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This collection of papers aims to increase our understanding of a) what meaning in life is: how it is to be understood, what its constituents are, and how it can be properly distinguished from other features that are commonly thought to be required for a good life, such as happiness, b) in what way, if any, mortality can be said to be detrimental to a life's meaningfulness and what follows from this for the desirability of radical life extension and other (limit-removing) alterations of the present human condition, and c) in what way, if any, death and mortality can be said to be requisites or at least constituents of a meaningful life.
List of contents
Notes on Contributors; Introduction: Death and Meaning Michael Hauskeller; 1. Meaning and Anti-Meaning in Life and What Happens After We Die Sven Nyholm; 2. Importance, Fame, and Transcending Limits Guy Kahane; 3. Dying for a Cause Antti Kauppinen; 4. Promises to the Dead James Stacey Taylor; 5. Comparting the Meaningfulness of Finite and Infinite Lives: Can We Reap What We Sow if We Are Immortal? Thaddeus Metz; 6. God, the Meaning of Life, and Meaning in Lives Daniel Hill; 7. When Death Comes Too Late. Radical Life Extension and the Makropulos Case Michael Hauskeller; 8. Desirability without Desire. Life Extension, Boredom and Spiritual Experience Drew Chastain; 9. Meaning, Value, and the Imperfect Life Havi Carel; 10. The Meaning of Pain and the Pain of Meaning Teodora Manea; 11. Grieving Our Way Back to Meaningfulness Michael Cholbi; 12. Can We Measure the Badness of Death for the Person Who Dies? Thomas Schramme; 13. Meaning in Lives Nearing Their End F.M. Kamm; 14. Why Do People Want to Die? The Meaning of Life from the Perspective of Euthanasia Fredrik Svenaeus.
Summary
This collection of papers aims to increase our understanding of what meaning in life is, in what way, if any, mortality can be said to be detrimental to a life's meaningfulness, and in what way death and mortality can be said to be requisites or at least constituents of a meaningful life.
