Does death give meaning to life? One might wonder how something so morbid could bring meaning to “life”, which is supposedly something more pleasant and sound. Bernard Williams was an English philosopher in the 20th century who suggests that death gives meaning to life, and that immortality might not be something that one should desire and wish for (Jacobsen, 104). In the average human life, everyone has many different desires that bring meaning and purpose to that life. There are conditional desires, unconditional desires and categorical desires, and all of these desires bring meaning and interest to our lives.
Conditional desires are things we want to do if we live long enough, like travel the world when we retire for example. Unconditional desires are things that give us reason to live; we want to live in order to fulfill them (104). This would include spending time and living with your loved ones. These are reasons why people still want to be around (104). Categorical desires are reasons why we want to live and are a source of interest. If you learned that you could no longer partake in these desires, then the will to live would diminish (104).
In an immortal life where death does not come, and one can live forever, a person will not fear death desire it to end their long suffering. Summary To be immortal is to live a life without a fear of death. Death comes to everyone eventually, but if there was a way to cheat death and live forever, would one take it? Bernard Williams does not believe living forever to be the right way of thinking, or at least does not think that immortality would be something good or desirable. Williams believes that death gives meaning to life and that it is not an evil.
What is meant by this is that death brings an end to a long struggle, and brings an end to a long suffering and that it could be a good thing not to live for eternity (105). Death gives everyone purpose and a limited time to do and experience life to the fullest. Williams states that if you could live forever, then your life would lose meaning. “An endless life would be a meaningless one; and that we could have no reason for living eternally a human life. There is no desirable or significant property, which life would have more of, or have more unqualifiedly, if we lasted forever,” (106).
He believes that at some point, in an immortal life, it will get boring. Everything you can do with endless amounts of time, you’ll end up doing. All of your interests will fade with time. That in an endless life a person would “fulfill their categorical desires again and again, to the point where even their satisfaction now bores them,” (107). Williams uses an example to explain his views on immortality. The example starts with a 342 year old person who goes by the name EM. She lives a life where death does not come. EM chooses to live out the rest of her life at the age of 42.
She does not age and her health does not change over time. Everything else will continue to change, emotions, feelings, interests, etc. EM lives for 300 years at the age of 42. Williams suggests that the problem would be boredom and a lack of any meaning in her life. “Her problem lay in having been at it for too long. Her trouble was it seems, boredom: a boredom connected with the fact that everything that could happen and makes sense to one particular human being of 42 years had already happened to her. Or, rather, all sorts of things that could make sense to one woman of a certain character,” (106).
Another problem that Williams brings to light is the problem of repeated events and experiences. With the same person living for essentially forever or in this case 342 years, things will tend to repeat. Events, experiences and personal relations will repeat in that time frame. This adds to the boredom and the fact that life loses its meaning once these events and other experiences repeat itself. Williams suggests that to make it work, then EM will have to continually change everything about her on a regular basis.
To live a bearable immortal life one must always be able to change very important aspects about her life (108). EM will have to always change her personality, her desirable interests and categories in life and her character. Critical Evaluation Williams believes that death brings meaning to life, and that death is good rather than evil and brings an end to long suffering. He states that living forever will eventually lose its meaning and that a person will become bored, withdrawn and detached from a regular human life. Williams uses many examples to support his conclusions on an immortal life.
He brings to light that everything that could happen will eventually happen in an endless life span. This would support that at some point in your immortal life, a person will become bored, since you have experienced everything and anything that could happen to one person in a lifetime. He also states that to try to make an immortal life bearable is to always be changing. A person would always have to change various aspects and important characteristics about themselves to continue to stay interested and experience new and different things; they would have to keep their life fresh, vibrant and meaningful.
This would mean that one person could not stay the exact same being as they were before and they would almost have to completely change on command. It is not impossible, but would imaginably be very difficult. This would in fact support his conclusions and would make his reasoning logically sound as well. Williams views on an immortal life and its loss of meaning rest on one main thing. Boredom. Everyone will eventually lose the will to live because they have already done everything they could have done and experienced everything to their interests.
This, I agree, is true, as an endless life could possibly get boring, but one objection that can be raised about his view is that one would not lose meaning to life. I believe there are endless possibilities in life. There is always something new to experience and do. Life is too short. If you could live an immortal life, I do not think it would lose its meaning. Personally, I believe the biggest flaw in Williams’s views is his assumption that your character will be unchanged and everything that could happen, would.
In life, people go through so many changes in their character, personality and interests. Things you found interesting when you were 12 years old and things you find now at the age of 20 are completely different. Being older you would find the things you found interesting at the age of 12 boring, so you don’t continue to do those things. You changed and adapted every day, and are always changing in your life span and life hasn’t lost its meaning. So who says you cannot do that with an endless life?
Williams also suggests that if everyone could live an immortal life and have boredom and inner death eliminated, then the world would be fulfilled with bourbons, learning nothing and forgetting nothing and it is unclear how much could even happen, (107). What he means by experiencing inner death is a person who has become detached from society because life has become empty and lost its meaning; they are withdrawn. So if boredom and inner death are eliminated, he then believes that it is unclear how much could happen in this suggested immortal world.
If one eliminates inner death and boredom, then everyone will have a fulfilling and meaningful life. People can live out their dreams, do everything they ever wanted and learn and grow at an unprecedented rate. Human civilization could rapidly expand in this suggested world, and everyone could learn everything and forget nothing, (107). The complete opposite would happen in this world, because there would not be an expiration on a human life, and a person would not have to worry about a limited amount of time.
They could start something and not have to worry about running out of time ecause of death and an aging dying body. Conclusion Williams’ views on immortality are that with a life without death, a person will eventually become bored and their life will lose meaning. By not having death come upon them, they will in turn experience all of their unconditional, conditional and categorical desires in their life, which in still make for a meaningless life. This immortal person will then be withdrawn and detached from their lives and feel empty and bored with their own lives. An endless life will reach the point where everything that could be experienced and accomplished will get carried out.
I agree that in an immortal life, things could get boring. Events may repeat themselves, personal experiences may become redundant and loss of interests would be a certainty. An immortal life may be boring at times, but an objection that can be raised is that an endless life could still have meaning. People can always adapt and be willing to change their personalities and characteristics to keep their personal desires and always have meaning to their lives. Overall, it is a dark concept, but Williams believes that death is a part of life and wanting to live forever should not be a desire.