The Cambridge Companion to Life and Death

Description

This volume meets the increasing interest in a range of philosophical issues connected with the nature and significance of life and death, and the ethics of killing. What is it to be alive and to die? What is it to be a person? What must time be like if we are to persist? What makes one life better than another? May death or posthumous events harm the dead? The chapters in this volume address these questions, and also discuss topical issues such as abortion, euthanasia, and suicide. They explore the interrelation between the metaphysics, significance, and ethics of life and death, and they discuss the moral significance of killing both people and animals, and the extent to which death harms them. The volume is for all those studying the philosophy of life and death, for readers taking applied ethics courses, and for those studying ethics and metaphysics more generally. Series Copyright Contents Contributors Acknowledgments Introduction ●Steven Luper Part I The metaphysics of life and death 1 The nature of life ●Mark A. Bedau 2 The nature of people ●Eric T. Olson 3 Persistence and time ●Katherine Hawley 4 The malleability of identity ●Marya Schechtman 5 The nature of human death ●David DeGrazia Part II The signiicance of life and death 6 Assessing lives ●Noah Lemos 7 On the length of a good life ●Eyjólfur K. Emilsson 8 Mortal harm ●John Martin Fischer 9 When do we incur mortal harm? ●Jens Johansson 10 The symmetry problem ●James Warren 11 Posthumous harm ●Simon Keller 12 Life’s meaning ●Steven Luper Part III The ethics of life and death 13 Enhancing humanity ●Nicholas Agar 14 Procreating ●David Archard 15 Abortion ●Michael Tooley 16 Killing ourselves ●Jr. Thomas E. Hill 17 Killing in self-defense ●Kadri Vihvelin 18 Imperfect aiding ●Matthew Hanser 19 Killing and extinction ●Krister Bykvist References Index Series