2014/11/07
Comments to Death and the Afterlife, by Samuel Scheffler, Oxford University Press, 2013
Author starts with two assumptions from Scheffler and then goes on to discuss the conclusions from them. Author focuses on the first assumption, mainly that:
A. Humans fear death not only because it deprives them of future goods, but also because it "extinguishes" them, making them, individually, extinct.
The problem is that Scheffler also believes that if humans never died, they would be unable to live value-laden lives and therefore fear something (death) about which the alternative isn't valuable. Author elaborates that the fear of extinction (the second reason) can't be an egoistic reason, like the fear of deprivation of future goods is (pg160). Hence, the fear of extinction isn't egoistical, or, rather, there isn't an egoistic reason to avoid extinction (not death, but the element of death that is extinction of the person). Trouble arises if there is a further assumption (by author), that:
I. If something would be in some way bad for one, then one has egoistic reason to avoid it.
The trouble here is that it brings the egoistic fear back into fearing something (extinction) that is not egoistically troubling, something author calls "J" (pg161). The discussion continues through Lucretius, who claims that because the pre-birth conditions of a human aren't troubling for said human, its post-mortem conditions should also be un-troubling. If this is the case, based on the principle of not fearing Y (in the future) if a similar X (in the past) wasn't feared, then Scheffler has a weird conclusion that we should not fear bad futures that are relevantly similar to bad pasts (pg162-3).
The second part of the paper involves the claim from Scheffler that the human wish for immortality is conceptually incoherent because it would destroy their value-laden lives. Author replies that even conceptual incoherence doesn't mean we can't wish for it, or regret that we can't have it (pg164-5). Or, perhaps, humans can at least continually wish for life to last just a bit longer, not necessarily 'forever'. But what is the case to be made that eternal life would be value-less? Author examines Scheffler's three main reasons:
1. Life must involve stages to be valuable. Answer: there can be an infinite number of stages
2. That life must have the risk of loss, injury, and danger to be valuable. Answer: those can still exist even with immortality, or perhaps they would be worse.
3. Temporal scarcity is a necessary condition for valuing. Answer: Scarcity, perhaps. But there are other kinds of scarcity than temporal.
At best, Scheffler's arguments might show that immortal beings wouldn't necessarily have human values (pg168-9).
Lastly, author discusses Scheffler's claims about the limits of egoism. Author believes, contrary to Scheffler, that humans are indeed motivated to see the survival of humanity over their own individual survivals (pg170-1). Author, however, needs to give a special definition of "motivation" where "we would (sincerely, and without needing special argument) see ourselves as having stronger reasons to choose it if given the opportunity." (pg172) In other words, not that a human could make the choice, but that a human would honestly see it as the better one from a rational perspective. Lastly, author suggests that perhaps the concern for the afterlife is, at bottom, egoistic.
11/7/14
Shiffrin, Seana Valentine - Preserving the Valued or Preserving Valuing?
2014/11/07
Comments to Death and the Afterlife, by Samuel Scheffler, Oxford University Press, 2013
Author generally agrees with Scheffler's afterlife conjecture in how it gives an non-experientialist account of value and how humans have a limited egoistic self-conception that is deeply social Author wants to explore the conceptual connection between valuing something and wanting it sustained, and also the supposed human "interest in being a part of human history" (pg144).
Author starts with the "conservatism thesis" about preserving what we care about. Author posits that the dismay over losing an afterlife (doomsday) is not the destruction of valuable projects, but the general loss of the human practice of "acting on reasons and of valuing" (pg145). Author plays with the thought that a simple interpretation of the conservatism thesis is not correct, since some valuable things need to end, including our own lives (pg145-6). Thus a more nuanced understanding might be necessary, particularly around understanding the conservation of value as not necessarily temporal (pg147-8), or perhaps that values can change (pg149). The theme of changing values over time is what offers the separation between the conservatism thesis and an explanation for the despair over doomsday: while losing past values to present or future ones can be difficult, it isn't the loss of those values that is dispiriting; instead the problem of doomsday is that valuable things will go away "for no reason or for bad reasons" (pg151), which is an alternative explanation to the despair over doomsday (pg151-4).
The second portion of the paper talks about the value of being in a human history, or, perhaps, just in a history of rational value. If a different species came after humans and they were rational and had values, and "appreciated what we valued and why" (pg155), this seems less troubling to author than doomsday, even if humans were all to die out. Author also describes and explores an asymmetry over humans not being troubled about the lack of value pre-human species, but troubled by the same lack post-human existence (doomsday) (pg156-7). Author uses an example of being created by aliens very recently (but they leave evidence that we had a past, which we eventually discover was false). This example is meant to show that while discovering humans didn't have a rich history is unsettling, it isn't nearly as bad as discovering they don't have a future.
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