PHIL41390 Immortality

Academic Year 2016/2017

Filmmaker Woody Allen famously claimed that he didn’t want to achieve immortality through his works; he wanted to achieve immortality through not dying. He’s certainly not alone in his desire for immortality. The fact that we will eventually die is often thought to be one of the most regrettable facts about the human condition. But whilst the prospect of death often fills us with fear and anxiety, would the alternative option -- of living forever, of being immortal -- really be such a good thing? After all, many fictions portray immortals as being rather unfortunate creatures who wish for nothing more than being being mortal (think of Connor MacLeod from "Highlander"). The question that we are going to focus on in this seminar is this: Can an immortal life ever be good for the person who desires to be immortal? We will read a variety of articles from the contemporary philosophical literature aimed at addressing this question, starting with a seminal paper by Bernard Williams ("The Makropulos Case") in which it is argued that all forms of immortality are undesirable.