Prominent advocates of posthumanism such as Nick Bostrom and Ray Kurzweil make the case that a drastic increase in the human lifespan would be intrinsically good. This question of the value of an extended lifespan has perhaps become more pressing as medical and scientific advances are seemingly bringing us closer and closer to being able to extend our lives in the way posthumanists envision. In this paper I intend to use Martin Heidegger’s work on death and freedom to develop a (...) potential objection to the claim that an indefinite healthspan is intrinsically desirable. The basic plan will be to make the case that the structure of human agency is such that truly free action is possible only on the basis of the essential finitude of our existence. Assuming that we take this sort freedom to be an important good, we would lose something of crucial importance if we were to radically extend the human healthspan. I am not claiming to present an entirely conclusive argument against posthumanism, or even enhancing the human healthspan to posthuman proportions, but rather, I see my argument here as adding another currently valued dimension of human existence that could very well be lost if we move decisively in the posthumanist direction. (shrink)

‘The Meaning of Life’ and ‘The Philosophy of Religion’ have meant different things to different people, and so I do well to alert my reader to what these phrases mean to me and thus to the subject area of this review of recent work on their intersection. First, ‘The Meaning of Life’: within the analytic tradition, an idea has gained widespread assent; whatever the vague and enigmatic nature of the phrase ‘the meaning of life’, we may sensibly speak of meaningfulness (...) in a life as a particular, positive, normative feature that some individuals’ lives may well have, and this feature is to be distinguished from, though closely related to, other positive features – satisfaction, wellbeing, virtue and so forth. There has been much work done on these assumptions in recent years. An excellent summary of this work up to its date of publication is given by Thaddeus Metz (in his 2007 a). Many – though by no means all – philosophers retain an instinctive scepticism toward the phrase ‘the meaning of life’ and a reluctance to engage with it, for it seems to connote vague and/or impossible-to-fulfil cosmic expectations. (See Thomson , chapter 11 and Seachris 2009 for attempts to engage with it nonetheless.) But philosophers are not generally now so sceptical about talk of meaningfulness in life and thus not so sceptical about the phrase ‘the meaning of life’ if it is taken to be referring merely to this. And that is how I shall be taking it. Secondly, ‘The Philosophy of Religion’: in the analytic tradition, this has usually been taken to be philosophical reflection on the rational acceptability or otherwise of classical theism and on what God's existence, should He exist, entails ontologically, metaphysically, metaethically and so forth. Therefore, I shall be talking about recent reflection in the analytic tradition on the relationship between the God of classical theism's existence (or lack of it) and meaningfulness (or lack of it) in human lives. (shrink)

Artificial intelligence is likely to undermine the anthropocentrism of humanism, the master narrative that undergirds the modern world. Humanity will need a new story to structure our beliefs and cooperation around. As different regions explore posthumanist alternatives through fiction, they bring with them distinct traditions of thought. The Swedish TV series _Real Humans_ (2012–2014) and its British remake, _Humans_ (2015–2018), dramatize the challenge of freeing oneself from cultural presumptions. When negotiating personhood with humanoid robots, the Swedish protagonist family presupposes a (...) social-democratic ethos, which is a trace of Scandinavian humanism that carries into the family’s posthumanist beliefs. Using Heideggerian and related perspectives, I analyze these series to make a case for a _dataist_ ontology with potential to re-enchant the modern world and bring forth a new epoch of being. Such a master narrative of _algorithmic universality_ could be facilitated by a new level of interconnectedness made possible by AI. This ontology fulfills the requirements of Robbins and Horta (Introduction, Cosmopolitanisms. New York University Press, New York, pp 1–17, 2017) who call for a cosmopolitanism of inclusivity with room for overlapping conceptions to remedy our present era’s international dysfunction. The Swedish and British TV series suggest that even if humanity’s uniting around a dataist master narrative were to be driven by intercultural competition, the decisive choice might be out of human hands. Paradoxically, such disempowering in terms of agency is portrayed as necessary for human _re-enchantment_. (shrink)

The right not to know is often defended on the basis of the principle of respect for personal autonomy. If I choose not to acquire personal information that impacts on my future prospects, such a choice should be respected, because I should be able to decide whether to access information about myself and how to use it. But, according to the incoherence objection to the right not to know in the context of genetic testing, the choice not to acquire genetic (...) information undermines the capacity for autonomous decision making. The claim is that it is incoherent to defend a choice that is inimical to autonomy by appealing to autonomy. In this paper, I suggest that the choice not to know in the context of genetic testing does not undermine self-authorship, which is a key aspect of autonomous decision making. In the light of this, the incoherence objection to the right not to know seems less compelling. (shrink)

The right not to know is often defended on the basis of the principle of respect for personal autonomy. If I choose not to acquire personal information that impacts on my future prospects, such a choice should be respected, because I should be able to decide whether to access information about myself and how to use it. But, according to the incoherence objection to the right not to know in the context of genetic testing, the choice not to acquire genetic (...) information undermines the capacity for autonomous decision making. The claim is that it is incoherent to defend a choice that is inimical to autonomy by appealing to autonomy. In this paper, I suggest that the choice not to know in the context of genetic testing does not undermine self-authorship, which is a key aspect of autonomous decision making. In the light of this, the incoherence objection to the right not to know seems less compelling. (shrink)

Immortality—living forever and avoiding death—seems to many to be desirable. But is it? It has been argued that an immortal life would fairly soon become boring, trivial, and meaningless, and is not at all the sort of thing that any of us should want. Yet boredom and triviality presuppose our having powerful memories and imaginations, and an inability either to shake off the past or to free ourselves of weighty visions of the future. Suppose, though, that our capacities here are (...) limited, so that our temporal reach is fairly significantly constrained. Then, I argue, these alleged problems with immortality will recede. Moreover, similar limitations might help us in the actual world, where life is short. If we cannot see clearly to its end points, both ahead and behind, life will seem longer. (shrink)

Some people claim that death makes our lives meaningless. Bernard Williams and Viktor Frankl have made the opposite claim that death gives meaning to life. Although there has been much scrutiny of the former claim, the latter claim has received very little attention. In this paper, I will explore whether and how death gives meaning to our lives. As I will argue, there is not sufficient support for the strong claim that death is necessary for one's life to be meaningful. (...) However, there is support for the more limited conclusion that our finitude enhances or upholds the meaning in the lives of some individuals in four different ways. (shrink)