Description

There is one thing I can be sure of: I am going to die. But what am I to make of that fact? This course will examine a number of issues that arise once we begin to reflect on our mortality. The possibility that death may not actually be the end is considered. Are we, in some sense, immortal? Would immortality be desirable? Also a clearer notion of what it is to die is examined. What does it mean to say that a person has died? What kind of fact is that? And, finally, different attitudes to death are evaluated. Is death an evil? How? Why? Is suicide morally permissible? Is it rational? How should the knowledge that I am going to die affect the way I live my life?About Professor Shelly KaganShelly Kagan is Clark Professor of Philosophy at Yale. After receiving his B.A. from Wesleyan University in 1976, and his Ph.D. from Princeton University in 1982, he taught at the University of Pittsburgh and the University of Illinois at Chicago before coming to Yale in 1995. He is the author of the textbook Normative Ethics, which systematically reviews alternative positions concerning the basic rules of morality and their possible foundations, and The Limits of Morality, which challenges two of the most widely shared beliefs about the requirements of morality. He is currently at work on The Geometry of Desert.Table of Content:1. Course introduction2. The nature of persons: dualism vs. physicalism3. Arguments for the existence of the soul, Part I4. Introduction to Plato’s Phaedo; Arguments for the existence of the soul, Part II5. Arguments for the existence of the soul, Part III: Free will and near-death experiences6. Arguments for the existence of the soul, Part IV; Plato, Part I7. Plato, Part II: Arguments for the immortality of the soul8. Plato, Part III: Arguments for the immortality of the soul (cont.)9. Plato, Part IV: Arguments for the immortality of the soul (cont.)10. Personal identity, Part I: Identity across space and time and the soul theory11. Personal identity, Part II: The body theory and the personality theory12. Personal identity, Part III: objections to the personality theory13. Personal identity, Part IV; What matters?14. What matters (cont.); The nature of death, Part I15. The nature of death (cont.); Believing you will die16. Dying alone; The badness of death, Part I17. The badness of death, Part II: The deprivation account18. The badness of death, Part III; Immortality, Part I19. Immortality, Part II; The value of life, Part I20. The value of life, Part II; Other bad aspects of death, Part I21. Other bad aspects of death, Part II22. Fear of death23. How to live given the certainty of death24. Suicide, Part I: The rationality of suicide25. Suicide, Part II: Deciding under uncertainty26. Suicide, Part III: The morality of suicide and course conclusion