Williams wants to argue that immortality--or a life without death--would be meaningless, or that death gives meaning to life. Let us call this position the Makropolus Position:


Williams begins by presenting two arguments in favor of an opposing position, one which we have called in class the Epicurean View:

(Notice that the Epicurean view technically says that death is evaluatively neutral--i.e., it is neither an evil nor a good. In this article, however, and in a majority of the others we will be looking at, we are primarily concerned with whether death is an evil. So we have left discussion of whether death is a good alone for now. However, do notice that the following discussion could be run concerning death as good, as opposed to evil. You might see for yourself whether you think parallel moves can be made if someone were to try to argue that death was a good thing, and consider why someone might think this.)

Williams' strategy is to show how the two arguments for the Epicurean View fail, and how this fact, together with some additional considerations, buttress support for the Makropolus Position. The two arguments in support of the Epicurean view are as follows:


In Argument 1, premise (1) follows from a general Epicurean Priniple:

We talked about the Epicurean Principle in relation to Nagel's article, "Death." Recall that Nagel argued against this principle because he thought that there were plenty of counterexamples: lies, betrayal, infidelity, etc., are all cases where it seems that something is bad for a person, even if that person never finds out. So given what Nagel says in his article, we can assume that he would reject premise (1) of Argument 1.

But what about Argument 2? Premise (1) seems pretty intuitive: usually, if something is evil, then more of it will make a difference--i.e., we would prefer less of it than more.  One murder is bad; more murders is even worse. Getting an F in class is bad; getting more Fs is even worse, etc.  And premise (2) seems intuitive as well: if once you are dead, you are dead forever, then being dead one year more or less really won't make a difference in the amount of time you are dead--it is still for eternity either way.

Williams, however, thinks that there are several things wrong with Argument 2. First, he thinks that there is a dangerous tension between Argument 1 and Argument 2--he thinks that Argument 2 indirectly contradcts Argument (1). To show this, Wiliams claims that premise (2) of Argument 2 implies the following counterfactual (*):


And Williams thinks that (*) can only be true if there is something wrong with the condition of being dead. But this is exactly what is denied by Argument 1! There is nothing that it is like to be dead; death is an experiential blank!

However, Williams has a second, less contentious charge against the arguments for the Epicurean View. He charges that the Epicurean will admit that there are goods in life--praemia vitae. We have goals and desires and needs, and when these are accomplished, there is an uncontroversial positive value to our life. Being conscious of the rewards and delights of life is itself a reward and delight, and even the Epicurean will admit as much. But, if this is right (Williams argues) then being around longer--staving off death for as long as possible--living longer so that you can reap these goods in life is prefeable to having a life cut short. So, a longer life is, all else being equal, better than a shorter one. And so a later death is prefered to a sooner one. But this directly contradticts premise (2) of Argument 2, and so something must be wrong with Argument (2).

To further support the claim that a longer life is prefered to a shorter one, Williams presents the following principle:

Suppose the Principle of Desire is true. Well, no matter what the desire (so Williams argues), a situation in which I am alive rather than dead is one in which I might get what I desire. In other words, being dead is guarenteed to frustrate any desire I have, and so given the Principle of Desire, I will prefer situations in which I am alive over ones in which I am not. So wanting anything is a reason to avoid death. Knowing that death will frustrate any of your wants and desires is enough to make death an evil, from the point of view of a wanting agent. All wants are conditional on being alive.

However, Williams does not exactly endorse the above argument himself; he seems to think there is something appealing about it, but in the end thinks that one can have categorical, as opposed to a conditional desire. In the case of suicide, for example, it may just be that an individual has the categorical desire not to live, and this better not be conditional upon anything else. He also raises the possibility of an ascetic who has the brute, categorical desire to live. But none of this really matters, Williams thinks, since we may be able to cash out the difference in terms of possible worlds.

[to be continued...]

---