Bootstrapping the Afterlife

2017 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 201-216 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roman Altshuler
Keyword(s):  
Samuel Scheffler ◽  
Personal Survival

Samuel Scheffler defends “The Afterlife Conjecture”: the view that the continued existence of humanity after our deaths— “the afterlife”—lies in the background of our valuing; were we to lose confidence in it, many of the projects we engage in would lose their meaning. The Afterlife Conjecture, in his view, also brings out the limits of our egoism, showing that we care more about yet unborn strangers than about personal survival. But why does the afterlife itself matter to us? Examination of Scheffler’s second argument helps answer this question, thereby undermining his argument. Our concern for the afterlife involves bootstrapping: we care more about the afterlife than about personal survival precisely because the latter has such salient limits that our lives are structured by adaptation to mortality, and it is only because the afterlife does provide a measure of personal survival that it can give meaning to our projects.

Personal survival

2009 ◽  
pp. 141-162
Author(s):  
Sara Booth ◽  
Polly Edmonds ◽  
Margaret Kendall
Keyword(s):  
Personal Survival

Heidegger and the Supposed Meaninglessness of Personal Immortality

2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 384-399 ◽  
Author(s):  
ADAM BUBEN
Keyword(s):  
Martin Heidegger ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Related Literature ◽  
Analytic Tradition ◽  
Samuel Scheffler ◽  
The Relationship

ABSTRACT:For several decades now, a debate about the desirability of immortality has raged on in philosophy of death circles. While these circles and their debates are found primarily within the analytic tradition, Martin Heidegger, who famously introduces the notion of human life (or something like it) as essentially ‘Being-towards-death’, has much to contribute. At first glance, this idea seems to agree with the views of ‘immortality curmudgeons’ like Samuel Scheffler, and, in fact, on the rare occasions that Heidegger is mentioned in the related literature, his name is usually placed on a list of likely pessimists about immortality. Upon closer inspection, however, it turns out that Heidegger's understanding of the relationship between death and meaning allows for a rather uncurmudgeonly view of immortality. In this paper, I argue that the often-misunderstood Heidegger has important supportive insights to offer when it comes to the prospects of an unending life.

Professor Penelhum on the Resurrection of the Body

1973 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 181-187 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Young
Keyword(s):  
The Body ◽  
Recent Book ◽  
Substantial Agreement ◽  
Convincing Case ◽  
Personal Survival

In his recent book, Survival and Disembodied Existence Terence Penelhum presents a convincing case against the belief in disembodied personal survival. His formidable attack constitutes, I think, one of the strongest cases that has yet been made out against such a belief. I am in substantial agreement with his position.

PREROGATIVES, RESTRICTIONS, AND RIGHTS

2005 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 357-393 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric Mack
Keyword(s):  
Robert Nozick ◽  
Samuel Scheffler ◽  
Side Constraints ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Consequentialist Argumentation ◽  
The Way

I offer a defense of the moral side-constraints to which Robert Nozick appeals in Anarchy, State and Utopia but for which he fails to provide a sustained justification. I identify a line of anti-consequentialist argumentation which is present in Nozick and which, in the terminology of Samuel Scheffler, moves first to affirm a personal prerogative which allows the individual not to sacrifice herself for the sake of the best overall outcome and second moves on to affirm restrictions (i.e., moral side-constraints) which prohibit the individual from suppressing others' exercise of their personal prerogatives even if that suppression would serve the overall good. I argue that one ought to follow this line of anti-consequentialist argumentation all the way to the affirmation of restrictions by showing that the rationale for the adoption of the personal prerogative is not satisfied unless the accompanying restrictions are adopted as well.

Near-Death Experiences and the Problem of Evidence for Survival after Death

1986 ◽  
Vol 22 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 397-406 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chris Cherry
Keyword(s):  
Post Mortem ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Personal Survival ◽  
Near Death Experiences ◽  
Do So

Many people believe it absurd to seek evidence for - or against - personal survival of death. Some do so because they think, for a variety of reasons, that the idea of personal post-mortem survival makes no sense. Whether or not they are right they are at any rate consistent: nothing can be evidence for or against a nonsense. However, there are others who also believe that looking for evidence is absurd and yet do not similarly dismiss the idea as unintelligible. They allow that survival is possible and commonly hope it will ensue; but at the same time they insist that absolutely nothing helpful can be said on the subject.

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