Life, Death, and Meaning

David Benatar is professor of philosophy at the University of Cape Town, South Africa.

• PREFACEINTRODUCTION Chapter 1THE MEANING OF LIFERichard Taylor, The Meaning of LifeThomas Nagel, The AbsurdRichard Hare, ‘Nothing Matters’W.D. Joske, Philosophy and the Meaning of LifeRobert Nozick, Philosophy and the Meaning of LifeDavid Schmidtz, The Meanings of Life Susan Wolf, The Meanings of LivesChapter 2CREATING PEOPLEDerek Parfit, Whether Causing Someone to Exist Can Benefit This PersonJohn Leslie, Why Not Let Life Become Extinct?James Lenman, On Becoming ExtinctDavid Benatar, Why it is Better Never to Come into ExistenceChapter 3DEATHStephen E. Rosenbaum, How to be Dead and Not Care: A Defense of EpicurusGeorge Pitcher, The Misfortunes of the DeadSteven Luper, AnnihilationFred Feldman, Some Puzzles About the Evil of DeathFrederick Kaufman, Pre-Vital and Post-Mortem Non-ExistenceDavid B. Suits, Why Death is not Bad for the One who DiedChapter 4IMMORTALITYJames Lenman, Immortality: A letterBernard Williams, The Makropulos case: reflections on the tedium of immortality John Martin Fischer, Why Immortality is Not So BadChristine Overall, From here to eternity: Is it good to live forever? Chapter 5SUICIDEDavid Hume, Of SuicideImmanuel Kant, Suicide and DutyDavid Benatar, Suicide: A Qualified DefenceChapter 6OPTIMISM AND PESSIMISMMargaret A. Boden, OptimismSamantha Vice, Optimism and MeaningBruce N. Waller, The sad truth: optimism, pessimism, and pragmatismArthur Schopenhauer, On the Suffering of the World

The selection of papers is excellent....Benatar has done a first rate job in fulfilling, and when necessary balancing, all those requirements and has produced an exceptionally good, interesting and informative collection of papers. Students and educated laypersons who read through the anthology will become familiar with some of the best and most representative works in the field which include many of the most central and important arguments on the issues discussed....This collection should prove to be an important contribution to the development of the discussion on Analytic Existentialism.