Bootstrapping the Afterlife
Samuel Scheffler defends “The Afterlife Conjecture”: the view that the continued existence of humanity after our deaths— “the afterlife”—lies in the background of our valuing; were we to lose confidence in it, many of the projects we engage in would lose their meaning. The Afterlife Conjecture, in h...
| Published in: | Journal of moral philosophy |
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| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Brill
2017
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| In: |
Journal of moral philosophy
Year: 2017, Volume: 14, Issue: 2, Pages: 201-216 |
| Further subjects: | B
traces
B Immortality B personal projects B Death B Samuel Scheffler B meaning of life B Survival B Personal Identity |
| Online Access: |
Presumably Free Access Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | Samuel Scheffler defends “The Afterlife Conjecture”: the view that the continued existence of humanity after our deaths— “the afterlife”—lies in the background of our valuing; were we to lose confidence in it, many of the projects we engage in would lose their meaning. The Afterlife Conjecture, in his view, also brings out the limits of our egoism, showing that we care more about yet unborn strangers than about personal survival. But why does the afterlife itself matter to us? Examination of Scheffler’s second argument helps answer this question, thereby undermining his argument. Our concern for the afterlife involves bootstrapping: we care more about the afterlife than about personal survival precisely because the latter has such salient limits that our lives are structured by adaptation to mortality, and it is only because the afterlife does provide a measure of personal survival that it can give meaning to our projects. |
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| ISSN: | 1745-5243 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Journal of moral philosophy
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1163/17455243-46810049 |