Death and the Good Life

3 credits · Undergraduate

They say there are two certainties in life: death and taxes. This course will focus on the former, what that certainty means, and especially its implications for the way that we go on living. What does it mean that we will die, and what are we to make of that fact? Perhaps in some sense or another death does not spell 'the end,' perhaps in some sense or another we are immortal. If death does not spell the end or in some sense we are immortal - would that non-ending or immortality be desirable? Is death a bad or a good thing, or neither? Given whatever conclusions, however preliminary, we draw about the nature of death, conclusions about our (im)mortality or the (dis)value of death, it seems those conclusions will impact how we ought to live. How should we live, given we are going to die? nnNo prerequisites.