants other people to understand him and his behaviors differently. In fact, according to the dominant reading of No Exit, progress, or change of any kind, is impossible for the dead. Here is an example of such a reading: These characters are already dead – they are stuck in the moment and have no future… they cannot escape their past. There is no way for them to become anything but what they have been, and the existence of the others – their looks – rob each of any possibility of transcendence, of becoming other than what they have been. (Jackson 2013: 245; cf. Webber 2011: 47) If this is true, then Garcin’s having been a miserable or terrible person is a very significant problem, especially if he is eternally damned. He seems to be in precisely the situation that concerned me at the end of my discussion of Kierkegaard in Chapter 2; Garcin is stuck with himself, is “forced to be the self he does not want to be, that is his torment—that he cannot get rid of himself” (SUD 20/SKS 11: 136). If he had cultivated a better self, if he had been a better person, then it would not be so torturous to be fixed forever by the unrelenting gaze of Estelle and Inez. But regardless of Garcin’s role in determining his own perpetual torment, Sartre has provided a handy example of a not particularly attractive way to spend immortality. As previously mentioned, there are others; one probably would not want to spend immortality in solitary confinement, in excruciating physical agony, floating aimlessly through empty space, or even in a state of boredom.11 Despite my generally optimistic attitude about the prospects of meaningful immortality, these are the kinds of scenarios that give me pause when considering its overall desirability. I would argue—and have, in the case of boredom—that none of these scenarios are certain or even very likely to become reality for a given truly indestructible person, but insofar as they remain possibilities, it would be absolutely crucial to do whatever it takes to avoid them. Here, the question of meaning in immortal life becomes secondary to the question of suffering in immortal life.12 Unlike Unamuno, I am not ­willing to commit to the notion that suffering in hell, meaningful or not, is preferable to nonexistence. While I might be willing and able to endure a certain amount of suffering if there is hope that something worthwhile awaits me on the other side of the experience, I am not too proud to

100  Sartre and the Importance of Always Having an Exit admit that some suffering, especially if there is no end to it in sight, might have me wishing for annihilation.

Indefinite Life Extension and Suicide The potential for never-ending suffering due to nightmarish consequences of being unable to die is a topic frequently explored in literature, film, and television, and it does not take more than a few chilling tales for the following lesson to sink in: when it comes to immortality, the most important thing is to “read the fine print.”13 One of the classic dramagenerating blunders in science fiction and fantasy stories involves a ­character leaping blindly into immortality before inquiring about the rules governing the eternal life that has been granted. Living forever sounds great until you realize that the aging process will continue indefinitely, that it will be necessary to drink the blood of innocent victims in order to preserve your youth, that it is still possible to be permanently disfigured or dismembered, or that you can be repeatedly and painfully killed before being immediately resurrected. As I suggested in the introduction to this book, should I ever be presented with a monkey’s paw, magic elixir, or amazing new technology, I have no intention of making the “rookie mistake” of leaping before I look. So, with the various cautionary tales in mind, what sort of immortal existence would I confidently consent to? Obviously, putting a hold on the aging process (at a “good” age—28 would be my preference) and being able to regenerate or repair any damage done would be important (cf. Fischer 2013: 338; Holmen 2018: 139; Rosati 2013: 358). We would not want to be susceptible to permanent disability due to illness, natural disasters, accidents, or violence. It would also be ideal if any unbearable pain or serious moral compromises could be avoided in the course of maintaining one’s youth and health. What is probably less obvious though, when hypothetically defining the perfect immortality, is the inclusion of an escape clause. All things considered, the best form of immortality does not involve absolute indestructibility, but rather indefinite life extension with the possibility to opt out in case existence becomes intolerable.14 I think it is fair to say that Garcin would not be experiencing hell if he knew he could just extinguish himself when he could not take it anymore. It is the inescapability that makes a bad situation into a hellish one, so the ability to commit suicide (or whatever the equivalent is for someone who is already dead, but still exists) would be quite a boon for an immortal. Sartre is actually critical of suicide when it comes up in Being and Nothingness, but his point is that, like any other death, suicide leaves the meaning of our projects and actions, including the suicidal act itself, “totally undetermined” (BN 691). Suicide will not help one avoid the aforementioned problems for meaning in life that crop up in connection

Sartre and the Importance of Always Having an Exit  101 with our dependence on, and uncertainty about, the future. However, if the discussion turns away from meaning in life toward the simple matter of putting people out of their misery, I do not see any reason to think Sartre would object to suicide (cf. O’Donohoe 1981: 346–7). It seems to be a very effective way to bring an end to a person’s suffering, even though we might hope for a less drastic solution in most cases. The undesirable immortality scenarios under consideration in this chapter are not like most cases. In such extreme circumstances, one’s hopes begin and end with the drastic. The final episodes of the popular television series The Good Place provide a helpful illustration of my point. This illustration is especially relevant to the present discussion for two reasons. First, Sartre had a sizable influence on the series’ creator, Michael Schur, who initially saw himself as developing “a really advanced No Exit” (“Ch. 1: Michael Schur” 2018). Schur may not get all the details of what Sartre is up to quite right, but the premise of the show is clearly inspired by the sexual dynamics in the latter’s play, where Inez is attracted to Estelle, Estelle is only interested in Garcin’s validation of her own attractiveness, and Garcin cannot bring himself to get physical with Estelle under Inez’s judgmental gaze. The abstract problems of acute reliance on the interpretations of others described above are manifested concretely in the fact that none of the characters can get what they want sexually from the others. Similarly, in the first season of The Good Place, four main characters (who believe they have made it to heaven) are being secretly and subtly tormented in “the bad place” by a wily demon who has intentionally matched them with comically inappropriate “soulmates.” This mismatch, along with various other deceptions and psychological manipulations, ensures that none of them will get what they hope for out of the relationships, and as an added bonus, they will feel guilty about their lack of fulfillment and the conflicts this creates. To make matters worse, even the non-soulmates in the group are carefully chosen to get on each other’s nerves, and the impossibly cute neighborhood (like the “Second Empire” style of the room in No Exit) seems designed to annoy at least some of the damned.15 The other, and perhaps even more significant, reason why the final episodes of The Good Place are so relevant to the present discussion has to do with the curmudgeonly involvement of May as a “philosophy advisor” on the show.16 He even makes a cameo appearance in the last ­episode. But in order to understand why May’s involvement interests me, it will first be necessary to describe the show’s concluding events. After numerous struggles, the group, having long ago converted their demonic tormentor to their cause, finally arrives in the actual good place, only to discover that its inhabitants are profoundly miserable. At first, their ­suffering is not so obvious to the newcomers, but as “Patty” (Hypatia of Alexandria, one of the few philosophers to make it to the good place— ouch) explains, having unlimited time has resulted in a mind-numbing

102  Sartre and the Importance of Always Having an Exit “ennui.” Nothing seems to matter anymore because everyone has already done everything they ever wanted to do, and yet they are still just stuck existing anyway. Fortunately, the reformed demon is able to make some alterations to the rules, allowing anyone who has had enough to walk through a special doorway and thereby cease to exist. Simply having this option immediately changes the outlook of the denizens of the good place, which once again seems like the paradise everyone hoped for (The Good Place 2020a). I obviously do not agree with the curmudgeonly notion that beings like us would necessarily run out of worthwhile things to do with absolutely unlimited time and end up like Patty, but abstracting for a moment from the questionable specifics, what we have here is a story of eternal suffering mitigated by the possibility to self-destruct. Regardless of what form the suffering takes, I can certainly agree that having this possibility in one’s back pocket would improve the immortal situation. After all, who does not like having options? This is the one version of immortality that has a chance of bringing most people involved in the debate about its desirability—curmudgeons and enthusiasts alike—together.17 Even if immortality enthusiasts are not convinced things will automatically go bad given enough time, it never hurts to remain cognizant of worst-case scenarios, which are precisely what “escape hatches,” like the doorway added to the good place, are designed to prevent. On the other hand, there simply is not that much for curmudgeons to object to in an optional immortality; as soon as it loses its luster, one can simply opt out.18 To its credit, The Good Place acknowledges that individual constitution might play a large role in determining how much existence one can tolerate before it no longer seems worthwhile or enjoyable, and instead becomes a burden. Unfortunately, the show ultimately gives in to the curmudgeonly tendencies of its philosophy advisor.19 May (2009: 64) holds that Sooner or later, one sees what there is to see, does what there is to do and meets whomever is around. It may take tens of thousands of years, or even a couple of hundred thousand. But sooner or later it’s going to happen.20 And sure enough, one by one, each of the main characters on the show— with a single important exception I will return to shortly—feels a deep sense of satiation, loses the desire to go on existing, and walks through the doorway.21 The implication is that eventually everyone will experience a similar sort of “being finished,” and there is no way of renewing the desire once it is gone. The extent of May’s (2009: 47) influence on these final scenes is not entirely clear, but his cameo does include the ­following quotation from his book on death: “Mortality offers meaning to the events of our lives.” At the same time this quote is discussed,

Sartre and the Importance of Always Having an Exit  103 “‘The  Makropulos Case’ – Bernard Williams” and “‘The Immortal’ – Borges”—two texts/authors known for their less than flattering depictions of immortality—are both listed on a blackboard in the background.22 All of this serves to reinforce the curmudgeonly message that no life is worth living forever, and it is for the best that each one comes to a conclusion (The Good Place 2020b). Instead of accepting that they do not (and probably cannot) know for certain whether lives without end would necessarily become miserable, instead of accepting the theoretical compromise of immortality with an emergency exit, many curmudgeons continue to make this kind of claim about the indispensability of death. May (cf. 2009: 75–8) is clearly one of them, even if he is not thrilled about having to die. To be fair, he does admit, in talking about the inevitability of boredom specifically, that “None of us is immortal, so we can’t really know for sure,” but that does not keep him from a dogged attempt to demonstrate such inevitability (May 2009: 61). If there is any saving grace for the way these matters are treated on The Good Place, despite May’s involvement, it is the character Tahani. After completing her very long list of things to do in the afterlife, she declares that she is ready to walk through the doorway. However, during her farewell party, she has an epiphany about a rather difficult and complicated task no (former) human has ever taken on—she wants to become an afterlife architect. I suspect that, for Schur and the other principal decisionmakers on the show, this is only postponing the inevitable, but because we never see the end of Tahani, it seems possible that she is the kind of person who might never be finished with existing. The impossibility of such people is something no curmudgeon, May included, has ever convincingly demonstrated (cf. Bortolotti and Nagasawa 2009: 270, 273–4; Fischer and Mitchell-Yellin 2014: 356–8; Rosati 2013: 365–6; Steele 1976: 427). So, what is it we learn from getting Sartre’s philosophical ideas and literary creations, as well as other similarly disturbing stories and scenarios (some of which are inspired by his work), involved in the debate about the desirability of immortality? We learn that there are good reasons to worry about meaning in mortal life, good reasons to be optimistic about meaning in immortal life, and good reasons to want an “eject button” just in case immortality turns out not to be what we hoped for. Last but not least, we learn that it is far from certain that this “just in case” is an inevitability in every case. Individual constitution might play  a more expansive role in this discussion than some philosophers (and showrunners) seem to think it does. Rather than merely determining the length of finite existence one could tolerate, it could actually dictate one’s suitability for something indefinite or even infinite. While this last  point goes slightly beyond anything Sartre actually says, rest assured that there will be no getting beyond his orbit in the following chapters.

8 Camus and the Absurdist Case for Immortality

Camus’ claims about the absurdity of human existence are frequently referenced by contemporary philosophers interested in the relationship between death and the meaning of life (see e.g. Bradley 2015: 415; Luper 2014: 208; Wolf 2013: 126). This makes sense given his complete disavowal of an inherently meaningful universe combined with his philosophical views on death and literary depictions of suicide, murder, deadly disease, and execution.1 What I find interesting, though, is that Camus does not really come up in the debate about the desirability of personal immortality, despite clearly expressing a predilection for personally sticking around as long as possible in one of his most famous works. In The Myth of Sisyphus, not only does he lay out a way to cultivate a kind of meaningful existence (despite its absurdity) that resonates with what we have seen from fellow atheistic thinkers like Sartre and Nietzsche, but he also (somewhat surprisingly) ties this cultivation to the sort of explicit demand for more individual existence that we have only previously found in the religiously inclined Unamuno. Unlike his friend-turned-adversary, Sartre,2 who is merely supportive of the idea of a worthwhile immortality, Camus would appear to be one of the most pro-immortality/lifeextension figures considered in this book. Much like I suggested when discussing the example of the character Tahani in the previous chapter, Camus is especially convinced that more time can always be worthwhile, even when further value seems unlikely or impossible—as in the case of the mythical Sisyphus. To understand how Camus comes to such a conclusion, and unknowingly sets himself in opposition to the immortality curmudgeons, it will be necessary to explore his claims about absurdity, meaning, mortality, suicide, freedom, and revolt.3

Meaninglessness and Absurdity Nietzsche’s exclamation, “God is Dead!” reverberates loudly in Camus’ work (he explicitly refers to it at MS 98–9; cf. Stolz 2021: 187; Woodward 2011: 544–5). Here is one early expression of the idea, which Nietzsche puts in the mouth of a “madman”: DOI: 10.4324/9781003281085-9

Camus and the Absurdist Case for Immortality  105 “Where is God?” he cried; “I’ll tell you! We have killed him – you and I! We are all his murderers. But how did we do this?… What were we doing when we unchained this earth from its sun? Where is it moving to now? Where are we moving to? Away from all suns? Are we not continually falling? And backwards, sidewards, forwards, in all directions? Is there still an up and a down? Aren’t we straying as though through an infinite nothing? Isn’t empty space breathing at us?… God is dead! God remains dead! And we have killed him! How can we console ourselves, the murderers of all murderers! The holiest and the mightiest thing the world has ever possessed has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood from us? With what water could we clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what holy games will we have to invent for ourselves? Is the magnitude of this deed not too great for us? Do we not ourselves have to become gods merely to appear worthy of it?” (GS, section 125) The madman never quite gets around to answering the question about how we killed God and ended up in this chaotic situation, although clues from the broader context of Nietzsche’s writings suggest that the scientific outlook following the Enlightenment, which no longer depends on supernatural explanations for natural phenomena, is what really did the deed (cf. Woodward 2011: 553–5). The emphasis of this rather dramatic passage is instead placed on the notion that, in a world without God, we have no absolute point of reference that we could use to orient ourselves and establish a purpose, sense of meaning, or set of values. Lacking such orientation, we are left to make our own way in the world, to do for ourselves what God or other defunct sources of absolute values used to do for us (cf. Aydin 2017: 311). Before considering Camus’ particular approach to making one’s own way, we must first see how he appropriates the madman’s sense of ultimate directionlessness. Camus describes the godless universe as an inherently meaningless one, which is not to say that cultivating a transient, contingent, and personal sense of direction or meaning is impossible in such a universe. He is simply pointing out that the universe itself will not allow anything beyond this limited sort of meaning. It has only the significance we attach to it; in itself, it is cold and uncaring, brutal and disinterested. It provides no hope or guidance (cf. Pölzler 2018: 483; Wolfs 2010: 66–70). As we look closely at it, strangeness creeps in: perceiving that the world is “dense”, sensing to what degree a stone is foreign and irreducible to us, with what intensity nature or a landscape can negate us. At the heart of all beauty lies something inhuman, and these hills, the softness of the sky, the outline of these trees at this very minute lose the illusory meaning with

106  Camus and the Absurdist Case for Immortality which we had clothed them, henceforth more remote than a lost paradise. The primitive hostility of the world rises up to face us across millennia. For a second we cease to understand it because for centuries we have understood in it solely the images and designs that we had attributed to it beforehand, because henceforth we lack the power to make use of that artifice. The world evades us because it becomes itself again. That stage-scenery masked by habit becomes again what it is. It withdraws at a distance from us. (MS 20) The mere fact that the world in which we exist is hostile, evasive, and withdrawn is not necessarily a problem for Camus, however. The problem that both he and the madman seem to recognize is that human expectations (especially the unstated ones) tend to demand more from such a world than it can possibly provide. Camus identifies a fundamental human desire to make sense of the senseless world and our place in it, and this juxtaposition of attempted sense-making and ultimate senselessness is what renders our existence absurd on his view (cf. Bozzaro 2018: 113; Gordon 2008: 185–6; Pölzler 2018: 482–4). In his words: I said that the world is absurd but I was too hasty. This world in itself is not reasonable, that is all that can be said. But what is absurd is the confrontation of the irrational and the wild longing for clarity whose call echoes in the human heart. The absurd depends as much on man as on the world. (MS 26; cf. 32, 50) Prior to the Enlightenment’s disenchantment of the world, our “wild longing” for clarity and meaning seemed appropriate—i.e. properly attuned to a world that appeared capable of providing it. Now that we know (or at least should know) better about our environment, this longing, this “nostalgia for the absolute” (MS 38; cf. 23), looks more than a little misguided. But if it is absurd to expect to find a larger meaning in our existence, then what is the point of existing? This is the driving question of The Myth of Sisyphus, and the reason for its opening sentence: “There is but one truly serious philosophical problem and that is suicide” (MS 11). By the end of the essay, Camus will explain that an absurd life in a meaningless world can still be worth living, that the lack of absolute meaning does not rule out the more limited sort I mentioned above (cf. Webber 2011: 46). In the following sections, I will lay out the various ways he thinks one could proceed when confronted with the absurdity of human existence, including the only one for which he advocates.4

Camus and the Absurdist Case for Immortality  107

Two Types of Suicide In order to get a complete sense of Camus’ views on suicide, it will be necessary to take a somewhat circuitous route passing through his relationships with various figures associated with existentialism. Despite clearly having some things in common with thinkers like Nietzsche and Sartre (cf. Bozzaro 2018: 114), “existential philosophy” is something of a pejorative term in The Myth of Sisyphus, and Camus frequently objected to being linked to it.5 However, once his actual complaints about existentialism and existentialists are properly understood, this connection may not seem all that problematic (cf. Pölzler 2018: 477). When it comes to Nietzsche and Sartre, it appears that Camus’ concerns are mostly political in nature. On his view, both philosophers appear to condone violence in support of their respective political ideologies—Sartre famously gravitates toward communism, while Nietzsche seems to prefer something more “aristocratic and elitist,” albeit untraditional (Woodward 2011: 548)—and this is something Camus rejected more and more as time went by. In his later work, especially The Rebel (1951) and The Fall (1956), “Camus finds Nietzsche guilty of generating ideas that helped to shape twentieth century totalitarianisms” (Woodward 2011: 546), and he calls out Sartre and the “leftist Parisian intellectuals” who “denounce and crush others” and “threaten to establish kingdoms of death” (Brombert 2011: 34, 37–8). In fairness to both thinkers, Camus’ attacks on their views are not entirely justified by what they actually have to say; at the very least, Camus is insufficiently sensitive to the nuances in their ideas (see Berthold 2021: 51; Woodward 2011: 546–8). Nonetheless, he may have felt the need to dissociate himself from existentialism and its most visible representatives for reasons that have relatively little to do with the ideas most characteristic of existentialism. I do not want to overstate this point, because I think it is impossible to divorce those ideas completely from the respective political views of Nietzsche and Sartre, but in Camus’ more direct early denunciation of existentialism, it is worth noting that he does not target either of them for criticism.6 In The Myth of Sisyphus, Camus seems to have a very particular notion of existentialism in mind, one that might be more properly described as religious, or even Christian, existentialism. Although he is critical of a number of associated figures, not all of them especially religious,7 he saves his most extended and biting comments for Kierkegaard. This is because he showed more initial promise than the others: “Of all, perhaps the most engaging, Kierkegaard, for a part of his existence at least, does more than discover the absurd, he lives it” (MS 30). What is so disappointing, according to Camus, is that, ultimately, Kierkegaard cannot tolerate living it and he seeks a way out—or, in other words, a way back into some kind of overarching or absolute sense of value/meaning. His nostalgia for such value/meaning is what motivates his famous “leap,” an

108  Camus and the Absurdist Case for Immortality idea that exerts a profound influence on later religious existentialists, such as Lev Shestov and Karl Jaspers (MS 35–9). Since he cannot live in the “confrontation” or clash between the senseless world and his need to make sense of it (a clash which, as Camus has explained, renders his existence absurd), Kierkegaard opts to sacrifice or cut off his sensemaking­capacity, his reason, and leap into a nonsensical relationship with the senseless world—in the form of a divinity that can somehow provide a larger meaning that transcends rationality (MS 40–1).8 Camus sees this movement as a failure to be honest with oneself about the nature of one’s existence (MS 42–3); he says, “The leap in all its forms, rushing into the divine or the eternal… all these screens hide the absurd” (MS 85). Interestingly, Kierkegaard’s attempt to hide from or escape the absurd, his retreat into the absolute via a kind of self-mutilation, bears a striking resemblance to suicide, as Camus makes clear: “I am taking the liberty at  this point of calling the existential attitude philosophical suicide” (MS 43). Camus’ treatment of Kierkegaard is not without basis in Kierkegaard’s claims about the relationship between faith and reason, which he does often put in terms that make faith in God sound somewhat suicidal.9 However, as is the case in Camus’ critiques of Nietzsche and Sartre, there is plenty of textual evidence suggesting Camus is not entirely fair to Kierkegaard. While Camus’ portrayal suggests a self-deceptive coward holding out hope for easy and comfortable meaning instead of facing the harsh reality that we are all on our own in an unforgiving environment, Kierkegaard’s writings repeatedly emphasize brutal honesty with oneself about one’s shortcomings as well as the various hardships of living in the  midst of a faithful—i.e. rationally unsupported—leap (cf. Berthold 2013a). As I previously pointed out in distinguishing Kierkegaard from Pascal, it is not weakness, cowardice, or comfort-seeking that motivates this movement. In fact, Camus’ stubborn and rebellious approach to an absurd existence, which also forgoes nostalgic consolation, has much in common with Kierkegaard’s faithful approach.10 I do not want to get too bogged down at this point in discussing what Camus gets right or wrong about Kierkegaard specifically (although I  remain unconvinced that the most prominent figures associated with existentialism are the best representatives of the so-called “existential attitude” he criticizes), because the more pressing issue is Camus’ general worry about “philosophical suicide.” It does not seem too far-fetched to believe that some less courageous and self-aware individuals with some sort of religious inclinations might recoil from the absurdity of life and employ this dubious strategy for overcoming or escaping it (cf. MS 52). But it is the attempt to overcome or escape absurdity itself that really bothers Camus, and not all such attempts involve a superficial nostalgic grasping for absolute truths. Actual suicide seems like a different kind of response to absurdity, and yet Camus dismisses it for similar reasons; just

Camus and the Absurdist Case for Immortality  109 like the retreat into poorly evidenced absolutes, suicide is merely an attempt to escape absurdity. In his words: Negating one of the terms of the opposition on which [one] lives amounts to escaping it… Living is keeping the absurd alive… It may be thought that suicide follows revolt – but wrongly… Suicide, like the leap, is acceptance at its extreme… In its way, suicide settles the absurd. It engulfs the absurd in the same death. But I know that in order to keep alive, the absurd cannot be settled. It escapes suicide to the extent that it is simultaneously awareness and rejection of death. (MS 53–4) There is some resemblance here to what Sartre says about the ineffectiveness of suicide for establishing the meaning in one’s life, but in this case, Camus thinks suicide is ineffective as a response to life’s absurdity; in fact, it is not a direct response at all. It is true enough that suicide can provide a way out of having to worry about it, but what Camus seeks is a way to face or engage with absurdity instead of flee it (cf. Bozzaro 2018: 113–4; Woodward 2011: 551).

Freedom and Revolt So, if Camus does not think either type of suicide is an appropriate response to the absurdity of life, what is the way to face it that he recommends? As I have been hinting, it involves some kind of revolt, or what might be best described as a “standing up to” absurdity, a “standing up to” that requires constant self-scrutiny, rigorous adherence to available evidence, and complete honesty with oneself about one’s situation. Camus states, One of the only coherent philosophical positions is thus revolt. It is a constant confrontation between man and his own obscurity. It is an insistence upon an impossible transparency. It challenges the world anew every second… It is that constant presence of man in his own eyes. (MS 53–4) Revolt depends on keeping an eye on oneself because standing up to the absurdity of one’s existence can include no hint whatsoever of trying to shield oneself from it. All hope of consolation or escape into a deeper sense of meaning in the world must be quashed: “It is not aspiration, for it is devoid of hope. That revolt is the certainty of a crushing fate, without the resignation that ought to accompany it” (MS 54; cf. 81, 85). Despite the somewhat ominous description, the revolutionary rejection of hope for something more comes with certain liberating benefits.

110  Camus and the Absurdist Case for Immortality Of course, there is a sense in which hope that some absolute will come along and save me from the absurdity of existence is also liberating. Absolutes provide life and its various activities with ready-made significance, and in doing so they promise to deliver me of a burden I would otherwise have to bear myself. But given the available evidence, Camus argues that this promise cannot be trusted, and what is even worse is that buying into it would leave me ill-equipped to handle the realities of my existence: “the doctrines that explain everything to me also debilitate me at the same time. They relieve me of the weight of my own life and yet I must carry it alone” (MS 54). Revolt, on the other hand, frees me from dependence on dubious absolutes of all sorts when it comes to determining the kind of life I ought to be living, and allows me to make my own way. Approaching my absurd existence with open eyes instead of averting my gaze at its chaotic hideousness is the first step toward taking control of its meaning (cf. MS 57–9). Claudia Bozzaro (2018: 114) nicely summarizes the key elements of what Camus is getting at: When people revolt, they identify with, and create, meaning within and outside of their own selves. People in revolt do not expect answers to emanate from an external source, be it society, religion, or ideology; rather, they conceive of answers as the products of human action, casting themselves as agents in their own meaning-making. Revolt requires the renunciation of hope and future expectations. One who looks absurdity in the eye recognizes the ephemeral nature of life plans, wishes, obligations, and rules, as well as the corresponding limitations and constraints that people impose on themselves in order to fulfill and satisfy such life plans, wishes, obligations, and rules. Revolt is all about taking responsibility for oneself and the value one attributes to one’s existence. Since there is no value built into the universe itself, becoming responsible in this way is the only means of cultivating a life worth living. In Camus’ words, “That revolt gives life its value. Spread out over the whole length of a life, it restores its majesty to that life” (MS  54). This majesty does not come cheaply, however. As Nietzsche’s madman recognizes, and several thinkers discussed in previous chapters attest (especially Heidegger and Sartre, but also Kierkegaard in some sense), the freedom and responsibility for creative self-cultivation comes with an anxious inability to rest comfortably in the assurance of some absolute sense of what one’s life adds up to. Nonetheless, a somewhat arbitrary and ultimately purposeless creation is the only recourse, according to Camus, for the person who eschews both philosophical and literal suicide and insists on living an absurd life (cf. MS 103–6). Camus’ recommendation of creative self-cultivation is reminiscent of what we have seen from the various other thinkers associated with

Camus and the Absurdist Case for Immortality  111 existentialism, and the resemblance might seem especially strong in the case of Nietzsche (who also emphasizes the importance of creativity). In fact, Camus concludes the section in which he first discusses these matters by quoting Nietzsche (MS 62). There are some crucial differences between them, however, and the most significant one (at least for my present purposes) concerns the question of whether to prioritize the quality or quantity of a life’s activities and experiences.11 Whereas Nietzsche expresses a clear preference for quality and a corresponding indifference to the quantity provided by personal longevity (cf. MS 78), Camus appears to take the opposite position. He states, “belief in the absurd is tantamount to substituting the quantity of experiences for the quality… what counts is not the best living but the most living” (MS 59). Since all experiences are equally meaningless in the grand scheme of things, and the only way we can attribute some limited value to an absurd existence is through revolt—which is really a standing up to this existence and refusing to run from it (i.e. refusing suicide)—a worthwhile life requires keeping the revolution going as long as possible (cf. Wolfs 2010: 75–6). Even though death cannot be put off forever, it ends the modest meaning-making of the “absurd man,” and is thus in some sense his enemy (MS 79).12 Longer life means more experiences, more opportunities to thumb one’s nose at one’s absurd existence, and death is the only thing standing in the way of these additional value-generating activities (whatever they may be). Here is Camus’ calculation: To two men living the same number of years, the world always provides the same sum of experiences. It is up to us to be conscious of them. Being aware of one’s life, one’s revolt, one’s freedom, and to the maximum, is living, and to the maximum… Let us say that the sole obstacle, the sole deficiency to be made good, is constituted by premature death. Thus it is that no depth, no emotion, no passion and no sacrifice could render equal in the eyes of the absurd man… a conscious life of forty years and a lucidity spread over sixty years… The absurd and the extra life it involves therefore do not depend on man’s will but on its contrary which is death… One just has to be able to consent to this. There will never be any substitute for twenty years of life and experience. (MS 61) Given this fixation on quantity of experiences, it would seem that, at least on the question of life extension and immortality, it is ultimately not Nietzsche, but Unamuno who has the most in common with Camus. Although Unamuno’s religious leanings certainly put some distance between the two of them, he and Camus are both clearly in favor of extended personal existence, and they both see it as relevant for attributing meaning to life. They even share a description of annihilative death

112  Camus and the Absurdist Case for Immortality as a kind of injustice. In words he could almost have borrowed directly from Unamuno, Camus claims that “In the rebel’s universe, death exalts injustice. It is the supreme abuse” (MS 84). These similarities suggest that Camus could also draw the disapproving attention of the immortality curmudgeons, though he has been spared their criticism so far. There is even reason to think Camus would be supportive of the more extreme claim Unamuno makes about suffering and annihilation, the very claim that Williams finds so unsettling.

Imagining Sisyphus Happy While it is true that Camus does not really see immortality as a possibility, given that the only version of it he seems to consider (and reject) is the nostalgic religious one (see e.g. MS 98–102), he is nonetheless a potential ally of anyone interested in this-worldly immortality and life extension. To begin with, Camus is fairly optimistic about what life in the meaningless world has to offer, once we get our nostalgic (and suicidal) tendencies under control. He states, The heart learns thus that the emotion delighting us when we see the world’s aspects comes to us not from its depth but from their diversity. Explanation is useless but the sensation remains and, with it, the constant attractions of a universe inexhaustible in quantity. (MS 87) This kind of statement obviously stands in stark opposition to the views of curmudgeons like Williams and Smuts, who have serious doubts about the diversity and inexhaustibility of the “constant attractions” of the world for beings like us. They would likely argue that Camus is not paying sufficient attention to our fundamental limitations or the tedious repetitiveness to which these limitations would eventually condemn us. Of course, as we have seen in previous chapters, there are good reasons to question the intuitions of these curmudgeons about both our limitations and our appetite for repetition. And Camus himself considers a particularly troubling example that seems meant to dispel at least some of the sorts of worries they have. Camus’ famous discussion of the ancient myth of Sisyphus defends an ostensibly boring, worthless, and miserable immortality, and thus further strengthens his pro-immortality credentials. Although there are multiple versions of the circumstances that lead to Sisyphus’ predicament,13 the story of his punishment by the gods is well known, no doubt in part due to the spotlight Camus aimed at it in the last century. For all eternity, Sisyphus is forced to roll a heavy boulder up a hill only to see it roll back down again just as he is about to complete the task. In addition to the physical torment of the never-ending, back-breaking labor, Sisyphus

Camus and the Absurdist Case for Immortality  113 must also endure the psychological agony of monotonous activity that he knows has no ultimate purpose. As Camus explains, Sisyphus’ whole being is exerted towards accomplishing nothing… If this myth is tragic, that is because its hero is conscious. Where would his torture be, indeed, if at every step the hope of succeeding upheld him? The workman of today works every day in his life at the same tasks and this fate is no less absurd. But it is tragic only at the rare moments when it becomes conscious. (MS 108–9) It is after establishing this basic understanding of what Sisyphus represents that Camus’ account really gets interesting, because, as bad as his situation sounds, Camus still thinks Sisyphus is doing OK. Despite being condemned to an absurd eternity, Camus claims he can “imagine Sisyphus happy” (MS 111). Since Camus’ revolt is not about what experiences one has, but about the quantity of experiences one has, an eternally suffering Sisyphus, who stamps out all hope for escape and thereby takes responsibility for the value he attributes to his own existence, can serve as the quintessential “absurd hero” for Camus. With each grueling, agonizing trip up the hill, it is as though Sisyphus says, “yes, my existence is absurd, but it is my existence, and as long as I am around, I am the one who decides what it is worth.” Now, it must be acknowledged that, in at least one key respect, Sisyphus’ perseverance in the face of absurdity is not that of an ordinary human—actual suicide is not on the table for him. However, it is not beyond his capabilities to harbor some sliver of hope that the gods will eventually have mercy on him, relieving him of his rocky burden in one way or another. And yet, according to Camus, he does not do this; in fact, Sisyphus “scorns” the gods completely, refusing to let them dictate the meaning of his experiences (cf. Gordon 2008: 188).14 They may see his activities as punishment, but Sisyphus will not surrender his capacity for creative reinterpretation or its contribution to his self-cultivation. Camus concludes: His fate belongs to him. His rock is his thing… The absurd man says yes and his effort will henceforth be unceasing… he knows himself to be the master of his days… Sisyphus returning towards his rock… contemplates that series of unrelated actions which becomes his fate, created by him… One always finds one’s burden again. But Sisyphus teaches the higher fidelity that negates the gods and raises rocks. He, too, concludes that all is well. This universe henceforth without a master seems to him neither sterile nor futile… The struggle itself towards the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart. (MS 110–1)

114  Camus and the Absurdist Case for Immortality Admittedly, the tale of Sisyphus is an extreme example that really tests the limits of the value Camus’ stubborn revolt can produce, but if even Sisyphus is able to derive some meaning and fulfillment from his situation, then two things seem clear. First, at least some of the concerns about immortality expressed by the curmudgeons are unwarranted, and second, it should be possible for those of us with merely extended or normal lifespans, however unpleasant, to derive some meaning and fulfillment as well. The lingering issue here is what Camus’ positive spin on the Sisyphus unpleasantness has in common with Unamuno’s claim about preferring the torments of hell to personal extinction. If even Sisyphus can live a life worth living, perhaps there is no suffering so hellish that we ought to prefer annihilation.15 As I have said before, I can sympathize with Williams’ incredulous reaction to this kind of claim. However, I think Camus suggests an important mitigating argument that is in some ways reminiscent of what I was saying about The Good Place character Tahani in the previous chapter. The argument is based in part on the consideration of yet another tragic Greek figure—Oedipus, as depicted in Sophocles’ Theban plays. There is no need to recount the famously horrific developments that lead to Oedipus’ tremendous suffering during, and after, the events of Oedipus Rex, because it is the beginning of the following play, Oedipus at Colonus, that really interests Camus. Despite all that Oedipus has suffered through the years, Camus is fascinated by the fact that Oedipus can claim “that all is well”; Camus says, “that remark is sacred… It teaches that all is not, has not been, exhausted” (MS 109–10). Like Sisyphus, Oedipus has been condemned to a miserable fate by divine forces, and like Sisyphus, Camus thinks Oedipus is still able to derive something of worth from it (in this case, by spending time with his devoted daughter Antigone).16 My theoretical Camusian response to concerns about extreme, and extremely tenacious, forms of suffering that threaten to eclipse the value we attribute to life is, thus, that the ability to cultivate this personal value is remarkably resilient and capable of reemergence in even the most daunting of circumstances. We may not always be able to conceive of new and engrossing projects, like Tahani does, but all of these examples, both ancient and contemporary, in their own way reaffirm that even persistent and intense suffering need not put an end to the meaning in one’s life (whether it is mortal or immortal). Camus’ overall point, as we have seen, is that as long as we continue to exist, there will be more opportunities to have experiences we can find worthwhile. We will surely have our moments of despair—what Camus calls “our nights of Gethsemane” (in  a rare bit of Christian metaphor mixed in with his frequent Greek imagery)—but with more time and effort, there might be a dawn worth experiencing (MS 109). I still think it never hurts to have an emergency

Camus and the Absurdist Case for Immortality  115 exit just in case those nights start to get a bit too long, with no signs of light on the horizon, but I suspect Camus is on to something in most cases. Understanding Camus’ proximity to existentialism and the various ­figures associated with it is probably more difficult than figuring out which side he would take in the desirability of immortality debate. His conclusion that nothing but death can stand in the way of the cultivation of personal meaning—at least for those revolutionaries who will not be denied so long as they live—suggests a very friendly attitude toward life extension and immortality. Even particularly nasty forms of suffering seem to constitute no insurmountable obstacle to worthwhile immortality on his view. Camus sees life as an inexhaustible source of occasions to experience and create, to reenvision old activities and maybe come up with new ones. It may not always be smooth sailing, but bad weather and choppy water are not good reasons to abandon ship; if we make it to the other side of the storm there might be new lands and new adventures, or perhaps just a new appreciation for, or outlook on, the old ones. In the following pages, I will discuss, among other things, a further literary example that (despite itself) illustrates the impressive resilience of the human capacity for valuing, and the various ways our interests in projects and relationships might be rekindled even after long periods of dormancy. This example will help to build on some of the key arguments made in the preceding two chapters.

9 Grander Ambitions, Rekindled Interests, and Limited Memory in Beauvoir

While Sartre and (especially) Camus would clearly be on the more immortality-friendly side of the debate about its desirability, their compatriot, Beauvoir, seems to lean heavily in the other direction. Whether or not I would characterize her as an out-and-out curmudgeon remains to be determined, but she certainly expresses stronger doubts about the value of immortal life than any of the thinkers associated with existentialism discussed in previous chapters. Old age and death are frequent topics throughout her nonfiction writings, but for her most detailed examination of immortality, one must turn to the literary works, and to the novel All Men Are Mortal (from 1946) in particular. In this fantastic tale, Beauvoir adds yet another fictional character to an already long list of disenchanted immortals who serve to remind us that the grass is not always greener. I have no intention of disputing that she means to paint immortality in dark tones, or that the outcome lines up rather nicely with many of the scattered claims she makes about it in her more overtly philosophical texts. However, as in much of Beauvoir’s thought, I think there is an ambiguity to the novel, an ambiguity that complicates its lessons about meaning and mortality (and finds support in some of her autobiographical work). Alongside corroboration of some core curmudgeonly worries, there are resources for the immortality enthusiast to be found in its pages, and even hints of an underlying pessimism about the potential for value in human existence of any duration. But before taking a closer look at All Men Are Mortal, it will be helpful to provide a bit of context in the form of a brief overview of her other discussions of death and immortality.

Beauvoir Contra Sartre A number of authors have commented on the fact that “death is a continuing preoccupation” in Beauvoir’s writings (La Caze 2004: 142; cf. Deutscher 2003: 292; Ptacek 2015: 501). She has this in common with precursors, such as Kierkegaard, and contemporaries, such as Camus. DOI: 10.4324/9781003281085-10

Grander Ambitions, Rekindled Interests, and Limited Memory  117 Like the latter, Beauvoir uses her fiction to explore various themes related to existentialism and death, but she also produces an expansive series of autobiographical works that thoroughly document her personal encounters with mortality—her own, and that of her loved ones (see e.g. Fricker 2003: 212–4).1 Where Beauvoir and Camus most clearly come apart is at the intersection of death and politics. She joins Sartre in accepting that physical violence is sometimes justifiable as a means to a political end, which (as I previously suggested) is an issue at the heart of the break between Camus and Sartre (cf. Ptacek 2015: 502–6, 517). Although Beauvoir certainly does not agree with Sartre on all things, when it comes to matters of death, she is more often than not deferential to the views of her longtime collaborator and polyamorous partner. In discussing Beauvoir’s late work on the experience of growing old (The Coming of Age, from 1970), Penelope Deutscher (2003: 293–4) claims that Sartre “is her most constant theoretical reference on the subject” of death, and Beauvoir “assiduously, and apparently faithfully, references Sartre on death.” Deutscher goes on to argue that Beauvoir actually moves beyond Sartre’s views in suggesting that the frailties and sufferings of old age are a kind of physiological anticipation of impending death, but in any case, Beauvoir does indeed sound a lot like Sartre on several of the issues I have discussed in previous chapters. For example, she is in near lockstep with him on the prey-like nature of the legacies of the deceased (CA 410–1), and on the idea that death cannot be properly waited for given the indeterminateness of when it will happen (CA 442). On the rather Epicurean notion that (aging aside) death has no place in one’s subjective experience or projects, Beauvoir’s statements are almost direct quotes from Sartre (CA 441; cf. PC 114). The issue of immortality is a somewhat different matter, however, as she appears to diverge from  his position on a few occasions, especially in her early post-war writings. Whereas Sartre claims that death is not the primary source of ­meaning-generating limitations in ordinary human life, which suggests that immortal humans need not be so different from us mere mortals, Beauvoir briefly counters, in her groundbreaking feminist treatise, The Second Sex (from 1949), that immortals would in fact no longer be human at all. She understands how Sartre establishes that a finite and temporally limitless existence could be conceivable; nevertheless, if human life were not inhabited by death, the relationship of human beings to the world and to themselves would be so deeply upset that the statement “man is mortal” would be anything but an empirical truth: immortal, an existent would no longer be what we call a man… an immortal human being is rigorously inconceivable. (SS 24)

118  Grander Ambitions, Rekindled Interests, and Limited Memory In The Ethics of Ambiguity (from 1947), without mentioning Sartre, she approvingly attributes a similar view to the Stoics: “death is not an evil since he is man only insofar as he is mortal: he must assume it as the natural limit of his life, as the risk implied by every step” (EA 82). Such sentiments sound like they could have come directly from the mouth of Scheffler, but not so much like what Sartre says in Being and Nothingness.2 In order to get a more complete picture of why Beauvoir apparently parts company with Sartre on immortality (and what would be lost in attaining it), we can now turn to All Men Are Mortal, which describes the adventures and increasingly disengaged attitude of a nearly 700-year-old (and counting) individual.

A Curmudgeonly Tale? The novel begins with an extended prologue set in France, roughly in Beauvoir’s present day at the time of writing (although World War II is never mentioned). Regina, an ambitious young actress with an acute consciousness of (and disappointment about) her mortality (see e.g. AM 7, 13, 22, 28, 36, 47), meets a strange man—Raymond Fosca—with no ambitions or interests whatsoever. After learning that his rather inhuman detachment is due to his inability to die, she takes it upon herself to help him reconnect to ordinary human life and its concerns. Regina’s efforts are not motivated by altruism, however, but by a kind of envy. If she cannot live forever, she can at least take this opportunity to use Fosca’s memory as a means of attaining her own limited sort of immortality (see e.g. AM 30–1, 35, 38–9, 45–6, 58), in a way reminiscent of Manley (the sportswriter discussed in Chapter 6) using the internet to forge his own consolation prize. Despite some initial success, Regina’s plan begins to falter as Fosca’s “progress” toward ordinary human values and goals is stunted by his having seen too much, and her own personal archive turns out not to be quite what she had in mind (see e.g. AM 60). Not only does he have a hard time seeing her as meaningfully distinct from his earlier love interests—“You’re unique like all other women” (AM 55; cf. 67)— but the more time they spend together, the more she sees things from his point of view, where human lives and achievements are comparable to those of “insects” (AM 23–4, 28, 37, 126, 301; cf. 57, 87, 242–3, 333, 344–5). As she loses her grip on the things she used to care about, Fosca realizes that his presence is ruining her life and he has to leave. Desperate, Regina tracks him down and begs him to tell her his life story so she might understand the origins of his detachment. He obliges over the course of the five “books” that make up the bulk of the novel. Raimondo Fosca was born to a noble Italian family from the fictional Tuscan city-state of Carmona in the late 13th century, and he becomes its leader as a young man. Fearing his life is in jeopardy during one of the early crises of his rule, Fosca is presented with an “elixir of immortality”

Grander Ambitions, Rekindled Interests, and Limited Memory  119 by an old beggar who did not drink it himself, stating, “I’m afraid to die, but an eternal life—how long it must be” (AM 84). Over the next 200 years or so, a now apparently indestructible Fosca builds and strengthens Carmona and dreams of conquering the neighboring powers, unifying the region under his own authority and vision for the greater good. Unfortunately, each time he seems to approach his desired goals, he is dealt some kind of political, economic, military, public health, or personal setback he could not foresee or control, which forces him to adjust his strategy and outlook. Eventually, the repeated disappointments start to take a toll on him, as does witnessing the death of each of his loved ones (see e.g. AM 100, 116–7, 127, 132; cf. Rosati 2013: 358). For a while, Fosca is able to find meaning in projects/goals exceeding the scope of what people with ordinary lifespans can envision or accomplish (see e.g. AM 91), but just as Scheffler, May, and others predict, he has a harder and harder time relating to mortal humans, whose values depend on the ability to risk their lives for the relatively insignificant goals such transient beings are capable of pursuing (see e.g. AM 105, 129; cf. Andrew 2003: 36–7; La Caze 2004: 148–9; Whitmarsh 1981: 35, 44). Beatrice, one of Fosca’s wives, tells him: When [his late beloved son] Antonio dove into a lake, when he led an attack, I admired him because he was risking his life. But you, can you ever do anything courageous? I loved his generosity, and it’s true that you give freely of yourself and your possessions with no thought of your wealth, your time, your pains. But you have so many millions of lives to live that you never really sacrifice anything. (AM 134; cf. 50) The kinds of concerns Williams has about boredom do not show up quite so clearly in Fosca’s story, but he does complain on several occasions (especially to Regina in the prologue) that nothing new ever happens; it is always just another iteration of the same types of scenarios and people (see e.g. AM 35, 50, 52, 55, 68, 140). This sense of the tedious repetition of things does sap some of his interest in what comes next, but perhaps not as completely as Williams predicts.3 In any case, by the end of the 15th century, Fosca is unable to find much value in personal relationships or the petty squabbles of his Italian countrymen who do not understand how irrelevant they are in the grand scheme of things (AM 139). So, he abandons Carmona and joins forces with the Holy Roman Emperors Maximilian I and Charles V, hoping to have a more profound impact on world affairs (AM 141–2, 149, 151, 156–7). As his ambitions grow, however, Fosca sees people as even more indistinguishable and dispensable than he had before (see e.g. AM 87, 100, 158–9, 171–3), and he is able to justify all kinds of atrocities on “the  condition that the evil committed serve some ultimate purpose”

120  Grander Ambitions, Rekindled Interests, and Limited Memory (AM 184). Sadly, the larger scale of his intrigues does nothing to prevent the same kinds of setbacks he faced as ruler of a mere city-state, and he begins to understand that his grand political ambitions, his “ultimate purpose,” will never be realized. The world is just too vast and complex, and its inhabitants too diverse and willful, for any one person, even an immortal person, to have a meaningful and lasting impact. To make matters worse, an eye-opening visit to the “new world” confirms for Fosca that the atrocities he sanctioned there, and the suffering they wrought, are most definitely not contributing to some greater good. Thoroughly convinced of the pointlessness of all his endeavors thus far (AM 201–2; cf. 175), a disenchanted Fosca gives up the political life upon the abdication of Charles V. For the next hundred years Fosca travels the world, seeing all kinds of amazing sights, but after a while it is just more of the same and he loses interest (AM 209, 215, 218). When the narrative picks up again, he has been wandering aimlessly and alone for several years somewhere in the North American wilderness. By chance, he meets an explorer—Pierre Carlier—who is looking for a water route connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, and Fosca decides to join the expedition. Although he is never able to feel any real passion for the exploratory project itself, he does form a bond of friendship with Carlier that keeps his spirits up, and he appreciates having the clearly defined tasks of exploration in front of him each day (AM 216, 228). On more than one occasion, Fosca’s inhuman durability proves essential to the survival of both the expedition and Carlier himself, but eventually Fosca’s protection seems to have a deleterious effect on his mortal companion. With Fosca around, Carlier need not risk his short life in the ways that would make his activities meaningful; any discovery or achievement Fosca is involved in is too much of an  inevitability to matter (AM 224–5, 228). His life’s goals gradually replaced by a creeping indifference (AM 229), Carlier—who had earlier been envious of his friend’s immortality (AM 216, 222)—recklessly rebels against Fosca’s influence and kills himself.4 Ultimately, Fosca is the one who wishes he could trade places with Carlier (AM 231). Unable to get rid of himself as he wishes, Fosca passes another century or so amongst a group of Native Americans before ending up back in Europe, France specifically. Exceedingly bored by the endless repetition, and incapable of feeling at home in this place and period, he passes time in part by cruelly tormenting his pampered, upper-crust acquaintances and others in his orbit (see e.g. AM 237–9, 243). As Beatrice suggested all those years before, in the absence of mortal danger, he has lost contact with human values, and thus, he no longer sees much value in humans (AM 247, 250–1; cf. 260). Fosca states, “I was subject to none of their conventions. If they knew to what degree I was free from them and their inane rules, then they would have been really frightened of me” (AM 248). He does seem to find some joy in trying to escape himself periodically

Grander Ambitions, Rekindled Interests, and Limited Memory  121 through the scientific pursuits of the Enlightenment, but this comfort fades as he realizes he will never get answers about the universe itself because it will always just be him asking the questions (AM 244–5, 270, 276, 295).5 A more significant interruption in his callous, apathetic malaise comes in the form of Marianne de Sinclair, who manages to pierce the “hard armor” he has built up, finding “the real” Fosca underneath (AM 249, 253). Although he genuinely loves her and dreads a future without her, he can never truly share in her projects or even love their children in the same way she does (see e.g. AM 261, 266, 270–2, 282). After decades together, Marianne finally learns of this value inequality in their relationship (which Fosca had kept hidden, wanting to avoid the mistake he made in telling Carlier his secret), and this revelation causes some turbulence between them until the day she dies (AM 277–9, 283). Wanting to honor Marianne’s request that he “stay a man among men” (AM 281), Fosca continues his scientific pursuits for some time and wat­ ches over their daughter, granddaughter, and great-grandson, Armand. The latter gets caught up in the political turmoil of 19th-century France, and he sees in Fosca’s immortality a tool to be manipulated in various ways for the benefit of the coming revolution. For his part, Fosca can hardly distinguish present day events or people from the similar ones he has experienced and encountered so many times before, so he just goes along with Armand somewhat indifferently (see e.g. AM 298–9, 303). In the course of their revolutionary exploits, the oft-mentioned connection between human values/meaning and the ability to risk one’s life comes up several times (see e.g. AM 306–7, 312–3, 339), but the most interesting ideas from this part of Fosca’s story come from the contrast with Armand. Although Armand envies his forebear’s immortality (see e.g. AM 315), he also seems more accepting of the limitations of his mortal situation than many other characters Fosca has engaged with through the centuries (see e.g. AM 294). Armand suggests these limitations allow him to live in the present and appreciate its possibilities and inhabitants, without worrying about how things will turn out in some distant future, since a specific few decades is all he gets. Fosca is unable to do the same because of his unlimited future; with no specific circumscribed set of years to live, there is no reason to prefer or care about one particular period of time more than any others. Tomorrow’s likely failure and destruction is no less relevant to him than today’s advances and victories (AM 327–9, 339). At the conclusion of Fosca’s autobiographical account, there is a very short epilogue where he tells Regina that he managed to sleep in the woods for sixty years before he was sent to the mental asylum from which he had just been released when they first met. Before they finally go their separate ways, he confides that what torments him most at this point is the prospect of someday being the last person on a dead earth (AM 344; cf. 317). Once he is out of sight, Regina unleashes a scream of despair about the pointless futures awaiting them both.

122  Grander Ambitions, Rekindled Interests, and Limited Memory Of course, that is just one way to interpret the ending of All Men Are Mortal, which is a remarkably rich text to mine for philosophical insights. Peter G. Christensen (2003: 143) states, “when we add up comments on this novel from various sources, we see that there is no scholarly consensus about what the novel means.” Indeed, even a partial survey of the secondary literature shows that, in addition to Christensen’s own focus on Beauvoir’s historical and religious commentary, some (see e.g. Dolske 2015: 119–20; Klaw 1996; 2015) read the novel through a feminist lens that makes Regina the central figure—a victim of the patriarchy as represented by Fosca’s overbearing worldview—while many (see e.g. Guthke 2017: 125–31; La Caze 2004: 148–9) leave Regina almost entirely out of their gloomy accounts of Fosca’s undying plight (if they mention her at all). And still others (see e.g. Bergoffen and Burke 2020: section 9; Whitmarsh 1981: 35, 44, 131, 172–3) argue that Armand is the crucial figure who serves as a rebuttal of the pessimistic despair Fosca feels personally and generates in various other characters.6 Despite the rather wide range of interpretations and foci, what just about every ­commentator seems to agree on is that the novel does not portray personal ­immortality­ in a very positive light. Neither the book nor its author comes up much in the contemporary philosophical debate about the desirability of immortality, but on the brief occasions when they do (see Holmen 2018: 139; Wrathall 2015: 432–3), it is, unsurprisingly, as representatives of a curmudgeonly outlook. This commonly acknowledged reputation for anti-immortality sentiment must now be scrutinized.

Resources for Immortality Enthusiasts Insofar as All Men Are Mortal is intended to illustrate the perils of immortality, one could argue (as many have done about Elina Makropulos) that Fosca is not a particularly plausible example. Of course, some would say that when discussing something as far-fetched as immortality there is really no such thing as a plausible example,7 but what I am suggesting is that Fosca might be depicted as unrealistically disinterested and despondent. To begin with, he seems rather astonishingly under-impressed by the kinds of indefinitely repeatable (albeit at appropriate intervals) pleasures and activities Fischer sees as a major source of potential value in radically extended/immortal lives. It is not that Fosca completely loses the ability to enjoy the kinds of things he has enjoyed before, but enjoying them again is not something he really looks forward to (even if he does not always dread it). Fischer and Mitchell-Yellin (2014: 358–60) emphasize the joys of friendship and love, in addition to activities like reading novels, as inexhaustible interests that seem perfectly capable of generating excitement about what the future holds. I mention these specific examples because they come up over and over again in Fosca’s lamentations. For him, the books “always tell the same story” (AM 50), and the people are

Grander Ambitions, Rekindled Interests, and Limited Memory  123 just contemporary modifications of personality-types he has encountered too many times before. For Fischer and Mitchell-Yellin, on the other hand, there is an irreducible and unique qualitative element to each experience of reading novels, making friends, and spending time with loved ones that the description of Fosca’s bored indifference simply does not account for. Speaking about friendship, they “do not think that it is obvious that the important characteristics of such relationships would necessarily be gone in an immortal life—even after ‘thousands, millions, and billions’ of friends” (Fischer and Mitchell-Yellin 2014: 360). So, are they right, or should we instead trust the intuitions of Beauvoir/declarations of Fosca? Fortunately, there is no need (at least not yet) for the discourse to devolve into a battle of competing intuitions, because I believe there are a few (not entirely unrelated) ways All Men Are Mortal can actually provide some limited support to immortality enthusiasts, despite its apparent critique of immortality. Grander Ambitions. One of the most obvious benefits of radical life extension is the enhanced ability to take on projects that require many normal human generations to complete. Being truly immortal and indestructible, as Fosca seems to be, further enhances this ability. Instead of (at best) making some tiny contribution to a large project he can only hope future generations will see through to the end, such as bringing peace and prosperity to humankind, Fosca is able to be there to help make sure it happens (AM 151, 156–7). Of course, his political aspirations for the Holy Roman Empire do not pan out for reasons beyond his control, but the basic strategy of adopting grander ambitions is something he returns to again and again in an attempt to give meaning to his immortal existence. He also embarks on an extended series of journeys to far-flung reaches of the globe that no ordinary human could undertake, in part because of the dangers involved in such travel in those eras (AM 172, 185, 210, 215). There is even some passing speculation about eventually traveling to outer space, which would seem to have the potential to keep one’s attention indefinitely (see e.g. AM 237). And then there is the scientific research that Fosca hopes will bring him greater understanding than any other person could possibly hope to achieve (AM 244). While it is true that Fosca ends up disenchanted with each of these projects and activities—even the thought of going to the moon fails to excite him at some point (AM 276)—which might prompt further debate about Fosca’s plausibility,8 it is worth noting the capacity of such expanded interests to generate a sense of urgency. As discussed in previous chapters, much of the value-producing urgency humans feel comes not from their impending deaths, but from the nature of the projects they have chosen. For example, with other parties working to undermine his political efforts, a then centuries-old Fosca still feels rather intense temporal pressures and he even complains on several occasions that others are wasting valuable time (AM 155, 159, 161–2, 172). These pressures

124  Grander Ambitions, Rekindled Interests, and Limited Memory also manage to structure his life in certain ways and spawn a valueproducing­sense of risk unrelated to mortality (e.g. there is something at stake politically if he does not arrive at his destination in time for an important negotiation). And apart from temporal pressures, there are activities Fosca engages in that come with their own risks built in; despite his jaded detachment, he is still able to worry about losing his fortune gambling (AM 240). Some of the risks Fosca faces even reemerge long after they seemed to lose their ability to move him. Rekindled Interests. An important feature of Fosca’s ennui is that it can occasionally be overcome when some persistent new mortal, or profound new socio-political or scientific development, succeeds in breaking through his indifferent shell. This resilience makes him similar in some ways to Oedipus and Tahani as I have described them in previous chapters. Although Fosca’s problems with immortality seem to go beyond mere boredom, I think it will be helpful to see him through the lens of Wisnewski’s aforementioned observation that it is possible to recover from even so-called “fatal boredom.” Wisnewski’s (2005: 33) main example of a project with the potential to stave off boredom indefinitely is mastering every musical instrument on the way to becoming “the best musician ever.”9 But even if this goal could be reached someday, and (lacking other compelling endeavors) “There is no longer any reason to look with hope at the countless days that are sure to follow,” he argues that it is always possible, with enough time, that new instruments will be invented, thereby rekindling a dormant interest in the project (Wisnewski 2005: 34). Fosca’s projects usually end in frustration and disillusion rather than successful completion, but in any case, he does spend long periods of time without any interests driving him forward; he is in a state of something like fatal boredom (see e.g. AM 116–7, 320–3). However, as Wisnewski theorizes, such a state never seems to be irrevocable. To be fair, much of what we see from Fosca is renewed interest based in some project or activity that differs from what he was previously engaged in (see e.g. AM  187), which does not exactly fit Wisnewski’s model. Nonetheless, one could imagine how new discoveries and technologies could rejuvenate his latent fascination with science, for example. After all, it was missing the Scientific Revolution in Europe during his extended travels abroad that sparked his interest in science in the first place (AM 243–4). And despite his dwindling enthusiasm about going to the moon, something similar might be said about future travel opportunities. As for socio-political affairs, where 19th-century Fosca is at his most cynical, he  can still get caught up momentarily in a developing revolutionary enthusiasm (AM 309). The most significant rekindling of previously existing interests that we actually see in Fosca’s story concerns his relationships with others. Notwithstanding his frequent protestations of detachment from the

Grander Ambitions, Rekindled Interests, and Limited Memory  125 insignificant, insect-like individuals that incessantly cycle through his existence, Fosca is repeatedly drawn back in to forming deep bonds with particular people. For instance, his fortuitous run-in with Carlier immediately puts a stop to years of aimless, lonely wandering and gives him a kind of purpose (cf. AM 214).10 However, it is his love of Beatrice, Marianne, and (to some extent) Regina that most powerfully reconnects him to the world and gives him the greatest sense of meaning.11 This reconnection and sense of meaning is, of course, temporary—it could not be otherwise when dealing with mortals—but finding love seems like precisely the kind of thing Wisnewski is getting at when he talks about overcoming fatal boredom even after long periods of profound general disinterest. By the end of his time with Regina it is suggested that Fosca cannot keep participating in these kinds of relationships (see e.g. AM 68, 285, 332–3), but the relative ease with which he falls into them, even against his wishes (cf. AM 16, 18, 26), makes it hard to believe it will not continue to happen every once in a while. Fosca’s apparent love-habit also makes it harder to take his side in any battle of competing intuitions with Fischer and Mitchell-Yellin. What is particularly important about Fosca’s relationships, for my purposes, is their capacity to regenerate feelings of urgency and risk to which he had become insensitive. There is a sudden and keen awareness of the fact that his time with Beatrice and Marianne is limited and therefore precious, and there is the risk of losing their affections prematurely either through their deaths or his own interpersonal missteps. Consider Fosca’s response (which also supports what Fischer and Mitchell-Yellin are saying) to Beatrice’s harsh critique of his inability to risk his life: “I love you and I’m suffering. For the rest of eternity, I’ll never meet you again; I’ll meet others, thousands, millions of others, but none of them will be you” (AM 135). He expresses similar feelings in much greater detail about Marianne hundreds of years later: “I have something to fear now, something to defend. I’m in love and I can suffer. At last, I’m a man again!… There’s too little time. A love like ours should never end… Suddenly every minute seemed precious… Her hours were counted. My hours were counted” (AM 265–8).12 As for concrete risks, we see Fosca worry there has been an accident when Marianne is late returning home one evening, and his heart race when a disgruntled former servant threatens to reveal to her Fosca’s immortality secret (AM 268–9, 272–4). Both his statements and his demeanor in these cases suggest that Fosca and his values are really not so far removed from ordinary humans and the values that guide their lives. Clearly, his sense of urgency and risk must be rekindled from time to time, along with his interests, but becoming immortal does not ruin them forever as many curmudgeons hypothesize. Limited Memory. The rekindling of interests would probably be aided by a certain sort of forgetfulness. While it is important to maintain some connection with the past for the sake of preserving personal identity

126  Grander Ambitions, Rekindled Interests, and Limited Memory (at least for those who claim psychological continuity is the key to such preservation), forgetfulness about having engaged in certain activities, or at least about the finer details of the experiences, seems to help make one receptive to engaging in them again. In the case of romantic relationships, gradually forgetting the pain of love lost, or at least its intensity, prepares one to “get back out there.” Indeed, whatever truth there is in the old adage, “time heals all wounds,” almost certainly has something to do with the gradual ability to forget. Several defenders of meaningful immortality make precisely these kinds of claims when it comes to avoiding boredom in the midst of repeated activities (see e.g. Belshaw 2015: section 2.1; Bruckner 2012: section 3; Felder 2018: section 1; Greene 2017: sections 2.2–2.3; Steele 1976: 425). There is some disagreement about whether it would be necessary to adjust human memory capacities (perhaps via some sort of implant or pharmaceutical treatment) in order to prevent permanent boredom/disenchantment in immortal lives, but many of these thinkers concur that normal human levels of gradual forgetfulness, or something very close to them, would be sufficient to keep one engaged indefinitely.13 Although Fosca apparently has an unaltered human memory, his claims  about its capacity vary a bit. On a few occasions, he wishes he could forget and seems almost tormented by a memory too reliable for his own good (see e.g. AM 17, 34–5), but, more frequently, Fosca’s comments on his memory are about his forgetfulness, especially when it comes to details and the distant past (see e.g. AM 46, 219, 251, 256, 275, 281, 284–5, 332, 336–7). Both kinds of claim resonate with what ordinary mortal humans experience at different moments in their lives, and both are compatible with the notion that limited recall of experiences (whether in terms of quantity or quality) is beneficial for someone in his situation. If his memory is so good that it prevents him from moving forward and engaging meaningfully in activities he has engaged in before, which seems to be part of the problem whenever he complains about the tedious repetition of personality-types and events, then he would surely benefit from more limitation on what he can remember.14 And if his forgetfulness is sufficient to allow such engagement, as it sometimes seems to be (e.g. when he becomes capable of falling in love again), then his limitations are just right, at least in those moments.15 So, whether one takes Fosca to be a cautionary tale about the dangers of immortality with a perhaps implausibly robust memory, or an occasional success story about the virtues of gradually fading memory, it would appear immortality enthusiasts who theorize about the importance of limited memory can find a helpful illustration of their views in him. Adding up all of the complicating issues considered in this section— the importance of limited memory, as well as the ability to take on grander ambitions and have one’s old interests rekindled even after long periods of boredom and indifference—it may not be as clear as it initially seemed

Grander Ambitions, Rekindled Interests, and Limited Memory  127 what conclusion All Men Are Mortal wants us to draw about the potential for meaningful immortality. But this is not the end of the ambiguity on this or related topics in either the novel or in Beauvoir’s thought, more generally.

Lingering Ambiguities Ultimately, All Men Are Mortal seems just as concerned about meaning in mortal existence as it is about meaning in immortal existence. In fact, as much as Beauvoir has Fosca play the role Williams assigns to Elina Makropulos—making immortality seem undesirable—she also has him play a role not unlike Andreyev’s Lazarus—ruining the appreciation of mortal existence in others (cf. Holmen 2018: 139; Klaw 1996: 484). In Fosca’s words, “It’s dangerous for mortal men to live by my side. Their lives suddenly seem too short, their undertakings useless” (AM 294). While Fosca’s trajectory suggests he will not be able to continue finding ways to overcome his personal ennui, the feelings of pointlessness many characters develop after associating with him appear to be even more insurmountable. Carlier is an extreme example of someone whose spirit is crushed by long-term association with Fosca, but similar dampening effects can be seen in characters like Beatrice and Marianne as well (see e.g. AM 131, 137–8, 142, 222, 225, 283).16 In some cases, his effect seems almost vampiric; as Fosca’s reconnection to the world grows, his associate’s interest in and enthusiasm for it is drained (cf. Klaw 1996: 470). The most significant example of this kind of toxic, and possibly parasitic, relationship is the one with Regina. What sets her apart from Fosca’s other friends and loved ones, beyond her existence outside of his narrative, is that she is already somewhat demoralized by her mortality before she gets involved with him.17 Their interactions only serve to intensify her feelings about the doomed pointlessness of her existence (see e.g. AM 24, 53–4, 62–6, 143, 344–5). Since her mortal life cannot provide the durable meaning she craves, and Fosca’s story instills in her the belief that immortality does not solve the problem either, the conclusion she seems to come to (which is also the one that ends the book) is that human existence of any duration is necessarily unsatisfactory. Of course, Armand, who manages to resist Fosca’s deadening influence on his mortal life while remaining open to the possibility of worthwhile immortality, can be seen as a counterbalance to this pessimistic outcome, but his uniquely optimistic attitude just reinforces the idea that immortality might not be the main (and it certainly is not the only) problem Beauvoir is addressing in her ambiguous novel.18 Whether the reader is meant to follow Armand in thinking life might be made valuable regardless of length, join Regina in all-encompassing despair, or adopt the frequently posited (including in The Second Sex) view that death is simply necessary to give life a thoroughly human

128  Grander Ambitions, Rekindled Interests, and Limited Memory definition and quality, Beauvoir also suggests (at various points in All Men Are Mortal, and even more so in her later work) that dying is a disruption to our meaning about which we need not be very happy (cf. La Caze 2004: 146–7; Schott 2003: 231). In A Very Easy Death (from 1964), Beauvoir’s account of the end of her mother’s life, being unhappy about having to die is on full display. Using part of Dylan Thomas’ famous poem as the book’s epigraph already hints that Beauvoir will not be advocating for the acceptance of death without a fight, and indeed, she goes on to describe and even enlist in her mother’s “rebellion” (VED 91, 105). Regardless of the considerable suffering involved due to her various ailments, Beauvoir’s mother did like Unamuno and Camus recommend— she demanded more life until the very end (see e.g. VED 14, 88, 93). Watching it all unfold, Beauvoir develops a profound appreciation for her mother’s attitude (cf. Brennan 2004: 88; Stone 2010: 368). In her final reflections on the ordeal, Beauvoir explains: “He is certainly of an age to die.” The sadness of the old; their banishment: most of them do not think that this age has yet come for them. I too made use of this cliché… I did not understand that one might sincerely weep for a relative, a grandfather aged seventy and more… we are all mortal; at eighty you are quite old enough to be one of the dead… But it is not true. You do not die from being born, nor from having lived, nor from old age. You die from something… My mother encouraged one to be optimistic when, crippled with arthritis and dying, she asserted the infinite value of each instant; but her vain tenaciousness also ripped and tore the reassuring curtain of everyday triviality. There is no such thing as a natural death… All men must die: but for every man his death is an accident and, even if he knows it and consents to it, an unjustifiable violation. (VED 105–6) Here we find the sense of injustice both Unamuno and Camus describe, and, as in their cases, I think Beauvoir’s willingness to see death in this way could open her up to the possibility of endorsing life extension (or at least tolerating some of those who seek it).19 While she might never embrace true immortality, it seems unlikely she would, on principle, judge someone who longs for more life, even indefinitely, as foolish or ­cowardly. Her mother’s example demonstrates to her that it might never be the right time to stop fighting. But even when it comes to genuine immortality, there might be reason to think Beauvoir’s views are not all that straightforward. In The Coming of Age, she revisits the Sartre claim about the possibility of a properly human immortal that she seemed to distance herself from in The Second Sex, and this time (more than twenty years later), she is not so quick to rule it out. As we have seen, Sartre’s point is that death is not the primary

Grander Ambitions, Rekindled Interests, and Limited Memory  129 source of meaning-generating limitations in ordinary human life, and, thus, being mortal is not such an essential element of a meaningful human existence. Beauvoir never disputes that humans are meaningfully constrained in ways unrelated to death (and All Men Are Mortal certainly attests to some of these other constraints), but early on she seems to hold that being prone to death is nonetheless an essential defining limitation for humans (cf. PC 113–4). At this later stage, however, she says, “the length of my days would not take my finitude from me. Even immortality would not shatter it,” just before quoting Sartre on the matter and raising no objections (CA 377). This is surely not incontrovertible evidence that Beauvoir has changed her tune dramatically, but she does seem more open than she had been to defining humans without including mortality in the definition. On the other hand, toward the end of the very same chapter, Beauvoir seems to pour cold water on the notion that she might entertain the possibility of meaningful immortality, or even life extension: The programme laid down in our childhood allows us to do, know, and love only a limited number of things; when this programme is fulfilled and when we have come to the end of our possibilities, then death is accepted with indifference or even as a merciful release – it delivers us from that extreme boredom that the ancients called ­satietas vitae [in which we are]… condemned to repetition, to treating the same subject again and again. (CA 443–4) To put this passage in its proper context, Beauvoir is in the process of suggesting various explanations as to why some elderly people (but obviously not her mother [CA 446]) are undisturbed by, or even eager for, their impending deaths. She is not commenting explicitly on immortality or life extension of any kind. However, she does not make this claim tentatively or hypothetically, and it is striking in its similarity to Williams’ views on categorical desires. While this apparent agreement with Williams cannot be too surprising in the wake of Fosca, it might be difficult to reconcile with some of the ideas expressed elsewhere in All Men Are Mortal and in Beauvoir’s other writings. As in those other instances, I  think it would be a mistake to overemphasize this one as somehow more representative of her final verdict on immortality and life extension. Given all of the intentional ambiguity in her work (as well as the constantly shifting contexts), they must each be weighed before trying to characterize her views. So, all things considered, is Beauvoir some kind of immortality curmudgeon? I think this last passage from The Coming of Age tilts the scales in

130  Grander Ambitions, Rekindled Interests, and Limited Memory that direction for me. At the very least, she provides a lot of reasons to be wary of immortality. Like many other thinkers associated with existentialism, her interests lie in making life worthwhile regardless of the situation one is thrown into. This is no easy task, however, and immortality, like mortality, would be at best both a blessing and a curse as one works on it. It is clear that Fosca feels it predominantly as a curse, and the interpretive question that troubles this reader the most has to do with whether or not his experience is supposed to be necessary and universal. If his experience is more about individual constitution (for which each individual is in part responsible), and someone like Armand might handle immortality better and appreciate it more, then there is definitely reason to hope. But even within Fosca’s rather curmudgeonly life story, one can find the seeds of such hope each time he is able to invest in a new project or fall in love. And these seeds mitigate somewhat Beauvoir’s later thoughts on why certain old folks are able to approach death with tranquility.

Conclusion Disappointment and Death

Much of the discourse, both scholarly and popular, surrounding meaning and (im)mortality is directed at making death seem natural, necessary, and maybe even beneficial for beings like us. It is not just the work of curmudgeonly contemporary philosophers, authors of fiction, and religious figures that I am talking about; these ideas dominate mainstream culture in part through the ever more ubiquitous mass of “self-help”-style pop-philosophy that finds its roots in ancient teachings from places such as Greece and India. There seems to be an assumption amongst purveyors of these ideas that fear of “natural” death is rampant and dangerous because it might lead to depression and diminished quality of life. This assumption is often coupled with a belief that a similarly pervasive longing for immortality, and even less-permanent forms of life extension, only contributes to the problem.1 These are not the trends I notice from my vantage point. What I see when I look at my fellow humans (through the lens of broader cultural conversations, but also directly in my own interpersonal relationships) is not so much fear of death or adjacent emotions that might lead them into some kind of “dark night of the soul.” Instead, I notice a tendency toward self-distraction and the general avoidance of all thoughts of one’s own mortality. On average, mortality seems like such a non-issue that talk of any sort of technological life extension remains largely confined to the fringe musings of certain wealthy eccentrics and other nerdy weirdos (including myself). As I said early on, I think most people would agree to extension or even immortality without giving it much thought, if it were offered, but few are particularly bothered that it has not been. Given these observations, I am unconvinced that most people require comforting lessons about the naturalness, necessity, or benefits of death; they have already internalized such lessons. On the contrary, I think people ought to be made to feel more uncomfortable and upset about their eventual snuffing out, and that is why I have occasionally tried to push the reader toward, not fear, but sadness, disappointment, and anger about it. Instead of “coming to terms” or “making peace” with death, perhaps there is something valuable in DOI: 10.4324/9781003281085-11

132 Conclusion refusing to do so. If we allow the unsettling feelings to fester, there might be more urgency to do something about their underlying cause. There is probably no eliminating mortality in the long run, and I do not think we need to harbor any illusions based on far-fetched theoretical (or religious) possibilities, but on a practical level we could always be devoting more public and private resources to extending human lives. If this seems like a poor use of such resources given all the other problems facing the world, keep in mind that the same technologies aimed at life extension will also be involved in preventing/postponing/reducing the widespread suffering caused by cancer, heart disease, dementia, and other degenerative conditions (not to mention injuries resulting from violence and natural disaster).2 All aging-related diseases would be dealt a blow if aging could be slowed or even reversed. But when aging and death after about eight decades (and only highly developed parts of the world even approach this average) are seen as brute facts we must simply learn to accept, then the suffering seems more likely to continue. Just as encouraging a more hostile attitude toward death might generate a kind of pressure to pursue life extension, I think the complementary arguments supporting life without death considered throughout this book remove certain obstacles standing in the way of the acceptance of life extension. Although the various thinkers associated with existentialism may not all agree with Unamuno, Camus, and (seemingly) Beauvoir’s mother that death is a kind of injustice, they collectively offer up a vast array of arguments and examples suggesting that an immortal life, or at least an indefinitely extended one, could be worth living. It might be difficult to rule out completely certain worries about immortality/extension, but it must also be acknowledged that contemporary critics have yet to rule out completely all reason for hope, and they would need to address and contend with the arguments and examples of the existentialists more thoroughly and accurately in the future if they wish to do so. What is now quite clear is that the extremely relevant ideas of Sartre and Camus have had almost no presence within the desirability debate, Heidegger’s are mentioned only in passing, and not much more attention has been paid to Beauvoir’s. It is true that Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and Unamuno have received a little more consideration, but in almost all cases (even in the passing references to Heidegger), misunderstanding of key claims is the norm. Having corrected the misunderstandings and thoroughly laid out how these thinkers can contribute in previously unforeseen ways to this fascinating conversation, I should, in closing, briefly trace and tie together the relevant common threads in their views. To begin with, there is a fairly consistent disregard in their writings for all variety of non-personal forms of immortality. Thoughts of “living on” through one’s work or through the artifacts and people one leaves behind are generally met with suspicion, as is the supposedly comforting notion of the persistence of one’s fundamental substance in other forms.

Conclusion  133 There is also pretty widespread agreement that immortality would bring with it both novel and familiar sorts of risk, sources of urgency, and elements of life structure. And when it comes to boredom, most of our existentialist representatives would see its presence as a sign of a shortcoming in the immortal rather than in immortality itself. Even if one is unconvinced by some of the strategies and resources suggested by these thinkers, it does not seem necessary to rely upon only one or two to make everlasting or indefinite existence worthwhile. Some combination of virtually inexhaustible stores of distinct temporary projects, repeatable pleasures and activities, grander ambitions, rekindled dormant interests, gradual forgetfulness, potentially boundless creativity, and perpetual selfcultivation might well maintain the attractiveness of existing indefinitely for a consistently identifiable individual. It is this last possibility that was the most important and regularly featured idea in this book. Ultimately, we all have the opportunity to cultivate meaningful selfhood and make our own existence matter or count, regardless of its duration. If we fail to do so, it is far from obvious that we can simply blame our failure on our continuing existence. Each of the existentialist or existentialist-adjacent figures considered here has his or her own version of such self-cultivation, which is perhaps unsurprising given that it is this characteristic task that most clearly marks them for membership in this otherwise varied group of philosophers. What is more remarkable is that only Beauvoir comes close to making mortality essential to the task, and even in her case the matter is not perfectly settled. More than any other strategy or resource these thinkers offer for arguing on behalf of worthwhile immortality, it is their shared interest in making life meaningful wherever, whenever, and however they find themselves that renders them powerful allies in the fight against the curmudgeons.

Notes

Abbreviations 1 It has become common practice to include reference to the relatively new Danish fourth edition of Kierkegaard’s works because the complete annotated English edition only provides a concordance with older Danish editions. 2 References will be to the numbers provided in the margins of this English translation, which correspond to the page numbers of standard German editions of Sein und Zeit. Introduction 1 Perhaps the most prominent naysayers about the prospects of immortality are authors of fiction, or at least the characters they create. Beyond ancient Greek and medieval Christian myths about Sisyphus, Prometheus, and the Wandering Jew, there are countless tales of tormented vampires, artificially intelligent beings longing to be human, and lonely swordsmen equipped with the Queen-­ authored lamentation “Who Wants to Live Forever?” John Martin Fischer (2013: 338) mentions the immortal, but aging, Struldbrugs from Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, Todd May (2009: Chapter 2) makes a case study of the utterly detached troglodytes from Jorge Luis Borges’ “The Immortal,” and Sophie-­Grace Chappell (2007: 30–1) considers a very bitter Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged from Douglas Adams’ Life, The Universe, and Everything. For a detailed treatment of significant stories from the 18th–21st centuries, see Karl S. Guthke (2017); also see Fischer and Curl (2009) for an overview focusing on science fiction. 2 For example, there are the ethical/practical issues of overpopulation, dwindling resources, environmental impact, and access to relevant technologies. Christine Overall (2003) provides a highly influential response to these and related problems. Relying in part on Overall’s account, Daniela E. Cutas (2008) offers a helpful overview of these concerns, and a compelling argument that a living individual has no moral responsibility to die in order to make things more comfortable for others (especially the merely projected others who do not yet exist). This is not to say that the living are justified in doing absolutely anything to survive, but others’ rights to reproduction and at least some resources might just be trumped by one’s right to avoid death when possible, even if it is not possible for everyone. 3 This is one of my concerns about Steven Luper’s (2014) understanding of meaning strictly in terms of achievement. As I will discuss in the coming sections, I think there might be several features of meaning, and accomplishment is only one of them.

Notes  135 4 Luper (2014: 198) might disagree, as making this distinction helps him narrow his definition of meaning in such a way that he can call (for example) a pleasant experience “valuable” without having to admit that it could impact the meaning of life. As I said before, I am not sure why I should accept his restricted view of meaning, especially when the key thinkers involved in the desirability of immortality debate do not adhere to it. 5 This marks another point of contention between Luper (2014: 198) and I, as he states, “the bearer of meaning is not, strictly speaking, a living subject, but rather that subject’s life.” It seems as though he says this in part because he wants to allow the possibility that one’s meaning could play out after one’s death. To Luper’s (2014: 212) credit, he does acknowledge some of the concerns I raise later about deriving meaning from posthumous developments. However, his claim about the proper bearer of meaning is just an “assumption” on his part, and I find it unwarranted. I will argue that an existing, experiencing subject is indeed something that matters quite a bit for the formation and retention of meaning. 6 Williams seems to take a few liberties in his retelling of the story. For example, while he was 42 when he delivered the lecture that would spawn his famous paper, the character in the play is actually “frozen” in her 30s (see Fischer 2013: 338; Rosati 2013: 356). One explanation for this discrepancy is that Williams is not careful to distinguish the details of Čapek’s play (first performed in 1922) from those of Leoš Janáček’s operatic adaptation (first performed in 1926), although he briefly mentions both, and the latter made Makropulos 42 when she drank the potion (see Burley 2009b: 533; 2015: 306). That number clearly stuck out to Williams (1993: 81) given his own age at the time. 7 Some (e.g. Metz 2002: 791) would suggest that a life could be both terribly boring, and still meaningful. This may well be true in some sense, but Williams clearly has a more profound notion of boredom in mind that is incompatible with a meaningful life. 8 The thinkers mentioned in this paragraph are not especially clear about whether they believe this loss of humanity would take place suddenly upon becoming immortal, or gradually over time as an immortal finds it harder and harder to relate to his or her former mortal state in the distant past. The latter seems far more plausible to me. I will return to this issue briefly in Chapter 5. 9 For a handy overview that is a bit more detailed (but still non-­exhaustive), I would recommend Pereira and Timmerman (2020). 10 I suppose the main reasons not to go on about the benefits of immortality at great length include the ubiquity of lust for it displayed in religion, art, and literature throughout human history, and the similarly ubiquitous fear of death that likely has a strong biological basis. One might argue that we do not need to begin by spelling out why longing for immortality arises, because it is already plainly obvious to everyone. There is probably something to this argument, but I think it will be worthwhile in this case to provide a thorough refresher. 11 Andreyev seems to be taking some poetic license here because Augustus would have been long dead by the time Lazarus appears in the New Testament narrative. 12 It should be clear by now that (unless specified otherwise) I assume death marks the end of a person’s existence, rather than merely a transition into another form of personal existence. Of course, if there is some kind of an afterlife in which the dead person (complete with conscious experience, memories, and agency) persists, then it would definitely be the case that putting things in terms of “loss” does not make sense.

136 Notes 13 There are actually two intertwined issues at play in this dispute. The subject problem is rooted in the old Epicurean claim that death and the subject of experience do not coexist (Epicurus 1994: section 125). But even if you believe, like Thomas Nagel (1979: “Death”) and others, that experience is not a necessary component of harm, you must still grapple with the problem of when the harm takes place. It would be odd to think a subject could be harmed by death before it takes place, and it would be at least as bizarre to think a nonexistent (i.e. dead) subject could be harmed. One interesting, if not entirely satisfying, response to these problems comes in the form of Harry S. Silverstein’s (1993) four-­dimensionalism, which suggests that events at a temporal distance, like events at a spatial distance, can be said to coexist. 14 Someone might argue that a person’s meaning could persist in a more durable way, for example, in the mind of an eternal God (cf. Metz 2003: 164, 171), or in a four-­dimensionalist sense (in which all the meaning of all the people in the universe always exists, just at a temporal distance). Burley (2015: 315–6) actually combines these two ideas. Even if I were willing to overlook the various difficulties associated with such ideas (e.g. the lack of clear evidence for the existence of such of divine being), I would still argue, as I do briefly below in talking about more down to earth examples, that preserving meaning completely devoid of any element of subjective experience is usually not our most pressing concern when we ponder our mortality. 15 As Woody Allen puts it (in a witticism frequently quoted by philosophers of death), “I don’t want to achieve immortality through my work; I want to achieve immortality through not dying. I don’t want to live on in the hearts of my countrymen; I want to live on in my apartment” (Lax 1975: 232). 16 Something similar could be said about Shelley’s famous sonnet and other, less physical, achievements. In the words of Albert Camus: “From the point of view of Sirius, Goethe’s works in ten thousand years will be dust and his name forgotten… That idea has always contained a lesson. Seriously meditated upon, it reduces our perturbations to the profound nobility that is found in indifference” (MS 74). 17 And in any case, as briefly discussed above, death is not our only source of urgency and risk, even in ordinary finite lives. Furthermore, true indestructibility might in fact bring with it profound new value-­generating dangers that any conscious entity would want to avoid; being unable to die would make it rather important to avoid falling into inescapably horrible circumstances. These are issues that will receive further attention in later chapters. 18 It is because I cannot definitively rule out the possibility the curmudgeons are right that I am uncomfortable affirming what Thaddeus Metz (2003) calls “The Immortality Requirement for Life’s Meaning.” 19 Of course, another important difference is that the type of meaninglessness associated with mortality is not something that must be experienced for very long, whereas a meaningless immortality is something that one would have to endure forever. While this issue is surely one of the factors that would have to be taken into account before drinking any magical elixir, it is not strictly an issue of meaning in mortality/immortality per se, which is the focus of this chapter. 20 Andreyev’s story aside, I am obviously excluding belief in resurrection as a possible answer to the present question because people who believe in such things do not hold that humans are mortal in the relevant sense. 21 I do not mean to suggest that one must ignore death in order to appreciate things about ordinary mortal life, but I do think that taking seriously one’s impending nothingness diminishes or mutes this appreciation. Notice that the

Notes  137 young couple Andreyev describes does not break up after meeting Lazarus, but their love becomes “mournful and gloomy.” 22 It is worth noting that some defenders of immortality (e.g. Greene 2017: 429; also see Fischer 2013: 337) think that one means of fending off concerns about meaninglessness in an immortal life (especially concerns connected with issues of risk and urgency) would be to generate a kind of ignorance about the fact that one cannot die. While this would not be my preferred strategy for dealing with immortality either (and even Greene admits it is not perfect), it does suggest another interesting parallel in the argumentation surrounding the axiological perils of mortality and immortality. 23 This is perhaps not so shocking given that Schopenhauer’s philosophy had an “influence on the young Andreyev” (Seltzer 2007: 11) much like it did on the young Nietzsche before he turned away from Schopenhauer in his later work. 24 Only a handful of the figures I focus on in this book were alive during the heyday of the existentialist movement, and even fewer of them thought of themselves as existentialists. Nonetheless, in retrospect, it has become customary to group these figures together as contributors to the existentialist tradition. This association has something to do with a traceable history of influence (some of which we will see moving forward), but it also has a lot to do with overlapping interest in themes of absurdity, anxiety, death, finitude, meaning, responsibility, and selfhood. There is also a literary quality common to the work of many of these figures (which is something else we will notice moving forward). In fact, some writers are occasionally tied to existentialism entirely because of certain literary contributions. Here I am thinking of Andreyev’s countrymen and older contemporaries Fyodor Dostoevsky and Leo Tolstoy. For example, the latter’s The Death of Ivan Ilych is an oft-­cited classic of existentialist literature. 25 This is roughly the main point of my previous book (Buben 2016), and I think it more or less lines up with Bradley’s view as well. Chapter 1 1 Although this chapter will focus more on how Kierkegaard and Nietzsche relate to the relevant views of these earlier figures, I do not mean to suggest that these views failed to influence other philosophers associated with the existentialist tradition. However, in many cases, such influence was more indirect, and often filtered (at least in part) through the reception of Kierkegaard and Nietzsche. 2 Even apart from the somewhat speculative distinction he makes between the ideas of Plato and those of Socrates, Kierkegaard has a fairly complicated relationship with Socrates. Kierkegaard’s pseudonymous works tend to treat Socrates as a kind of noble philosophical hero, while the works written under his own name are often more critical of this “simple wise man of old” (WL 96/SKS 9: 101). For more on the relationship between Kierkegaard and Socrates/Plato, see Buben (2016: 47–8, 67–9). 3 Unamuno also says a fair amount about the Phaedo, and he seems to agree that its “yearning for personal immortality” (which he, like Kierkegaard, attributes to Plato, rather than Socrates) contributes to a long tradition of seeing life in the world as inherently corrupt, and as something to be overcome as soon as possible (TSL 61). 4 Briefly, Kierkegaard thinks that just because one could use reason and evidence to defend Christianity, it does not mean that one should. Elsewhere, I argue that the contrast with Pascal suggests that Kierkegaard is an anti-­rationalist about faith (see Buben 2013). He refuses to rationalize, not because Christianity is

138 Notes necessarily irrational, but because rationalization weakens faith. For more on this issue, also see Buben (2011). 5 Unamuno actually sees the influence of Socrates’ specific claim that “it is fitting for a man to risk the belief” that “something like” his story about the afterlife in the Phaedo is true (Plato 2002: 114d). Unamuno thinks this statement “was the germ of Pascal’s famous argument of the wager” (TSL 45). 6 Kant does not actually say much about Pascal, and he provides no evidence that he was even aware of the Wager. The most famous formulation of the argument (the one from the “Discourse on the Machine” section) was not included in the editions of Pensées that existed during Kant’s lifetime, and while some version of the Wager does appear in these editions, it is not clear that this formulation caught his attention. Even decades later, it is far from clear whether Kierkegaard had better access to the Wager (see Buben 2011: 77–8n11, 18). 7 This definition of the Highest Good seems to hold throughout Kant’s Critical Period, even while its role shifts. 8 For example, Kant (1996: 6:98–9) also argues that God is necessary if there is to be a truly ethical community aimed at the Highest Good. For a helpful discussion of such developments in his thought, see Courtney Fugate (2014: esp. 152–3). 9 For this reason, he actually calls Kant “a cunning Christian” (TI, “‘Reason’ in Philosophy”/section 6). 10 Even so, as we will see, Kierkegaard and Kant seem to agree about certain possibilities in immortal lives. 11 Although Schopenhauer explicitly refers to nirvana, the Buddhist version of enlightenment in which one’s individual attachments are “blown out” like a candle flame, some of the surrounding discussion is more reminiscent of mokṣa, the Hindu version of enlightenment in which an individual is released into the universal oneness like a drop of water into the ocean. Chapter 2 1 These are the things that make one’s life worth living, as opposed to what one only desires on the condition that one happens to be alive. As an example of a categorical desire, consider wanting to be there for your children. You do not want this only if you are alive; you want to be alive for the sake of this. Oxygen is perhaps an example of something one desires only conditionally. So long as I live, I certainly want it, but I do not want to go on living in order to get more oxygen. 2 Even when using the metaphor of “rebirth,” believers in spiritual renewal would have to acknowledge that the “new” person has some essential connection with what came before. There is no narrative of redemption without some acknowledgement of preexisting sinfulness. The Christian tradition even has the notion of felix culpa, which suggests that the joyful later development is predicated on the less than ideal preceding state. 3 Others focus more on poking holes in the idea that even persons of remarkably fixed character, however long they live, must eventually and permanently run out of new projects to pursue. J. Jeremy Wisnewski (2005: 32) calls the exhaustion of all categorical desires “fatal boredom.” He argues that “even if one enters a state where no categorical desires are present, it does not follow from this that the state is permanent” (Wisnewski 2005: 34). His overall point is that in an ordinary finite life, in which personal identity is usually not in question, one might emerge after some period of time from even the most

Notes  139 pernicious state of boredom with categorical desires rekindled (perhaps by technological advancements or sudden socio-­political developments). What is true of the finite life also seems true of an indefinite, and maybe even an infinite, one. 4 See also Jon W. Thompson’s (2019: 247, 255–6) updating of Chappell’s argument in terms of the distinction between first-­and second-­order desires. 5 If this sounds problematically hedonistic, Fischer (2013: 351) later says that “it might have been better to put my point as follows: such activities… might well reliably (and repeatedly) generate experiences that are sufficiently compelling to render an immortal life attractive on balance.” 6 To be fair, I do think Fischer acknowledges in later work the importance of shifting perspectives on ostensibly repeated activities, albeit not in connection with Kierkegaard (see Fischer and Mitchell-­Yellin 2014: 358–60). 7 Examples of the “common” and “notable” readings of Kierkegaard’s works that I mention in this paragraph include Alasdair MacIntyre’s (2007: 40–1) suggestion that Either/Or presents the necessarily arbitrary choice between the aesthetic and ethical ways of life, and Marilyn Gaye Piety’s (2001: 63–6) rejection of MacIntyre’s view and corresponding affirmation of a progression to higher stages based on perceived weaknesses in the lower. For another prominent example of the latter idea, see William McDonald (2016). More recently, Ulrika Carlsson (2019) has provided a compelling defense of the aesthetic as represented by “A” against the criticism of the ethicist Judge, which complicates the standard view of progression through the stages. 8 Although his sense of “the ethical” might be a bit different, Johannes Climacus (another one of Kierkegaard’s pseudonyms) expresses what seems to be a very similar view: “Only in the ethical is there immortality and eternal life; understood otherwise… [the affairs of the world go] on and on, but the observer dies, and his observing was perhaps a very important—pastime” (CUP 1: 154/SKS 7: 143). 9 Besides any hope it provides for a personal afterlife (which certainly does veer into the realm of the miraculous), the religious sphere in Kierkegaard’s work also has the virtue of resolving the apparent shortcomings of both the aesthetic (its transience) and the ethical (its subjugation of the individual). In the religious, and specifically Christian, way of life one is able to be a part of a community founded on historical events—i.e. events in the life of Jesus—by maintaining a kind of personal relationship with him. As Ryan Kemp (2015) points out, this resolution is what Kierkegaard’s sense of proper religious repetition is all about. On Kierkegaard’s occasional discussion of an explicitly religious conception of the afterlife (which seems to be an issue of great personal significance to him, even if he does not make it central to his argumentation), see Tamara Monet Marks (2011). 10 In this discourse, Kierkegaard contrasts common clichés and other somewhat uncritical, public ideas about death with the personal and anxious lessons that can be learned from “the earnest thought of death” (TDIO 73/SKS 5: 444). Among other things, he argues that paying sincere attention to the uncertainty surrounding death’s “when” leads one to focus less upon what one accomplishes in life, and more on how one lives, because accomplishment requires time that cannot be guaranteed. 11 Cf. Kant (1997: 5:128), who goes further than Kierkegaard in arguing that humans are “justified in hoping for… endless duration,” but holds a very similar position on the possibility of “endless progress” given “a continuing propensity to transgression or at least impurity.”

140 Notes 12 As David D. Possen (2011: 122) explains, Climacus is worried that his contemporaries answer the quintessential ethical question of how one ought to live mostly by consulting popular opinion about what one does in this day and age (cf. CUP 1: 131–3, 144/SKS 7: 123–5, 135). Climacus seems to blame this trend amongst his contemporaries on “the influence of a Hegelian concern with world history” that causes them “to attach less importance to being an individual person” (Muench 2011: 102). The problem is that this modern way of approaching ethics makes living a good and meaningful life, which seems like a very personal matter, highly dependent upon very impersonal objective facts about the world one inhabits. A further concern, according to Climacus, is that the objective approach gives the impression that after consulting these facts, one’s duties can be quickly and clearly established, discharged, and set aside so that one might move on to other matters. While there may be areas of inquiry in which it is possible to accumulate as much relevant information as can be had about the state of the world and thereby be finished with the issue (perhaps, for example, some scientific or legal studies), Climacus believes that this is an inappropriate approach to the issue of personal existence. 13 This argument is related to their larger case that anything that can happen will happen given infinite time. I think discussing this issue in this chapter would move us too far from the central concern about what Kierkegaard might contribute on the topic of the desirability of immortality, but Mark Wrathall (2015: 433–4) provides a helpful rebuttal, on unrelated grounds, of this dubious claim. I will address it later in the book as well. 14 Just before considering this topic, Climacus first ponders the related issue of “what it means to die” (CUP 1: 165/SKS 7: 153). On this thought experiment, see Paul Muench’s (2011) thorough treatment. 15 Socrates, on Climacus’ reading, recognizes that knowledge of what it takes to live well is hard to come by and that it has as much to do with acting (despite a certain ignorance) as with knowing: “the ethical is not only a knowing; it is also a doing that is related to a knowing” (CUP 1: 160/SKS 7: 149; cf. Possen 2011: 127–8). If one fails to grasp what Socrates realizes—that there are aspects of living a meaningful life about which we have no obvious and definite “facts of the matter”—then one might also fail to understand that (at least) some activities should always be undertaken in the anxiety of uncertainty as to whether one acts well or poorly. 16 A. W. Moore (2006: 326–7), who will play an important role in the next chapter, also offers a version of the risk argument. 17 In discussing Nussbaum’s views on immortality, I generally focus on her ­earlier curmudgeonly arguments. It must be acknowledged, however, that she later softens her views in response to some of Fischer’s (1999) arguments. Ultimately, she accepts the possibility that the various non-­deadly risks humans face—e.g. “being subject to pain… being liable to failure and disappointment, or the loss of love”—“may indeed suffice to shape a life that is enough like our own to house some of the same values” (Nussbaum 1999: 812). 18 Although there is certainly a religious element to his discussion, wanting to get rid of oneself and in some sense being unable to do so (which has important implications for suicide) is indicative of an especially intensive form of despair experienced by some people, according to Kierkegaard’s pseudonym Anti-­Climacus (e.g. SUD 20–1, 48–9/SKS 11: 135–7, 163–4; cf. Mjaaland 2011: 85). 19 In Chapter 5, I will consider other, notably Heideggerian, ways of responding to certain versions of the risk argument.

Notes  141 Chapter 3 1 In my fairly thorough engagement with the scholarly literature on the Nietzsche/transhumanism relationship, I have encountered only one brief endnote that makes even a passing reference to the ongoing philosophical discussion of the desirability of immortality (see Woodward 2017: 247). 2 As we have seen, the most optimistic prognosticators (e.g. Kurzweil 2005: 358, 486) even consider the possibility of advancing to the point of being able to hop from universe to universe in order to avoid destruction. 3 Sorgner’s most prominent ally is the famous and foundational transhumanist Max More (2010), who claims that Nietzsche has long had an influence on his own views. Other thinkers who offer limited or qualified support include Paul S. Loeb (2017), Rebecca Bamford (2017), and Russell Blackford (2017). 4 In addition to this interesting interpretive attempt to bring Nietzsche closer to transhumanism on the issue of radical “this-­worldly” longevity, Sorgner also tries to make transhumanism more accommodating to Nietzsche by questioning whether the version of such longevity not based on the notion of eternal recurrence is actually an essential aspect of the transhumanist agenda. Sorgner (see 2010: 13; 2017a: 251–2; 2017b: 158) is right to point out that, despite the frequent use of the word “immortality” in transhumanist literature, most transhumanists do not see true god-­like indestructibility as a realistic goal, but it is a bit odd to suggest that (the non-­recurring version of) radical longevity is not a core aim of transhumanism. Even Blackford (2017: 203), who is largely supportive of Sorgner, thinks he goes too far here. Of course, it is certainly possible to pursue other transhumanist objectives without caring about radical longevity, but this pursuit would cease to resemble what most transhumanists understand by “transhumanism.” 5 For some noteworthy examples, see: AC, sections 15, 18, 38, 42; EH, preface/ section 2, “Why I am a Destiny”/section 8; GM, 1st essay/section 14, 3rd essay/ section 28; GS, section 344; TSZ, “On the Hinterworldly”; WLN 240–1; and WP, section 224. 6 For a detailed discussion of the debt Nietzsche thinks Christianity owes to earlier notions of an afterlife, especially hellish ones, see Rempel (2010; 2012). 7 In addition to the passages referenced in Chapter 1, see also the following related examples of Nietzsche’s criticism: AC, section 7; GM, preface/section 5, 1st essay/section 6, 3rd essay/section 17; GS, sections 340, 346; TI, “The Problem of Socrates,” “How the ‘Real World’ at last Became a Myth”; TSZ, “On the Preachers of Death”; and WP, section 411. 8 Not only does Nietzsche affirm mortality, he also advocates for the right “To die proudly when it is no longer possible to live proudly. Death of one’s own free choice, death at the proper time, with a clear head and with joyfulness” (TI, “Expeditions of an Untimely Man”/section 36). He even hints at physician-­assisted suicide in cases where the alternative is “to vegetate on in cowardly dependence.” It is painfully ironic that he expresses these views mere months before the mental collapse that led to his very own decade of “vegetating on.” 9 Of course, it also shows many signs of Nietzsche’s movement away from Schopenhauer’s thought, especially from the latter’s emphasis on the notion of pity as a foundational ethical principle (see e.g. D, sections 132–4). 10 In an even earlier book, with an even stronger Schopenhauerian flavor to it, Nietzsche makes some other claims that might have implications for personal immortality. For example: “In becoming, everything is hollow, deceptive, shallow and worthy of our contempt; the enigma which man is to resolve he can

142 Notes resolve only in being, in being thus and not otherwise, in the imperishable” (UM, “Schopenhauer as Educator”/section 4). He obviously does not have such a negative view of becoming—usually associated with the flux of ordinary temporal existence where persons are found—in his later work (see e.g. EH, “The Birth of Tragedy”/section 3; TI, “‘Reason’ in Philosophy”/sections 1–2, 5), but this passage does resonate with Schopenhauer’s views about an indestructible, impersonal reality and the transient insignificance of human individuality. 11 Moore (2006: 328) sees an “intimation” of a similar sentiment in a similarly ambiguous passage from Twilight of the Idols (TI, “What I Owe to the Ancients”/section 5). An anonymous referee raises some interesting questions concerning what Nietzsche’s ideas might imply about transhumanist hopes for mind-­uploading. Just as it is only tired thoughts that “let themselves be written,” is it only tired minds that would let themselves be mapped and uploaded? Then again, once equipped with sophisticated computer processing power, would an old tired mind be rejuvenated and capable of thinking new energetic thoughts not possible for biological humans? I doubt clear answers to these questions are to be found in Nietzsche’s work, but as I discuss a little further on, there seem to be other reasons why Nietzsche might not be such a fan of uploading. 12 It is also important to keep in mind that eternal recurrence was hardly considered established scientific fact in Nietzsche’s own day, and its prospects as a viable scientific theory have not changed much since then. 13 Against the thought-­experiment interpretation of the eternal recurrence scenario, Loeb (2017: 87) says, “if actual reality and life are not repeated at all in any way, then this theory would simply be a new fantasy whereby the actual fleetingness and finitude of reality and life would be denied all over again.” In other words, should it turn out that eternal recurrence is not an actual feature of the universe, the kind of longing for it seen in section 341 from The Gay Science would amount to the same sort of pathetic fantasizing the religious engage in about heaven when the realities of this life/world are too much to bear. After discussing this matter in private correspondence with Loeb, I think he is taking this “longing for” too straightforwardly, whereas Nietzsche (using hypothetical, and perhaps somewhat hyperbolic, language) simply means to highlight the difference between joyful embrace of the possibility of eternal recurrence and horror at the prospect of it. I also think Loeb believes Nietzsche is more certain of the truth of eternal recurrence, and more justified in this certainty, than he really is. 14 In other chapters, I cast doubt on this kind of claim, but it is not an especially problematic issue in the present context. 15 Lawrence J. Hatab (2005: 2, 9) seems to think the thought-­experiment interpretation and something like Loeb’s more metaphysical interpretation actually coexist in Nietzsche’s corpus. Before setting him aside, I should also mention that Loeb has written a great deal in defense of his interpretation, while I am primarily relying on the relatively brief, albeit sufficiently representative, account he provides in his contribution to the Sorgner kerfuffle. For his more detailed arguments, one should consult his other work, beginning with Loeb (2010). 16 Jeff Noonan (2016: 40–1) points out that transhumanists are more concerned about biological causes of suffering than social and political causes. There is no doubt some truth to this critique, but I think these sources of suffering are more intertwined than he suggests. 17 There is also the more hellish application of the uploading scenario, which would use the threat of (roughly) never-­ending virtual torment to control and

Notes  143 restrict (and thus diminish, disparage, and devalue) what one does with one’s body in the everyday world. 18 Babich (2017: 112) makes some interesting general claims about the vacuousness of transhumanist promises based on technologies that do not, and may never, exist. Chapter 4 1 In fact, according to Hugo Culpepper (1961: 285), Unamuno sees some of the same lessons about the trivialization of ordinary mortal life in the experiences of Lazarus between his two deaths: “That man, who had once tasted of death and its repose, felt so lonely among the living who had never died. He carried about with him, in his eyes, in the sound of his voice, in the rhythm of his walk, something of the splendor of eternal rest. His brothers in humanity trembled before him as before an unknown god. At the same time, he felt alone, alone, alone. The ‘reality’ of others was no longer reality for him.” 2 Bradley (2015: 413) briefly mentions Unamuno’s “immortality or bust” attitude while making his case that permanence is not a necessary condition for meaning in life. As I acknowledged in the introductory chapter, I am somewhat sympathetic to Bradley’s argument, but I think he is insufficiently sensitive to the ways necessary impermanence can trivialize and introduce other complications into the meaning we often uncritically attribute to our activities and accomplishments. Thus, I am not convinced his argument would provide a decisive counter to a more nuanced reading of Unamuno’s view. 3 This idea seems to have been a recurrent theme throughout Unamuno’s work (see Culpepper 1961: 288). 4 People who commit suicide seem like obvious counterexamples to Unamuno’s claims about both the universality of longing for immortality, and the preference for a life of pain over absolute nonexistence. While I am not sure the latter claim is entirely defensible, since some suffering might just be unbearable (cf. Holmen 2018: 140n25; Luper-­Foy 1993: 269n1), Unamuno does think suicide can be explained within the framework of a universal longing for immortality. He says, “it is the supreme longing for life, for more life, the longing to prolong and perpetuate life, that urges [suicidal individuals] to death, once they are persuaded of the vanity of this longing” (TSL 44–5). In other words, suicide is one possible response when people become convinced that immortality is unlikely. As we have seen, without the hope of more to come, Unamuno thinks the value of this life is diminished. 5 It is worth noting the extent to which Unamuno’s observations about “terror of extinction” motivating human behavior anticipate Ernest Becker’s (1973) theories in The Denial of Death. Although they have Kierkegaard as a common source, Becker makes no mention of Unamuno. 6 In discussing these ideas, Unamuno explicitly mentions the Upaniṣads, which are among the ancient Indian texts Schopenhauer uses to support his similar views about the durability of an impersonal reality and the transient insignificance of human individuality (cf. Olivelle 2008: BU 4.4, KaU 2). As for Unamuno himself, even in his more pan(en)theistic or monistic moments, he is always careful to make sure “the personal identity is not lost” (Baker 1990: 52; cf. Culpepper 1961: 293). 7 Despite his criticisms of these consolation prizes, Unamuno is not entirely immune to their temptations; he occasionally gets wrapped up in trying to live on through his work (see Evans 2013a: 46; Franz 1980: 652).

144 Notes 8 It is not as clear to me that he would have been so interested in mind-­ uploading, but I cannot rule it out. 9 Although he does not feel it necessary to make a sharp distinction in this passage, Unamuno (much like Kierkegaard, as I have previously mentioned) clearly gravitates toward the contra-­rationalist or anti-­rationalist approach to religious matters, such as the immortality of the soul. In discussing immortality specifically, he says, “It is no use seeking to force ourselves to consider as super-­rational what clearly appears to us to be contra-­rational” (TSL 78; cf. 65, 73–7, 263). 10 There has been a long history of debate amongst Unamuno commentators as to whether his uncertainty and doubt could legitimately be the foundation for a genuine Christian faith. For a helpful overview of this debate, see Armand F. Baker (1990: 37–40). Although this is not my most pressing concern in the present chapter, given his similarities with Kierkegaard (and, to a lesser degree, Pascal [cf. Baker 1990: 42]) when it comes to the relationship between faith and reason, I am inclined to side with those who do not see Unamuno as completely divorced from Christian faith (even if the situation is complicated). 11 The latter’s famous poem says, “Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light” (Thomas 2016: 193). 12 There are, of course, some limits to what counts as acceptable work. Some occupations are more obviously connected to the well-­being of others, and some are just plain evil (see TSL 271–2). Michael A. Weinstein (1976: 50) claims these caveats indicate Unamuno is not fully committed to this “religious duty” approach to work, but this is a fairly speculative claim that is not obviously supported by the text. 13 For Nietzsche, one other sign of Christianity’s corrupting influence would be Unamuno’s democratic view of the inherent uniqueness of each human being, which he uses to help make his point about the injustice of being annihilated. Nietzsche, of course, does not think the vast majority of humans are particularly special. 14 Unamuno briefly takes the image of dreaming in another, similarly problematic (from Nietzsche’s perspective), direction when he considers whether life in the world is a dream, and death an awakening in “a transcendent reality to live the life beyond” (Culpepper 1961: 285; cf. TSL 232). This is precisely the kind of claim Nietzsche derides when made by other thinkers. 15 Michael Candelaria (2012: 47–50) claims that one of Unamuno’s main reasons for wanting immortality is that “earthly existence” is “vain.” I cannot see much evidence in Tragic Sense of Life (outside of the brief discussion of life as a dream) that suggests Unamuno thinks earthly existence is, in itself, vain. Rather, what makes earthly existence appear vain is the prospect of utter personal annihilation. If immortality awaits us, then earthly life is just part of our continuously meaningful existence. 16 Lars Bergström (2013: 176n28) complains that Unamuno does not thoroughly explain why eternal recurrence is “a sorry counterfeit of immortality.” Given everything Unamuno says about the experientially continuous personal immortality he really wants in comparison with the “shadows of immortality,” I do not think it is any mystery why Unamuno is unimpressed with eternal recurrence. 17 This is another point of contention with Candelaria (2012: 56), who apparently sees Nietzsche—as diagnosed by Unamuno in the quotation above—as an example of failure to believe in personal immortality, rather than failure to desire it. I think the quotation clearly indicates that Nietzsche’s problem is failure to maintain his desire in the face of overwhelming reason and

Notes  145 evidence. There is no doubt he also failed to believe, but lack of belief is not Unamuno’s concern in his discussions of Nietzsche in Tragic Sense of Life. 18 For example, Heine Holmen (2018: 136), Luper-­Foy (1993: 269), and Smuts (2011: 134) all begin articles by quoting the famous passage, but they have little to say about Unamuno after that (Holmen says a little more than the other two). 19 Connie S. Rosati (2013: 369) suggests a different approach to defending Unamuno from Williams. She seems to accept his basic reading of Unamuno’s declaration, before going on to champion the idea that mere existence is in itself a legitimate object of feelings of value and desire. I am extremely supportive of her general argument against Williams’ (see 1993: 78) position, even if I think her brief comments about Unamuno fail to dig deep enough into his other relevant views. Roughly, Rosati (2013: section 3.1) holds that while Williams thinks our affection for our own individual lives depends on our having categorical desires, categorical desires actually arise from our more fundamental love of our own lives. We value ourselves as beings that are capable of valuing things, so we give ourselves things to value—e.g. projects. There are some parallels with this idea to be found in the next chapter’s discussion of Heidegger. 20 In case this distinction is still unclear, here is an illustrative example: I can recognize the benefits (i.e. the desirability/value/worth) of having a new car without actually wanting/desiring a new car myself. I understand the convenience of car ownership, but perhaps I enjoy using the public transportation services in my city, or I do not want to contribute to air pollution. 21 I would not say the curmudgeons are defined by retreat into the “shadows of immortality.” Although some of them (e.g. May 2009: 81–2, 91–3) do seek out comfort in the thought of some kind of impersonal preservation, this is not a necessary feature of being a curmudgeon. 22 In a short response to the journal article I revised and adapted to create the present chapter, Alberto Oya (2021) argues that because the “hunger for immortality” lies within every human being by nature, according to Unamuno, there is no room for Unamuno within discussions about whether immortality is desirable; we humans simply cannot help but desire it. I think Oya makes two fairly significant mistakes in coming to this conclusion. First, although it seems right that Unamuno sees the hunger for immortality as universal and natural, that does not prevent him from repeatedly criticizing those who fail to desire immortality appropriately. His criticism of Nietzsche, quoted above, is just one prominent example. Second, even if desire for immortality, in some sense or another, is unavoidable for us, the question of whether we should desire it is not really the central concern of the desirability of immortality debate. This debate is primarily about whether immortal life would be meaningful or worthwhile, and as explained in the very first section of this chapter, Unamuno seems to weigh in on this separate issue in addition to anything he says about a universal hunger for immortality. He seems to hold that only immortal life would be meaningful. Chapter 5 1 Unamuno’s name comes up a bit more frequently than the others, but substantial discussion of his ideas is just as uncommon. 2 In case it is not already apparent, I will not be addressing Scheffler’s notion of collective immortality/afterlife, which is the main topic of the first two lectures of Death and the Afterlife. While this is surely a fascinating issue, for the

146 Notes purposes of the present chapter I am far more interested in what has been said about personal immortality. 3 I want to make it clear that my discussion of this sort of immortality does not involve any other godly capabilities. See Smuts (2011: 146–7) for a more robust discussion of the nature of god-­like immortality. 4 I find Scheffler’s (2013: 95, 109; cf. 63) focus on the sort of personal immortality in which “one necessarily lives forever” especially odd given that, in his discussion of collective afterlife, he is so willing to allow that many of our values depend on humanity surviving “if not forever then at least for an indefinitely long period of time.” 5 Scheffler (2013: 63–4; cf. 189) mentions a similar idea, albeit when speaking about collective, rather than personal, immortality. He makes another related claim when speaking about the role of normal “expected duration” of life stages in organizing our values (Scheffler 2013: 96). Also see May’s (2009: 61–2) worries about losing touch with deeply held values and interests after thousands of years go by. 6 Despite relying on her helpful account here, I do not mean to suggest Rosati is an advocate of the narrativity thesis. Paul Fairfield (2014: esp. 26, 131) and Jeff Malpas (1998: esp. 127–31) are quintessential advocates for narrativity and the important role death plays in completing the life story. 7 And, of course, thinkers like Kolodny point out that, when death is impossible, some risks will only intensify (cf. May 2009: 64; Nussbaum 1994: 228). 8 The overview of the Being and Time discussion of death provided in what follows must be somewhat summary in nature. I offer a more thorough exegesis elsewhere (Buben 2016: Chapter 5). 9 Witnessing the death of another will not help here, since “we have no way of access to the loss-­of-­Being as such which the dying man ‘suffers’” (BT 239). 10 In one prime example of his association of these two concepts, Heidegger claims that “this item in the structure of care has its most primordial concretion in Being-­towards-­death” (BT 251). 11 For a helpful survey of notable scholars who offer conflicting views of what Heidegger is up to on the topic of death, none of which line up precisely with mine, see Dreyfus (2005). 12 “Eigentlich,” which is the word translated as “authentic” in Being and Time, can be more literally translated as the rather awkward “enowned.” The suggestion here is that becoming authentic amounts to an owning up to oneself, or becoming one’s own. 13 Heidegger puts this sense of freedom in terms of having “been released from the Illusions of the ‘they’” (BT 266). 14 Note well that anxiety here has to do with Dasein’s essential lack of unequivocal guidance and support in making something of itself, which is demonstrated in authentic Being-­towards-­death. Making an important distinction between anxiety and fear on these very pages, Heidegger points out that Dasein is not anxious because of some coming event, even if some might fear it. 15 Partially because of concerns about chapter length, and partially because thinkers like Chappell and Moore (whom we have seen briefly insert Heidegger into their discussions of the desirability of immortality) clearly have only Being and Time in mind, I am focusing on what Heidegger says in his magnum opus. It would be interesting to consider what the later Heidegger might have to say about the issues discussed here, especially given his famous turn away from the early Dasein-­centric account of projects and meaning. Other more specific examples worth considering include his claims about “mortals” and “divinities” in his discussion of “the fourfold,” and his critique of technology (especially as applied to the possible technological achievement

Notes  147 of something like immortality) (see BDT; QCT); I will say more about the latter in the following chapter. Malpas (1998: 134), after covertly (and I think mistakenly) attempting to show that Being and Time ideas support Williams’ anti-­immortality sentiments, briefly mentions another relevant later Heidegger example. 16 Consider the experience of religious conversion in which one takes on values that might even conflict dramatically with those previously held. Despite using the metaphor of “rebirth,” as noted in Chapter 2, most people would consider it odd to exclude what came before from the biography of the converted. Chappell (2010) makes a similar religious point in the course of refuting Burley’s (2009b: 543–6) version of the kind of value-­based “human life is necessarily mortal” argument that Scheffler offers. 17 In a few instances, Scheffler (e.g. 2013: 203–5) seems to be positing beings that are always immortal, but it is unclear whether he imagines them born that way or has in mind instead perpetual beings that have no origin. Whichever it is, Scheffler believes these beings might never develop values like ours at all. If he is speaking about beings with an origin, this fact (i.e. having an origin) alone might be sufficient to generate at least some values like ours. If he is speaking about origin-­less beings, I find this further stipulation unwarranted, unnecessarily far-­fetched, and simply not relevant to my experience as a being with a birthday, although it does make it more difficult (but perhaps still not impossible) for such beings to relate to us. Critics such as Kolodny and I begin with the more relatable and likely scenario (if any scenarios of immortality can be called relatable or likely) of beings like us that become immortal, or discover their immortality, in the strict god-­like sense. From this starting point, Scheffler’s claims seem less justifiable—it is not as though I would become immortal or discover my immortality and immediately forget all of the ordinary finite human values I have learned and lived with up until the moment of change or discovery. I would be reinterpreting them in light of this new development. 18 Nussbaum (1994: 232) seems a bit more amenable to Heidegger’s view of our limitations than May (2009: 57–9) and Scheffler (2013: 204), who see death as the most significant of human limitations. This is perhaps not so surprising given that she later abandons her curmudgeonly ways (as I mentioned in a note to Chapter 2). 19 In fact, depending on one’s views about the boundaries of this universe or the possibility of unlimited other universes, there might be reasons based in theoretical physics to believe Smuts’ understanding of our world is false. 20 In other work, I make the case that the similarity between Kierkegaard and Heidegger is no accident (see Buben 2016: Chapter 6). 21 Of course, we can always imagine the way life might conclude (whether we are mortal or not), but an actual conclusion to a life story often only means something to others who survive (cf. Lippitt 2007: 45; Stokes 2006: 401–3). This may not be entirely true for those with very specific diagnoses and short timelines, who have the chance to ponder the death immediately before them, but when, for example, a massive heart attack surprises a person during an ordinary lunchtime visit to the kitchen, it seems odd to suggest the deceased experienced any kind of meaningful culmination of his or her life story. Nonetheless, for those left behind it is always possible to tell a tale of a dietary Evel Knievel whose engine finally gave out. On the topic of Heidegger’s view of death and narrative meaning, there has been a fair amount of disagreement amongst commentators on his work. In one recent example, Fairfield (2014: 91) has attributed a narrative sense of life’s meaning to Heidegger, but I believe this is due to his mistakenly taking

148 Notes Heidegger’s notion of death as a more straightforward conclusion of a life story. I believe Malpas (1998: 129–31, 134n20) might make a similar error in seeing the unified whole of a life as dependent upon a sense of its conclu­sion, but his account is more complicated, especially considering that he only ­attributes the position he has laid out to Heidegger in a somewhat cryptic closing note. At any rate, as I have argued, because Heidegger is sensitive to the Epicurean point, he simply does not see this ordinary sense of death as contributing much to the meaning of existence. Likewise, his understanding of wholeness has nothing to do with a completed narrative. In updating his views on narrativity and death in Heidegger, Charles Guignon (2011: 195–6) provides further support for the position I am advocating here. Thus, Tony Fisher’s (2010: 247–8) characterization of Guignon’s stance is now somewhat out of date, although Fisher’s paper remains helpful for orienting oneself in the debate on Heidegger and narrativity. 22 It is also worth noting that there are other reasons to think death is perhaps not the definitive conclusion of a life story some believe it to be. Thinkers such as Aristotle (1908: 1100a10–1101b9), Sartre (BN 695–6), Nagel (1979: 4–7), and George Pitcher (1993: 163–8) have each argued along somewhat different lines that the meaning of a life (if not its happiness) might be affected by events that take place after it has ceased. For example, one’s works might flourish posthumously, turning a “depressive nobody” into an “artistic genius,” or shifting mores about race relations in subsequent decades/centuries might lead to a tarnished reputation for a formerly respected leader. If the meaning of a life story continues to be malleable beyond its apparent expiration date, then it becomes less clear that expiring has such a special role to play in the meaning-­giving process. In fact, as I suggested in the introduction to this book, immortality starts to look more attractive because a person who is still alive has at least some say in how his or her life is interpreted. Although Bortolotti (2010: 40–2), Luca Ferrero (2015: section 2), Fischer (2013: 347– 8), Rosati (2013: 376), and Chappell (2007: 36–7) also offer helpful responses to the curmudgeonly argument based on narrativity, none of them get at precisely the points I am raising here. Chapter 6 1 Consider, for example, the “2045 Initiative,” sponsored by a Russian real estate mogul, which has established the rather ambitious goal of making this sort of transfer a reality on the way to ultimately “freeing” humans from material bodies in the next few decades (Danigelis 2012). 2 Insofar as we are all on our way to death, and we have all been left behind by someone who beat us to it, I recognize that in some sense we always occupy both perspectives simultaneously. 3 As will become clear, I worry that our current trajectory will lead to our putting a rather large burden on the dying, and not so much on those who will be left behind, which seems like a new and shockingly unfair imbalance. 4 Similar, but less ambitious, ideas that have been proposed (without promising results thus far) include an algorithm that will be able to “Tweet” in your “voice” once you are gone (Cangeloso 2013), and a handful of online animated avatar websites that will be able to approximate your personality. See Stokes (2012: 370; 2021: 124–8) for a variety of other fascinating examples of the dead “living on” largely through hypothetical advances in information technology. 5 This is another area that is in need of further development, but we have flirted with the possible implications of such things in connection with dead

Notes  149 celebrities (see e.g. Manning 2012). And speaking of dead celebrities, even without true holograms, they are still having quite a moment when it comes to appearing in films. After Star Wars’ successes in “resurrecting” long-­dead actors to reprise roles, it seems like “James Dean” will also be returning to the screen (Alter 2019). 6 Around the same time I wrote the original article that would eventually become this chapter, the television show Black Mirror aired an excellent episode (“Be Right Back”) depicting something like my IPCs, but with hugs and other acts of physical intimacy included. 7 In addition to these questions, I wonder if the prospect of a suicide would be as unsettling if more aspects of the supposedly unique and valuable individual about to take his or her own life had already been preserved. Although suicide is not a focus of this chapter, I will later discuss an interesting example involving these issues. Suicide will also play a more prominent role in the following chapter. 8 Perhaps it is unfair to offer an example of replacement that involves pets instead of people, but I often think about the way we sometimes fill the emptiness felt at the loss of an old dog with a new puppy. My cousin’s longtime partner, for instance, got a new wire fox terrier, which she named Hattie, around the time her old wire fox terrier, Maddie, died. 9 An interesting/disturbing corollary here is that we might go on “interacting” with many of the Facebook friends or Instagram intimates that we do not physically see on a regular basis for days or weeks after the individual behind the profile has died, until someone informs us of the death. In fact, if some devious loved one with the appropriate passwords wanted to impersonate the dead by taking over their social media accounts, some people might never realize that their “friend” is gone. 10 The Epicurean view has received a great deal of attention in the last four-­plus decades, beginning with Nagel’s critical assessment. See Stephen E. Rosenbaum (1993) for an exemplary defense of the Epicurean position. 11 Though perhaps not as prevalent today, some traditions have recommended quite specific mourning restrictions. Consider the Confucian claim that “a person who for three years refrains from reforming the ways of his late father can be called a filial son” (Ames and Rosemont 1998: 1.11). 12 Much has been written on this topic in the secondary literature on Works of Love. See e.g. Ferreira (2001: esp. 211–3); Keeley (1999: esp. 241); and Søltoft (1998: esp. 125). 13 Kierkegaard does not focus on the possibility of an afterlife in his Works of Love account of the proper relationship with the dead. For more on this issue, see Allen (2011). 14 In an older article, Stokes (2012: 375) addressed the duty of preservation of the dead while discussing the implications of memorialized Facebook pages, but he did not distinguish between the two senses of preservation I focus on here or consider the danger of overlooking something significant if preservation as replacement becomes too prominent. He was, thus, a bit more optimistic about the prospects of technological preservation (of persons, if not selves, in his technical sense) than I am. More recently, Stokes (2021: 141–2) has come to share my worries. 15 There is an underlying anti-­ humanism to The Question Concerning Technology, characteristic of many of Heidegger’s later writings, but it should be emphasized that he is not so much critical of specific technologies, as he is concerned about the essence and direction of technology in general. Surely,

150 Notes modern farming techniques provide benefits to countless people, but perhaps it is worth asking about what might be lost in exchange when we view the world in a way that makes such techniques possible. 16 On the Nazi death camp as a particularly egregious example of the modern technological impulse making humans into resources, see Thomson (2005: 83). 17 In addition to Kierkegaard and Heidegger, I think Unamuno would be especially concerned about this replacement trend. After all, he recommends that we struggle to become more unique and irreplaceable, so the sense of injustice others feel when we die will be increased. The technological replacement trend moves in the opposite direction, diminishing the sense of injustice others feel when someone dies. 18 And clearly, Kierkegaardian continued postmortem constitution is no more effective in this direction. 19 No doubt the pharaoh from Shelley’s famous sonnet once foolishly believed something similar. To be fair, although they are crumbling and fading, the statues and other marks on the world of Ramesses II have lasted long enough to make it to the Internet. But still, nothing lasts forever. 20 I think this is a point Kasket does not fully acknowledge. Chapter 7 1 To be fair, May (2009) does spend much of his first chapter acknowledging how death can also ruin meaning, before he says the same about immortality in the following chapter. 2 Bernard N. Schumacher thinks Sartre overstates things. In fact, he sounds a bit like Bradley when he says, “The French philosopher… makes a leap of logic when he connects” the interruption of death “with the absurdity of my whole life. Indeed, I am capable of working out and giving a meaning to many actions of my life, even if I must finally die” (Schumacher 2011: 106). 3 In No Exit, which was first performed not long after the publication of Being and Nothingness, Sartre provides some excellent examples of the dead being left at the mercy of the living. Both Estelle and Garcin watch helplessly from the afterlife as their worldly associates spread unflattering (yet not entirely inaccurate) accounts of the kind of people they had been in life (NE 33, 36, 38–9). 4 Once again, Sartre provides some helpful illustrations of these ideas in No Exit. Garcin claims that the meaning of his seemingly cowardly actions has “been left in suspense forever” by his death (NE 38). And later he adds, “I died too soon. I wasn’t allowed time to—to do my deeds,” to which Inez responds, “One always dies too soon—or too late” (NE 43). 5 B. P. O’Donohoe (1981: 344–5) objects to Sartre’s use of “finitude” and “finite” in this context, because he thinks human finitude cannot be divorced from death. In getting so hung up quibbling about his terminology, I think O’Donohoe fails to appreciate the significance of Sartre’s main point that humans would have meaning-­generating limitations with or without death. In order to drive this point home, I read “finite” exclusively in terms of limitations, definitions, and other related concepts in what follows. 6 As Pascal says about belief in God, refusing to pick a side is, practically speaking, the same as unbelief. 7 Seemingly unaware of Sartre’s views on these matters, Ferrero (2015: 362–4) provides a very similar account of the stakes and pressures generated by the kind of “web of branching trajectories” or “garden of forking paths” that Sartre is getting at.

Notes  151 8 It is worth noting that Smuts does not mention either thinker in his paper on this topic. 9 Schumacher (2011: 103n34, 106–7) seems to suggest that Sartre’s later work—specifically his Notebooks for an Ethics—carves out a more substantial role for death to play, and is therefore less open to the possibility of meaningful immortality. Given that Sartre never completed or published these notebooks (although they were published posthumously), I am not entirely comfortable with assigning specific notes they contain (see e.g. NFE 326), however relevant and interesting, hermeneutical priority over the discussion of death and immortality in Being and Nothingness. 10 The original French title, Huis Clos, has a meaning quite different from the common English version. It comes from the legal context in which certain proceedings take place “behind closed doors, in the chambers, away from the open courtroom, with no public or media gallery” (Webber 2011: 49). Despite my interest in considering the importance of having an exit or escape available just in case, I do not think the issue of how best to render the title of this play is particularly pressing for my purposes. 11 Some philosophers have even considered the possibility of intentionally using life-­extension technologies to create such hellish conditions. See Andersen (2014). 12 Of course, meaning and suffering often overlap quite a bit. A life of suffering might be full of meaning, and indeed, it might be meaningful in part because of the suffering. It also seems fair to suggest that having to live a meaninglessness life would qualify as a kind of suffering. 13 This claim might not apply so well to immortality that is forced upon a person as a form of punishment, as we see in No Exit, except insofar as this person could have more carefully considered beforehand how certain behaviors would lead to certain punishments. 14 I am not the only one who sees things this way. Christopher Belshaw (2015: 325–6; cf. 332), for example, considers a “contingent immortality” in which people “can choose to end life, but are safe from having an exit thrust upon them… These people can elect to carry on nevertheless or, instead, to call it a day. Going on forever is possible, but the opt-­out is always available… Even more attractive, for many, will be the intermediate position, where death is yours for the asking but is otherwise removed.” Thomson and Bodington (2014: 249) claim that “If it remains possible for you ever to wipe out your existence, then it remains possible for someone else to do so or for it to happen by accident.” Unfortunately, they provide no argument or explanation in support of this claim, so I am not quite sure why they think it is true. Holmen (2018: 148) briefly makes a similar point in terms of physical possibility, specifically, but it also suffers from a lack of argument and explanation. 15 As a “froyo” aficionado, the inclusion of frozen yogurt shops in what is supposed to be a place of torture and suffering is an understated little jab I find deeply offensive (the demon, Michael, says froyo is basically taking ice cream “and ruining it a little so you can have more of it” [The Good Place 2016]). 16 One more Sartre connection: May and Schur were both invited to participate in a session on The Good Place at a meeting of the North American Sartre Society in 2018, just after the penultimate season began airing. 17 Albeit without focusing on precisely this optional self-­destruction scenario, I already hinted at this kind of compromise in Chapter 5, where I pointed out that Scheffler (2013: 95) seems more amenable to an immortality in which one can, but need not, die. Others have made similar concessions (see e.g. Steele 1976: 426–7).

152 Notes 18 Although Belshaw (2015: 326) points out that it might not be so easy to pull the trigger, so to speak, because one might always “suspect that in the long run things will improve.” 19 I should note that May was not the only philosophy advisor on the show, but he is the relevant one for my purposes. 20 May is, of course, not the only curmudgeon to make this kind of claim. Shelly Kagan (2012: 243), for example, says something quite similar. 21 I exclude Janet from the list of characters I am talking about because, as an everlasting and nearly omniscient artificial intelligence, her case involves complications not relevant to the other characters. However, it is worth mentioning that she does not seem too disturbed by her almost complete indestructibility. 22 As I mentioned in a note to the introductory chapter, May (2009: Chapter 2) actually begins his discussion of immortality with an overview of Borges’ story. One other major connection between May’s (2009: 81–2, 91–3) book and the final episode of The Good Place (2020b) is that they both highlight the Taoist (or Buddhist, according to the latter) image of a wave crashing and being reabsorbed into the ocean as a metaphor for the way individuals end while their component parts persist in the larger universe. In fact, the last scene of the show depicts precisely this dissolution and persistence. I think it is probably more than fair to suggest that May’s fingerprints are all over that episode. Chapter 8 1 Daniel Berthold (2013b: 141) says that “Virtually all of Camus’s works are about death in one way or another.” 2 Back when they were still on friendly terms, Sartre apparently had Camus in mind for the role of Garcin in No Exit (see Berthold 2021: 48; cf. Webber 2011: 48). 3 I will largely restrict my discussion to The Myth of Sisyphus from 1942 because it most directly addresses the constellation of concepts most pertinent for my purposes, but I will mention key ideas from Camus’ later writings when relevant. 4 In addition to his broad overview of what makes our existence absurd, Camus mentions a few “experiential manifestations” (Bozzaro 2018: 113), a few ways the absurdity of our existence shows up to us once we begin to doubt there is some greater sense of significance to the universe: e.g. suffering that involves innocents, weariness connected with repetitive daily activities, and horror related to impending annihilative death (MS 13, 19, 21; cf. Pölzler 2018: 481–2; Wolfs 2010: 70). In the latter case, Camus says, “after the absurd, everything is upset. That idea that ‘I am’, my way of acting as if everything has a meaning… all that is given the lie in vertiginous fashion by the absurdity of a possible death” (MS 56). 5 See e.g. his interview titled “No, I am not an existentialist…” (LCE 345). 6 In fact, when he wrote The Myth of Sisyphus, Camus had not yet met Sartre, and he makes only a passing connection between his own sense of absurdity and the latter’s notion of nausea (MS 21). 7 Camus briefly includes Heidegger’s treatment of anxiety and death in his critique of existentialism (MS 27–9), but his account is somewhat uncharitable and not entirely accurate. The more pressing problem for Camus’ account, however, is that he does not make it very clear in what way Heidegger displays the nostalgia for the absolute Camus sees in the other figures he criticizes.

Notes  153 8 Although the concept of the “leap” appears throughout Kierkegaard’s early pseudonymous writings, it is perhaps most frequently associated with Fear and Trembling. In this text, Johannes de silentio uses the imagery of leaping to try to explain the “movement of faith” on display in the story of Abraham and Isaac; setting aside “human calculation,” and having faith (“by virtue of the absurd”) that somehow everything will be made right, Abraham sets off to kill his only son on God’s command (FT 35–41/SKS 4: 131–6). 9 In earlier chapters, I have described Kierkegaard’s views on this relationship as “anti-­rationalist” in nature. For more on the connection between anti-­ rationalism and the language of death in his work, see Buben (2011). 10 In addition to other similarities, Berthold (2013a: 139–41, 143, 146) makes a compelling case that Camus’ sense of revolt sounds very much like Anti-­ Climacus’ description of demonic despair, which is the form of despair closest to faith. 11 Ashley Woodward (2011: 548–52) also discusses Camus’ more democratic impulses. Though it is not the most pressing issue for detailed consideration here, this democratic divergence from Nietzsche is one of several indications of possible overlap between Camus and Unamuno. 12 Although not every death is the result of a suicidal escape, Camus seems to think that welcoming death, or even making peace with it, is similarly problematic. He claims, “It is essential to die unreconciled and not of one’s own free will. Suicide is a repudiation. The absurd man can only drain everything to the bitter end, and deplete himself” (MS 55; cf. 59). To drive home the opposition to Nietzsche here, contrast this claim with what is said in Zarathustra’s “On Free Death.” 13 In some versions, the rebellious Sisyphus’ crime was tricking the god of death, or otherwise dodging his own demise (MS 107–8). While this does not seem to be the main point of interest for Camus, there must have been some appeal to this element of the story given Camus’ own recommendation of a revolt that is hostile to death. 14 Although he does not dispute the absurdity of human existence, Nagel (1979: 22–3) thinks Camus’ response in terms of “scorn” and “revolt” is all a bit overdramatic. Nagel might have a point in certain cases, but I am not so sure his critique would be entirely fair to Camus in others. For example, one might argue that these terms are appropriately dramatic for describing Sisyphus’ rather outlandish predicament. 15 While she thinks something like this idea is the logical conclusion of The Myth of Sisyphus, Bozzaro (2018: 117–8, 121) argues—largely relying on a certain reading of Camus’ The Plague (1947)—that he would not be without compassion for those who seek death in cases of truly extreme and long-­ lasting suffering. 16 Camus might be taking some liberties in his rather optimistic construal of the opening lines of the play, but I do see a hint of “making the best of it” in Oedipus’ words there. Chapter 9 1 Several authors have written specifically about the prevalence of death encounters in Beauvoir’s autobiographical work, but two stand out as having provided especially wide-­ranging accounts: Elaine Marks (1973), writing before Beauvoir had her final word, and, more recently, Susan Bainbrigge (2005). 2 In The Prime of Life (from 1960), Beauvoir also makes the passing claim that “it was possible to accept death in order that life might keep its meaning” (PL 433), but it comes in the midst of reflecting on the difficulties of the war years

154 Notes and it is not clear she means to make some broadly applicable curmudgeonly point. 3 Wrathall (2015: 432–3) thinks Fosca’s problem is “indifference rather than boredom” (although both issues come up a lot in All Men Are Mortal), because he is still able to enjoy certain experiences “no matter how many times he… had participated in previous similar affairs.” For example, Fosca is able to enjoy very repetitive activities, such as knitting and cleaning, that keep him busy and prevent him from thinking about his situation (AM 50–2, 56–7). Another possible point of contrast with Williams’ position is that Fosca seems to maintain a pretty robust sense of personal identity across some relatively profound shifts in perspective and interests (see e.g. AM 149). 4 To be precise, Carlier stubbornly and carelessly insists on joining Fosca on a very dangerous mission, which results in his having to choose between starvation and suicide. 5 In addition to the shortcomings mentioned by Fosca, Williams’ (1993: 88–90) would also complain that trying to keep things interesting forever by “losing oneself” in intellectual activity violates his identity condition for desirable immortality. 6 Each of these readings is fascinating and sometimes even compelling, and some of them actually find support in Beauvoir’s own comments about the novel (see esp. FC 62–8). For instance, while the reading that emphasizes Regina does not seem to be what Beauvoir had in mind, the one that emphasizes Armand might be (cf. Christensen 2003: 143–4; Klaw 1996: 468–9). Even Fosca seems to hold Armand in particularly high regard (AM 57–8). 7 Holmen (2018: 144–7), for instance, points out that the physical limitations of the doomed universe make true personal immortality impossible, or at most, inevitably and intolerably miserable and meaningless. Intentionally or not, I think arguments like this skirt around the core issue of the desirability debate as framed by Williams (1993: 81), whose antecedent condition is as follows: “If one pictures living forever as living as an embodied person in the world rather as it is….” Holmen, and those who make similar arguments (see e.g. Burley 2009b: 536), just do not want to play the game by the established rules, and thus, they end up making a fairly uncontroversial point that is not very relevant to the matter at hand. As Belshaw (2015: 326n5) puts it: “One objection to immortality, not infrequently encountered, is that the whole notion is deeply incoherent. Nothing will go on forever—the laws of physics will see to that. This is not a good objection. We are—as most discussants acknowledge—already in fantasy land in imagining our living for even a thousand years. There is no reason not to take the fantasy further.” 8 Despite his embrace of his own mortal limitations, Armand certainly has a hard time sympathizing with Fosca’s disenchantment: “Even if I live for six hundred years, I’ll still go on fighting. Do you think there’s less to do on earth today than in other times?” (AM 319). This kind of claim might be dismissed as youthful naivete (and seems to be by Fosca), but a more mature Armand later says that “we should concern ourselves only with that part of the future on which we have a hold. But we should try our best to enlarge our hold on it as much as possible” (AM 328). If Armand is meant to represent a viable rebuttal of Fosca’s attitude, then these assertions taken together might be seen as an endorsement of the ability to take on grander ambitions in extended/ immortal lives. 9 Burley (2009a: 82–3) takes issue with the competitive nature of Wisnewski’s example, arguing that having so much more time to practice than one’s

Notes  155 mortal competitors would make it difficult to justify an immortal’s feeling any satisfaction in winning. In addition to concerns that Burley’s presentation of Wisnewski’s view is not as charitable as it could be, I worry that Burley might be placing too much emphasis on the amount of practice time, which might just provide diminishing returns after a while. After a few decades spent reaching virtuosity, would an extra thousand years or more of practice guarantee superiority over ordinary mortal virtuosos? A somewhat farcical, but still musical, illustration of my point can be found in “The Devil Went Down to Georgia,” a song by the Charlie Daniels Band, in which an ordinary human named “Johnny” is able to win a contest with the Devil (who presumably has a lot more time on his hands) to determine who is the better fiddler. Before and after his victory, Johnny claims to be “the best that’s ever been,” despite his comparative youth. 10 Centuries earlier, Fosca’s decision to have a child, Antonio, has a similar effect on him (AM 117–8). 11 His bond with Regina does not seem to be as strong as the one he shares with Marianne, but there is a moment, before things turn sour, when Fosca sincerely tells the former that “it’s wonderful” to be alive, that he “feel[s] happy this evening,” and that he does not regret her awakening him to the world again (AM 45–6). 12 For similar claims in connection with Regina in the 20th century, see AM 32. 13 In the second half of Felder’s (2018: section 2) paper, he argues that there are ethical problems with intentionally intervening to adjust a human’s memory capacity. Whether his argument is convincing or not, I do not think it is all that relevant to the case of Fosca, where no such intervention takes place. 14 A. G. Gorman (2017: 1079) wonders if, despite having certain obvious limitations, ordinary human memory “prioritizes” in such a way that memories of the truly meaningful experiences would not fade sufficiently, even in radically extended lives, to make these experiences seem worth pursuing again. I am unconvinced, but I agree with Gorman that we are lacking the empirical evidence necessary to be confident one way or the other. 15 In apologizing for getting involved with Regina, Fosca admits, “I made a mistake. I shouldn’t make mistakes any more… I’m old enough to know better. But I don’t suppose they can ever be completely avoided. When I’m ten thousand years old, I’ll still make mistakes. You never really learn” (AM 68). Forgetfulness of some sort seems like one explanation for continuing to make these kinds of “mistakes” and for his difficulties with learning life lessons, despite ample opportunity. I think this admission and its possible connection to gradually fading memory makes Fosca a good candidate for the kind of indefinite character development and self-­cultivation project I have advocated for throughout this volume. Unfortunately, such a project is never really considered in All Men Are Mortal. 16 Although Fosca and Lazarus have a similar impact on people, Fosca’s is not felt so immediately; it is not enough just to look into his eyes (see e.g. AM 8). This difference no doubt has something to do with the respective constraints of short stories and novels, but the cumulative effect of Fosca’s withering gaze (see e.g. AM 62–3, 225) provides a greater air of realism to Beauvoir’s tale. 17 It is worth noting that she is not the only character demoralized in this way. Fosca articulates some of the same concerns about the insignificance of his own mortal life before immortality becomes a possibility for him (AM 82–3). 18 Other characters contribute to this ambiguity through their expressions of ambivalence when it comes to mortality versus immortality. The beggar who gives Fosca the elixir is the most obvious example, but Marianne is another;

156 Notes as she nears death, she tells Fosca, “I don’t envy you. But don’t envy me either” (AM 282). 19 In another point of connection with these thinkers (especially Unamuno), Beauvoir refuses to find comfort in the consolation prize of living on through her work (VED 92). Conclusion 1 Epicurus (1994: section 124), for example, says that “a correct knowledge of the fact that death is nothing to us makes the mortality of life a matter for contentment, not by adding a limitless time [to life] but by removing the longing for immortality.” 2 As noted briefly way back in the introductory chapter, a related concern is that only the economic elite would experience the immediate benefits of these new technologies, while other social classes would have to wait for access until costs come down. Although this problem is not unique to life-­extension technologies, there is no easy solution for it. In the short term, it is hard to argue that resources that could be spent on readily available measures aimed at increasing the quality and quantity of life of the less fortunate should instead be spent on exclusive measures that increase the quality and quantity of life of the most fortunate. It is only in considering the potential long-­term benefits of technological innovation that this sort of resource allocation begins to look more justifiable.

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Index

Page numbers followed by ‘n’ refer to note numbers. Abraham 108n8 absurdity 30, 45; see also Kierkegaard, Søren: and the absurd; Unamuno, Miguel de: and the absurd actuality/actualization 29, 70–1, 75, 83 afterlife, the: belief/faith in 19, 21, 77; collective 63n2, 63n4; desire/hope for 31n9, 56; digital/virtual/ technological 48, 78, 87, 89; existence/possibility of 7n12, 16, 18, 83n13; necessity of 20–1; and punishment 20, 98, 112–3; rejection of 39, 41–2, 46; religious 31n9, 41–2, 46, 72; see also eternal life; The Good Place; heaven; hell; immortality; Sartre, Jean-Paul: and No Exit agency 7, 9, 11 aging 1–2, 100, 117, 132 analytic philosophy 3, 25, 36, 62 Andreyev, Leonid 6, 7n11, 8, 12–3 Antigone 114 anti-natalism 13 anti-rationalism 18n4, 54n9, 108n9 anxiety 13, 32n10, 33n15, 52, 71, 74, 86, 96, 107n7, 110; see also Heidegger, Martin: and anxiety; Kierkegaard, Søren: and anxiety; Sartre, Jean-Paul: and anxiety Aristotle 46, 75n22, 89 art 6n10, 8, 9, 52, 77 artificial intelligence 1n1, 38, 79, 102n21 asceticism, 18, 19, 23, 39 Babich, Babette 49n18 Bainbrigge, Susan 117n1 Bamford, Rebecca 38n3

Beauvoir, Simone de: and aging 116–7, 128; and All Men Are Mortal 116, 118–23, 126n15, 127–9; and boredom 119–20, 123–6, 129; and Camus 116–7, 128; and The Coming of Age 117, 128–9; and death 116–9, 127–30; and ennui 124, 127; and The Ethics of Ambiguity 118; and feminism 117, 122; and finitude 129; and forgetfulness 125–6; and friendship 120, 122–3; and immortality curmudgeons 14, 116, 122, 125, 129–30; and indifference 119n3, 120, 123, 126, 129; and Kierkegaard 116; and life extension 123, 128–9; and limitations 117, 121, 123n8, 126, 129; and love 121–2, 125–6, 129–30; and meaning 116–7, 118n2, 120–1, 123, 125, 127–9; and mortality 116–8, 121, 123n8, 124, 127–30, 133; and The Prime of Life 118n2; and projects 117, 119, 121, 123–4, 126n15, 130; and repetition 119–20, 122, 126, 129; and risk 118–21, 124–5; and Sartre 128–9; and Scheffler 118–9; and The Second Sex 117, 127–8; and suffering 117, 125, 128; and Unamuno 128; and urgency 123, 125; and value 116, 118–23, 125, 127–8; and A Very Easy Death 128; and violence 117; and Williams 119, 121n5, 127, 129; and Wisnewski 124–5 belief see faith Belshaw, Christopher 100n14, 102n18, 122n7

Index  169 Bergström, Lars 57n16 Berthold, Daniel 104n1, 108n10 birth 62, 65, 68; -day 74n17, 91 Blackford, Russell 38n3, 39n4, 49 Black Mirror 80n6 Bodington, James 30, 32, 100n14 boredom: fatal 27n3, 124–5; see also Beauvoir, Simone de: and boredom; Heidegger, Martin: and boredom; immortality: and boredom; Nietzsche, Friedrich: and boredom; Sartre, Jean-Paul: and boredom; Williams, Bernard: and boredom Bortolotti, Lisa 66, 75n22 Bozzaro, Claudia 110, 114n15 Bradley, Ben 10–11, 13n25, 52n2, 93n2 bucket list 74 Buddhism 23, 39, 42, 103n22 Burley, Mikel 5, 7n14, 63n16, 124n9 Camus, Albert: and absolutes 105–10; and Beauvoir 116–7, 128, 132; and death 104, 106n4, 107, 109, 111–2, 114n15, 115; and existentialism 107–8; and The Fall 107; and Heidegger 107n7, 110; and hope 105, 108–10, 113; and immortality curmudgeons 104, 112, 114; and Kierkegaard 107–8, 110; and life extension 111–2, 115; and limitations 110, 112; and The Myth of Sisyphus 104, 106–7, 114n15; and Nagel 113n14; and Nietzsche 104–5, 107–8, 110–1; and nostalgia 106–8, 112; and Oedipus 114; and The Plague 114n15; and projects 114–5; and The Rebel 107; and repetition 112; and revolt 104, 112n13, 113–4; and Sartre 104, 107–10, 116–7, 132; and selfcultivation 104–5, 110, 113–5; and Shelley 9n16; and Smuts 112; and suffering 106n4, 112–5; and suicide 104, 106, 110–1, 113; and Unamuno 104, 111–2, 114, 128, 132; and value 104–5, 107, 110–1, 113–4; and violence 107; and Williams 112, 114 Candelaria, Michael 56n15, 57n17 Carlsson, Ulrika 30n7 Chappell, Sophie-Grace 1n1, 10, 11, 27, 31, 73n16 Charlie Daniels Band 124n9 children see family Christensen, Peter G. 122

Christianity 18, 23, 26n2, 31, 32n12, 39, 41–2, 46, 48–9, 54n10, 55n12, 56; see also faith; Kierkegaard, Søren: and Christianity; Nietzsche, Friedrich: Christianity; Plato: and Christianity; Unamuno, Miguel de: and Christianity comfort 9, 19, 46, 51, 53, 57, 60, 79, 83, 86–9, 108, 128n19, 131–2; see also consolation prize Confucianism 81n11 consciousness 16–7, 22, 52, 54, 56, 60 consolation prize 9, 53, 87, 128n19; see also comfort continental philosophy 3, 24, 36, 62; see also existentialism courage 35, 66, 119 creativity 42–4, 49, 56–7, 83, 110–1, 113, 133 cryonic preservation 1, 38, 53, 77; see also self: -preservation Culpepper, Hugo 52n1 Cutas, Daniela E. 3n2 dead, the 7, 16, 77, 79n4, 94n3, 99, 128; relationship to/with 83n13, 86, 89, 91; as resources 84–6; see also death; Heidegger, Martin: and the dead; Kierkegaard, Søren: and the dead; love: for the dead; memories: of the dead; preservation (of the dead); remains (of the dead); Sartre, Jean-Paul: and the dead death: acceptance of 128; affirmation of 42n8, 44; as annihilation 56, 111; as awakening 56n14; as blessing 16; defying 77; as dreamless sleep 16; embracing of 64; as end 65; fear of 6n10, 22, 74; as harm 7; as human condition 73; as injustice 51, 56, 86n17, 112, 128, 132; as limit-situation 6, 64, 129; as loss 7, 83; of loved ones 119, 125; and meaning 5, 7–9, 11–3, 17, 34–5, 40, 62–3, 75–6, 93n1, 96n5, 102, 104, 111, 115, 128–9; necessity of 2, 5, 18, 103; as nonexistence 7n13, 81; as nothingness 6–9, 16; one’s own 42; of others 12, 68n9, 80; philosophers of 1, 3, 9n15, 74, 107; premature 66, 111; as relief 35; resignation to 57; -rituals 52, 80, 89; see also Beauvoir, Simone de: and death; Camus, Albert: and

170 Index death; dead, the; Heidegger, Martin: and death; Kierkegaard, Søren: and death; mortality; Nietzsche, Friedrich: and death; projects: and death/mortality; risk(s): and death/mortality; Sartre, Jean-Paul: and death; Unamuno, Miguel de: and death; suicide Deleuze, Gilles 19 despair 7, 30, 34, 36n18, 51, 60, 108n10, 114, 121–2, 127; see also Kierkegaard, Søren: and despair; Unamuno, Miguel de: and despair Deutscher, Penelope 117 disease(s) 1, 2, 17, 132; see also health distraction 7, 13, 86, 88, 131 Don Quixote 54 Dostoevsky, Fyodor 13n24 Dreyfus, Hubert 69n11, 71 Duckles, Ian 31 elite 38, 55, 107, 132n2 enhancement: technological 1, 38, 49; see also technology; transhumanism Enlightenment, the 39, 105–6 enlightenment 4, 23n11 ennui see boredom Epicureanism 7n13, 68–9, 75n21, 81, 89, 117, 131n1 eternal life 31n8, 43, 45, 62, 100, 119; see also immortality; Nietzsche, Friedrich: and eternal life eternity 31, 33–4, 36, 47, 54, 92, 96, 112–3, 125; see also Nietzsche, Friedrich: and eternal recurrence ethics 3n2, 20–1, 43n9, 55, 78, 80–1, 86, 100, 126n13; see also Kierkegaard, Søren: and the ethical evil 17, 55n12, 119 existentialism: associated thinkers 13–4, 23; religious 107–8; themes 3, 15–7, 21, 60, 117, 130, 133; see also Camus, Albert: and existentialism; continental philosophy Fairfield, Paul 66n6, 75n21 faith 18, 30, 54n10, 108n8, 108n10; and reason 18–9, 108; see also afterlife, the: belief/faith in; Christianity; immortality: belief/ faith in; Kierkegaard, Søren: and

faith; Unamuno, Miguel de: and faith family 9–10, 25n1, 52, 77–80, 82, 86, 88, 90–1, 121 fantasy 21, 47n13, 57, 122n7; genre/ stories 1, 100 fate 60, 109, 113–4 felix culpa 26n2 feminism 9; see also Beauvoir, Simone de: and feminism Ferrero, Luca 75n22, 97n7 Fischer, John Martin 1n1, 5, 27–30, 35n17, 36, 75, 122–3; see also pleasures, repeatable Fisher, Tony 75n21 forgetfulness see memory freedom: human 69, 71, 83, 85; and the other 93; see also Heidegger, Martin: and freedom; Kierkegaard, Søren: and freedom; Nietzsche, Friedrich: and freedom; Sartre, Jean-Paul: and freedom funeral 80 future, the 10–1, 26, 33, 72, 96, 99, 121–2, 123n8; developments 31, 38–9, 63–4, 77, 89, 91; eternal 47; expectations 110; and meaning/ value(s) 39, 73, 94; and opportunities/possibilities 68, 88, 97, 124; rewards 20; self 27, 44; uncertainty about 101; of the universe 2 Geraci, Robert M. 1 Gethsemane 114 God: existence of 18–9; necessity of 19–21; relationship to/with 19; see also faith; Nietzsche, Friedrich: and the death of God gods, the 112–3 The Good Place 101–3, 114 Gorman, A. G. 126n14 Greene, Preston 6, 13n22 Guignon, Charles 75n21 happiness 20–2, 41, 75n22, 112–3 harm, posthumous 89; see also death: as harm Hatab, Lawrence J. 47n15 health 35, 57, 66, 100; see also disease(s) heaven 19, 42, 47n13, 101; see also afterlife, the

Index  171 Hegelianism 32n12 Heidegger, Martin: and afterlife 72; and ahead-of-itself 68, 72; and anxiety 71, 74, 110; and authenticity 71n12; and Beingalongside 68, 72; and Beingalready-in 68, 72; and Being and Time 67–72; and Being-towardsthe-end 69; and boredom 74; and Camus 107n7, 110; and care 68; and Dasein 68–74; and the dead 85–6; and death 62, 67–70, 72, 74–6, 95; and demise 69–70, 74; and enframing 85; and Epicurus 68–9, 75n21; and everydayness 70–1; and formal indication 70; and the fourfold 72n15; and freedom 71, 85, 110; and immortality curmudgeons 62, 67, 72–3, 74n18, 76, 95; and immortality enthusiasts 67, 76; and indefiniteness 67–8; and Kant 15; and Kierkegaard 15, 60, 62, 72, 75, 86, 110, 132; and limitations 67, 72, 74, 95; and May 74n18; and meaning 62, 67, 71–3, 75, 86, 95; and mortality 72–5, 95; and narrative 75; and Nietzsche 60, 62, 67, 72, 110, 132; and Nussbaum 74n18; and poiēsis 84–5; and possibility 68–73; and projects 59n19, 70–5; and The Question Concerning Technology 84–6; and responsibility 71–2, 74, 110; and revealing 84–5; and risk 36n19, 74; and Sartre 69, 92, 95–6, 110; and Scheffler 62, 72–6; and self-cultivation 75, 110; and Smuts 74–5; and stages 74–5; and standing-reserve 85; and technology 84–5; and temporality 68; and the “they” 71n13; and thrownness 71, 73–4, 96; and Unamuno 60, 62, 72, 75, 86n17, 132; and urgency 74; and wholeness 75n21; and Williams 59n19, 72n15 hell 41–2, 52, 58, 97–100, 114 Hinduism 23, 42 Hoffman, Piotr 69 Holmen, Heine 58n18, 100n14, 122n7 honesty (with oneself) 89, 108–9 ideal(s) 32, 66, 93

identity (personal) 2, 4–5, 10, 25–8, 40, 48, 53n6, 59, 71, 119n3, 121n5, 125; see also Nietzsche, Friedrich: and identity; projects: and identity; Unamuno, Miguel de: and identity; Williams, Bernard: and identity imagination 33, 75 immortality: belief/faith in 18–21, 41, 52, 55, 57n17; and boredom 4–5, 27–30, 32–4, 36, 40, 42, 62–3, 74, 99, 103, 112, 119–20, 123–6, 129, 133; collective 63n2, 64n5; curmudgeons 5–6, 11–4, 21, 24–5, 28, 30, 32, 34, 35n17, 36, 40–1, 43, 51–2, 58–64, 67, 72–3, 74n18, 75n22, 76, 92, 95, 97, 101–4, 112, 114, 116, 118n2, 125, 129–31, 133; doubt about 21, 52, 54–7, 60, 116; elixir of 2, 12n19, 100, 118, 127n18; enthusiasts 5–6, 10–1, 24, 36, 46, 52, 63, 67, 76, 97, 102, 116; and escape 100, 102; godlike/indestructible 2, 11n17, 39n4, 40, 67, 74n17, 92, 97, 99–100, 102n21, 119, 123; and individual constitution 64, 102–3, 130; and individuality/subjectivity 22, 33, 43; and meaning 33–5, 40–1, 43, 48, 52, 55, 62, 64–7, 72–3, 75, 95, 99, 103, 114–5, 117, 119, 123, 127–9, 131; perils/dangers of 2–4, 13n22, 25, 62, 65, 72, 122, 126; personal 3n3, 21, 31, 41–2, 43n10, 46, 63n2, 63n4, 64n5, 91, 95, 104, 122; possibility of 15, 20–1, 24, 33, 40, 60, 72, 97, 112, 127–9; and risk 5, 11, 13n22, 40, 62, 73–6, 118–21, 125, 133; of the soul 15, 17, 52–4; and stages 5–6, 62, 64n5, 73–6, 93; supernatural 42, 48–9; and technology 1–2, 27n3, 30–1, 37, 48, 53, 63, 72, 77, 100; and urgency 5, 11, 13n22, 40, 62, 73–4, 76, 97, 123, 125, 133; and value 2–6, 11n17, 24, 28, 33, 40, 43–4, 48–9, 52n4, 59, 95, 104, 113–4, 116, 119–23, 125; virtual 48; see also afterlife, the; eternal life; invulnerability; life extension Indian philosophy 22–3, 53n6, 131 indifference 4, 7, 119n3, 120–1, 123–4, 126, 129

172 Index individuality 22, 31, 33, 43; see also immortality: and individuality/ subjectivity; subjectivity Interactive Personality Constructs (IPCs) 79–81, 84, 86–9, 91 interest(s) 9, 27, 93, 118, 123; inexhaustible/repeatable 28, 122; rekindled 115, 133; shifting 27, 64n5, 73, 119n3; subjugation of 20 invulnerability 2 irrationalism 10, 54, 106; see also anti-rationalism; faith: and reason Jackson, Kathryn 96 Jaspers, Karl 108 Jesus Christ 31, 41 Kagan, Shelly 102n20 Kant, Immanuel: on God and immortality of the soul 15, 20–1; and Kierkegaard 15, 20n6, 21, 32n11; and Nietzsche 21, 42; and Pascal 19–21; and Schopenhauer 22; and Unamuno 23, 56 Kasket, Elaine 81, 88 Kierkegaard, Søren: and “A” 28–30; and Abraham 108n8; and absolutes 107–8; and the absurd 30, 107–8; and the aesthetic 30–1; and afterlife 16, 31n9, 83n13; and Anti-Climacus 36n18, 108n10; and anti-rationalism 18n4, 54n9, 108n9; and anxiety 32n10, 110; and Beauvoir 116; and Camus 107–8, 110; and categorical desires 31–2, 59; and Chappell 31, 53; and Christianity 18–9, 31, 82, 107; and Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments 32–5; and the dead 82–4, 86, 88; and death 14, 32n10, 34, 55, 83, 108n9, 116; and despair 30, 34, 36n18, 108n10; and Either/Or 28–30, 47; and the ethical 30–2, 33n15; and faith 18–9, 30, 54n10, 108; and Fear and Trembling 108n8; and finitude 31, 35–6; and Fischer 28–30, 36, 53; and freedom 83, 110; and “At a Graveside” 31, 55; and Heidegger 15, 60, 62, 72, 75, 86, 110, 132; and immortality curmudgeons 24–5, 28, 30, 32, 34, 36; and immortality enthusiasts 24, 36; and Johannes Climacus 31n8,

32–5, 55; and Johannes de silentio 108n8; and Judge William 30–1; and Kant 15, 20n6, 21, 32n11; and Kolodny 35–6; and the leap 107–8; and life extension 14, 24, 49, 53; and limitations 31; and love 82; and meaning 24, 33–4, 36, 55, 83, 86, 89, 107–8; and Nietzsche 14–6, 18–9, 21–3, 34, 47, 49, 51, 56, 60, 62, 72, 108, 110, 132; and Nussbaum 34–5; and Pascal 15, 18–9, 20n6, 21, 23, 25, 54n10, 108; and pseudonymity 16, 17n2, 25, 28–31, 36, 47, 108n8; and recollection 82–4, 86, 88; and religion 21, 24–5, 30–2, 36n18, 53, 54n9, 107–8; and responsibility 32, 36, 59, 83, 110; and Sartre 83, 89, 99, 108, 110; and Scheffler 35–6; and Schopenhauer 15, 21–2; and Socrates 15–8, 23, 33; and self-cultivation 32–3, 35–6, 59–60, 99, 110; and self-reflection 31; and stages/spheres of life 30–1; and subjectivity 32–3; and suicide 36n18, 108; and technology 30–1, 53, 72, 83–4, 86; and Thomson 30, 32, 36; and Unamuno 17n3, 51, 53, 54n9, 54n10, 55–6, 59–60, 62, 72, 75, 86n17, 132; and Williams 25, 28, 30–3, 36, 59; and Wisnewski 31; and Works of Love 82, 83n13; and Wrathall 32–6 Kolodny, Niko 6, 35, 66, 74n17 Lazarus 6–9, 12, 52, 127 leap 107–9 legacy 9, 52, 78, 87 life see afterlife, the; eternal life; immortality; mortal life life extension 2, 14, 24, 37, 41–2, 48–50, 53, 63–4, 91–2, 95, 112, 128–9, 131–2; see also Beauvoir, Simone de: and life extension; Camus, Albert: and life extension; immortality; Kierkegaard, Søren: and life extension; Nietzsche, Friedrich: and life extension; Sartre, Jean-Paul: and life extension; transhumanism; Unamuno, Miguel de: and life extension limitations 6, 48, 56, 63–4, 121, 126–7; biological/physical 38, 42;

Index  173 see also death: as limit-situation; memory: limited; mortal life: and finitude/limitedness; opportunity/ -ies: and finitude/limitations; temporality: and finitude/ limitations Loeb, Paul S. 38n3, 45–7, 57 love 121–2, 125; confession 6; for the dead 82; and suffering 35n17, 119, 125–6; of wisdom 16–7; see also Beauvoir, Simone de: and love; Kierkegaard, Søren: and love loss 78, 80–1, 83; see also dead, the; death: as loss; death: of loved ones; death: of others; mourning; survivors Luper, Steven 3n3, 4n4, 4n5 MacIntyre, Alasdair 30n7 Malpas, Jeff 66n6, 72n15, 75n21 Manley, Martin 86–9, 118 Marks, Elaine 117n1 Marks, Tamara Monet 31n9 May, Todd 1n1, 5, 34, 66, 74n18, 93n1, 101–3 McDonald, William 30n7 meaning see Beauvoir, Simone de: and meaning; death: and meaning; future, the: and meaning/value(s); Heidegger, Martin: and meaning; immortality: and meaning; Kierkegaard, Søren: and meaning; memory: and meaning; mortal life: and meaning; Nietzsche, Friedrich: and meaning; projects: and meaning; religion: and meaning; risk(s): and meaning/value; Sartre, Jean-Paul: and meaning; Unamuno, Miguel de: and meaning memory: adjustment of 126n13, 126n14; fading of 126n15; limited 125–7; and meaning 8, 12 memories 7–8, 78, 80, 91, 126n14; of the dead 78–9, 87, 94 Metz, Thaddeus 12n18, 52 mind-uploading 2, 38, 44n11, 48–9, 53n8, 77 Mitchell-Yellin, Benjamin 122–3, 125 mokṣa 23n11 monism 53 Moore, A. W. 35n16, 40–1, 43, 44n11, 46–8, 67, 72n15 mourning 81, 83; see also loss morality see ethics

More, Max 38n3 mortal life: appreciation of 51, 53; devaluation of 17, 21, 41, 48, 51, 59; and finitude/limitedness 11, 56; and meaning 11–2, 43, 103, 127; see also Beauvoir, Simone de: and mortality; death; Heidegger, Martin: and mortality; Nietzsche, Friedrich: and mortality; Sartre, Jean-Paul: and mortality; Unamuno, Miguel de: and mortality music 124 Nagel, Thomas 7n13, 113n14 narrativity 40, 65, 66n6, 75n21, 75n22, 95 New Testament 7n11 Nietzsche, Friedrich: and afterlife 16, 18–9, 39, 41–2, 46, 48; and asceticism 19, 23, 39; and Beyond Good and Evil 43; and boredom 40, 42; and Buddhism 39, 42; and Camus 104–5, 107–8, 110–1; and Christianity 39, 41–2, 43, 48, 56; and creativity 42–3, 56, 110, 111; and Daybreak 42–3; and death 42, 44, 58; and the death of God 104–5; and eternal life 43, 45; and eternal recurrence 34, 37, 39, 49, 57–8; and finitude 48; and freedom 110; and The Gay Science 45, 47; and Heidegger 60, 62, 67, 72, 110, 132; and hell 41–2; and Hinduism 42; and hope 48–9; and identity 40; and immortality curmudgeons 14, 40–1, 43; and immortality enthusiasts 46; and Kant 21, 42; and Kierkegaard 14–6, 18–9, 21–3, 34, 47, 49, 51, 56, 60, 62, 72, 108, 110, 132; and Loeb 38n3, 45–7, 57; and life extension 37, 39–42, 48–50; and limitations 38–9, 42, 48, 56; and the madman 104–6, 110; and meaning 40–1, 43, 47–8, 104–5; and metaphysics 41, 45–7, 57; and mind-uploading 48–9; and Moore 40–1, 43, 46–8, 67; and mortality 42, 46, 57–8; and Pascal 18–9, 21–3, 42, 56; and Paul 41–2, 47; and pessimism 17, 23, 39, 41; and Plato 16, 41–2, 47, 56; and religion 21, 39, 49; and risk 40; and Sartre 104, 107–8, 110; and

174 Index Schopenhauer 13n23, 22–3, 42–3; and self-cultivation 110–1; and Socrates 16–8, 42, 56; and Sorgner 38–9, 41, 49–50; and Thus Spoke Zarathustra 42, 45–7; and suffering 39, 42, 48; and suicide 42n8, 111n12; and technology 37–8, 48; and Twilight of the Idols 44n11; and the Übermensch 37–8, 44; and Unamuno 23, 51, 59–60, 62, 72, 111, 132; and urgency 40; and value 15, 23, 37–44, 48–9; and Williams 40, 43–4, 59; and The Will to Power 46 nihilism 40 nirvana 22, 23n11 nonexistence 52n4, 99; see also death: as nonexistence nonexistent, the 7n13, 81–2; see also dead, the Noonan, Jeff 48n16 norms see values Nussbaum, Martha 5, 34–5, 66, 74n18 O’Donohoe, B. P. 96n5 Oedipus 114, 124 opportunity/-ies: in extended life 28, 111, 114; and finitude/limitations 66, 96–7 optimism: about afterlife 16; about mortal life 13, 112; about immortality 13, 76, 99, 103, 127; techno- 1–2, 38n2, 72, 84n14; see also immortality: enthusiasts Overall, Christine 3n2 Oya, Alberto 60n22 pan(en)theism 53 Pascal, Blaise: and Kant 19–21; and Kierkegaard 15, 18–9, 20n6, 21, 23, 25, 54n10, 108; and Nietzsche 18–9, 21–3, 42, 56; and Schopenhauer 22–3; and Unamuno 18n5, 54n10, 56 passion 35, 51, 56, 58, 83, 111, 120 Pasternack, Lawrence 21 Paul, Apostle 31, 41, 47 personality 33–4, 79, 80, 89, 123, 126; see also individuality; uniqueness pessimism: about mortal life 13, 17, 21–3, 33, 39, 41, 116; about immortality 13, 25, 43, 59, 63, 93,

116; see also immortality: curmudgeons phenomenology 67–8, 83 physics 75n19, 122n7 Piety, Marilyn Gaye 30n7 Pitcher, George 75n22 Plato: and Apology 15–6, 33; and Christianity 41; and dualism 47; and Nietzsche 16, 41–2, 47, 56; and Phaedo 17, 18n5, 51, 53, 56; and Socrates 15–6, 17n2, 17n3 pleasures, repeatable 5, 75, 122, 133 politics: engagement with 9, 10, 120–1, 123–4; and ideology 107; and violence 107, 117 Possen, David D. 32n12 preservation (of the dead) 60n21, 71n14, 78, 80–1, 87; technological 71n14, 78–9, 81, 84, 86; see also cryonic preservation; IPCs; self: -preservation projects: and death/mortality 11, 65, 69–70, 73, 89, 94–6, 117; and identity 25, 27n3; and immortality 6, 10, 27, 35, 55, 73–5, 96, 114, 119, 123–4, 130; inexhaustible/ perpetual 31–2, 35, 55, 57, 59, 75, 124, 126n15; and meaning 4, 27, 55, 59, 64, 94, 119; overlapping 10, 27, 94; and suicide 100; see also Beauvoir, Simone de: and projects; Camus, Albert: and projects; Heidegger, Martin: and projects; Sartre, Jean-Paul: and projects; Unamuno, Miguel de: and projects rationality 54, 106, 108; see also anti-rationalism; irrationalism; faith: and reason redemption 26n2 regret 96 relationship(s): to the immortal 127; with life/the world 51, 108, 117; personal 70–1, 91, 115, 119, 123–4; romantic 121, 125–7; see also dead, the: relationship to/with; God: relationship to/with religion: criticism of 38–9, 41, 46, 107; conversion 74n16; justification for 21; and meaning 110; and mortal life 17, 23, 39, 52–3, 131; and science 53; see also afterlife, the: religious; Christianity;

Index  175 faith; Kierkegaard, Søren: and religion; Nietzsche, Friedrich: and religion; Unamuno, Miguel de: and religion remains (of the dead) 94; digital 93; non-physical 88; physical 79, 88 resignation 55, 57, 60, 109 resilience 124 resources: public 3n2, 132; technological 79–80, 87 responsibility/-ies 7, 74; for one’s life 71, 110, 113; see also Heidegger, Martin: and responsibility; Kierkegaard, Søren: and responsibility resurrection 6–7, 12, 80n5, 100 risk(s) 11, 40, 96–7; and death/ mortality 5–6, 11n17, 13n22, 35n17, 36, 62, 118–21, 124–5; and immortality 5–6, 66, 73–4, 125, 133; and meaning/value 34–6, 63, 65–6, 73–4 Rosati, Connie S. 59n19, 65, 66n6, 75n22 Rosenbaum, Stephen E. 81n10 sacrifice 35, 111, 119 safety 35, 66 salvation 23, 39, 98 Sartre, Jean-Paul: and absence 83; and afterlife 94n3, 97–9; and anxiety 96, 110; and Beauvoir 128–9; and Being and Nothingness 83, 92–8, 100, 118; and boredom 99; and Camus 104, 107–10, 116–7, 132; and Chappell 94; and choice 95–7; and the dead 9, 83, 88, 94n3, 99; and death 69, 89, 96–7, 100; and Epicurus 69, 117; and finitude 92, 117, 129; and freedom 69, 93, 110; and The Good Place 101; and Heidegger 69, 92, 95–6, 110; and immortality curmudgeons 92, 95, 97; and immortality enthusiasts 97; and Kierkegaard 83, 89, 99, 108, 110; and life extension 92, 95; and limitations 69, 92, 95–7, 117–8, 129; and the look 92–3, 99; and May 92, 101; and meaning 9, 75n22, 89, 96–7, 99–101, 103, 109, 117, 129; and mortality 92–3, 95; and narrative 95; and nausea 107n6; and Nietzsche 104, 107–8, 110; and No Exit 92, 94n3, 94n4,

97–9, 100n13, 101, 104n2; and Notebooks for an Ethics 97n9; and the Other 9, 89, 92–5, 98–9, 101; and possibility 69, 95–6; and projects 69, 89, 93–6, 100, 117; and risk 96–7, 118; and selfcultivation 95–7, 99, 110; and Smuts 92, 97; and subjectivity 69, 93–4, 117; and suffering 98, 101, 117; and suicide 94, 109; and temporality 92, 96–7; and Unamuno 99, 104; and uncertainty 94–5, 101; and urgency 96–7; and value 94–5; and violence 107, 117 Schalow, Frank 70 Scheffler, Samuel 5, 11, 24, 35–6, 61–7, 72–6, 92, 102n17, 118–9 Schopenhauer, Arthur: and Indian philosophy 22, 53n6; and Kant 22; and Kierkegaard 15, 21–2; and Nietzsche 13n23, 22–3, 42–3; and Pascal 22–3; and pessimism 13, 15, 21–3, 43; and Unamuno 53n6; and Williams 43; and “will-to-live” 22 Schumacher, Bernard N. 93, 97n9 Schur, Michael 101, 103 science 38, 46, 67–8, 124; and immortality/life-extension 1, 38, 53; see also enhancement; religion: and science; Scientific Revolution, the; technology; transhumanism science fiction 1, 37, 79, 100 Scientific Revolution, the 18, 124 security see safety self: -actualization 70, 75; attachment to 22–3; -cultivation 32–3, 35–6, 38, 56–7, 59–60, 75, 96–7, 99, 110, 113, 126n15, 133; -deception 12–3, 69, 89, 108; -evaluation/ -examination/-scrutiny 34, 99, 109; -preservation 22, 52; -reflection/ -understanding 13, 31, 34, 60, 70, 89, 98; see also future, the: self; subjectivity Senancour, Étienne Pivert de 54 Shelley, Percy 9, 88n19 Shestov, Lev 108 Shiffrin, Seana Valentine 64 Silverstein, Harry S. 7n13 sin(s) 26n2, 42, 98 Smuts, Aaron 5, 58n18, 63n3, 74–5, 92, 97, 112 Socrates: and death 16; and immortality of the soul 16, 23; and

176 Index Kierkegaard 15–8, 23, 33; and Nietzsche 16–8, 42, 56; and Plato 15–6, 17n2, 17n3; two versions of 16–7; and Unamuno 17n3, 18n5, 51, 53, 56 Sorgner, Stefan Lorenz 38–9, 41, 47n15, 49–50 soul 55; immortality of 15–7, 52–4, 77; -mates 101 space 35, 99, 123–4 stages 5–6, 30–1, 62, 64n5, 73–6, 93; see also Heidegger, Martin: and stages; immortality: and stages, Kierkegaard, Søren: and stages/ spheres of life Stoicism 118 Stokes, Patrick 79n4, 83, 84n14, 88 structure (of life) 5–6, 34, 40, 73, 124, 133 subjectivity 69, 93–4; see also immortality: and individuality/ subjectivity; Kierkegaard, Søren: and subjectivity; Sartre, Jean-Paul: and subjectivity suffering: endurance of 59; eternal 102, 113; human 39, 42, 48, 98–101; of others 13; physical 98, 117, 132; see also Beauvoir, Simone de: and suffering; Camus, Albert: and suffering; love: and suffering; Nietzsche, Friedrich: and suffering; Sartre, Jean-Paul: and suffering; Unamuno, Miguel de: and suffering survival 26, 52, 69, 77 survivor(s) 78, 83, 86, 89, 94; see also loss suicide 36n18, 52n4, 80n7, 87, 94, 120; cult 88; physician-assisted 42n8; see also Camus, Albert: and suicide; Kierkegaard, Søren: and suicide; Nietzsche, Friedrich: and suicide; Sartre, Jean-Paul: and suicide; Unamuno, Miguel de: and suicide Taoism 103n22 technology 1–2, 31, 37–8, 77, 79–81, 84–5, 87, 90–1, 100; see also afterlife, the: digital/virtual/ technological; artificial intelligence; enhancement; Heidegger, Martin: and technology; immortality: and technology; Kierkegaard, Søren:

and technology; Nietzsche, Friedrich: and technology; mind-uploading; optimism: techno-; Unamuno, Miguel de: and technology; virtual reality temporality: and finitude/limitations 5, 10–1, 27, 31, 62–6, 92, 95–6, 117; irreversibility of 95; and pressures 6, 123–4; see also urgency Thomas, Dylan 54, 128 Thompson, Jon W. 27n4, 66 Thomson, Iain 30, 32, 85n16, 100n14 Tolstoy, Leo 13n24 torture 29, 53, 92, 97–9, 113 transhumanism: and afterlife 48–9; and dissatisfaction with life 39; goals 37–8; and values 39; see also enhancement; technology; Unamuno, Miguel de: and transhumanism Unamuno, Miguel de: and the absurd 54; and afterlife 53, 56, 87; and annihilation/extinction 52–4, 56, 58–9, 100, 111–2, 114; and anti-rationalism 54n9; and Beauvoir 128; and Becker 53n5; and Camus 104, 111–2, 114, 128, 132; and categorical desires 59; and Christianity 54n10, 55–6; and death 51–2, 57–8, 111–2, 128, 132; and despair 51, 60; and faith 52, 54; and Heidegger 60, 62, 72, 75, 86n17, 132; and hell 52, 58, 99, 114; and hope 52–7, 60, 99; and identity 53n6, 59; and immortality curmudgeons 51–2, 58–60, 112; and indispensability 55, 59; and injustice 51, 56, 86n17, 112, 128, 132; and Kant 23, 56; and Kierkegaard 17n3, 51, 53, 54n9, 54n10, 55–6, 59–60, 62, 72, 75, 86n17, 132; and life extension 53, 104, 111, 128, 132; and limitations 54, 56; and meaning 51–2, 54–5, 56n15, 58–9, 60n22, 99, 111; and mortality 51, 52n1, 53–4, 56, 58–9; and Nietzsche 23, 51, 59–60, 62, 72, 111, 132; and Pascal 18n5, 54n10, 56; and projects 55, 57, 59, 75; and religion 52–3, 54n9, 55, 104, 111; and shadows of immortality 51,

Index  177 53, 55, 57–8, 60, 87; and Sartre 99, 104; and Schopenhauer 53n6; and self-cultivation/development 55–7, 59–60, 75; and Socrates 17n3, 18n5, 51, 53, 56; and soul 52–5; and suffering 52n4, 59, 99, 112, 114, 128; and suicide 52n4; and technology 53; and Tragic Sense of Life 51–7; and transhumanism 53, 72; and uncertainty 51, 54, 60; and value 52n4, 59; and Williams 58–9, 112, 114 uniqueness 54–5, 56n13, 74, 80n7, 83, 86, 88, 95–7, 118, 123; see also individuality; personality universe(s) 2, 7, 20, 22, 38n2, 45–6, 53–5, 75n19, 104–5, 110, 112–3, 121 Upaniṣads 53n6 urgency 5, 11, 40, 62, 65–7, 73–4, 76, 96–7, 123, 125, 132–3; see also temporality value(s) 10, 80, 91, 104, 118–21, 125; see also Beauvoir, Simone de: and value; Camus, Albert: and value; immortality: and value; Nietzsche, Friedrich: and value; Sartre,

Jean-Paul: and value; transhumanism: and values; Unamuno, Miguel de: and value virtual reality 90 weariness (with life) 17, 43, 106n4 Webber, Jonathan 98–9 Williams, Bernard: and Beauvoir 119, 121n5, 127, 129; and boredom 4–5, 25–7, 40, 119; and Camus 112, 114; and categorical desires 25–7, 31–2, 59, 129; criticism of 27–8, 30–4, 59n19, 62; and Heidegger 59n19, 72n15; and identity 4–5, 25–7, 40, 44, 73, 119n3; and immortality curmudgeons 24, 61, 63, 112; and Kierkegaard 25, 28, 30–3, 36, 59; and The Makropulos Case 5, 10, 64, 103, 127; and Nietzsche 40, 43–4, 59; and Schopenhauer 43; and Unamuno 58–9, 112, 114 Wisnewski, J. Jeremy 27n3, 31, 81, 124–5 Woodward, Ashley 111n11 World War II 88, 118 Wrathall, Mark 32–5, 119n3