Abstract

The contemplation of the end of life — life's ending — provokes the emotions of fear, alarm and despondency. Fears about the end of life are almost universal. The Stoic Zeno of Elea first analyzed the problem accurately when he pointed out what he thought the fundamental problems of human existence consisted of. He identified the fundamental anxieties as being fear of the gods and a fear of death. Both fears, he thought, could be therapeutically eliminated: fear of the gods was pointless since they did not care about us, and fear of death could be rationalized away by reasonable philosophical argumentation. Without wishing to resurrect Zeno's arguments, one can safely say that he was spectacularly wrong in his view of the power of rational argument. The fears about life's ending are multifaceted. They consist of fears about the process of aging, the prospect of one's own dying and one's own death, and the fact that our lives and activities — as they are lived within the confines of our corporeal bodies — will come to an inevitable end.There are also problems and anxieties concerned with the fact that the passage of time and the visible effects it leaves on our physical selves make us conscious that, at some time or other, we are, like other material objects, subject to decay and wearing down. The process is a great equalizer and no one who lives long enough is spared the spectacle of witnessing and experiencing the gradual process of the decline of their physical powers and of their cognitive functions. No matter what sort of life has been led, the ending of that particular life is certain.In this paper I want to discuss some views about the nature of these fears about the later stages of life, aging, old age and death and their roots in the philosophical and metaphysical views we have come to endorse.