By Cesar Garcia, April 2017.
It is a truism to say that we as humans fear death, and that we lament what often strikes us as too little time in life. However, it seems prudent to consider whether this way of perceiving our finitude is philosophically appropriate, inasmuch as we might query whether radically prolonged lifespans, or even biological immortality – now perhaps on our horizon thanks to the gene-editing device CRISPR – would still allow for fulfilling lives. For such a question, we might look at the works of philosophers to see what has been said.
In his book Problems of the Self, philosopher Bernard Williams considers such a question in the chapter “The Makropulos case: reflections on the tedium of immortality”. He argues that the organizing life endeavours we pursue, referred to as categorical desires, are what make life worth living, and that such categorical desires would be ultimately exhausted in an immortal life. In addition, his conception of personal identity seems to require that our categorical desires remain unchanged, if we are to argue that it is only one individual experiencing life, and not disparate entities whom we cannot consider to be numerically identical to ourselves. Putting aside for the moment possible objections to Williams’ criterion for personal identity, his argument for why we should fear immortality seem promising.
However, such arguments seem most robust only when considering mortal beings, knowing from very early on that they will live for only a set period of time. In other words, immortality may only be a curse when bestowed to those whose existence is essentially finite. The categorical desires we eventually decide to pursue reflect this awareness of our finitude: early on in our life we may see many different paths as worthwhile and fulfilling, but adolescence is often a period of whittling down these inclinations, as we direct our trajectories more precisely towards pursuits we deem appropriate. A teenager might be interested in pursuing a great many areas of human endeavour, but upon taking up the serious world, to borrow from de Beauvoir, they spend their time cultivating skills related to their most prominent categorical desires. Such a tapering however seems only necessary for beings whose most valuable resource, one might argue, is time.
Williams looked at an opera to consider a case of immortal life being unbearable, so let us look at a case in fiction of immortal beings who seem, for the most part, perfectly content with immortality. In the legendarium of J. R. R. Tolkien that supplements his novels The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, Tolkien deals extensively with the elves, a race of immortal beings. Elves are biologically immortal, as they can be killed in battle or by grief, but they do not die from aging. Indeed, the life cycle of elves is very much extended in comparison to the race of men, who are the humans in Tolkien’s world. Childhood lasts for 50 years, adulthood is achieved at 100 years, and very little outward aging occurs until a much later period in life, but can be hastened by grief and loss. In the everyday life of elves, they occupy their time with different arts, such as craftwork, music, writing, and the like. Elves live either in Middle-Earth, the continent where The Lord of the Rings is set, or on an island to the west, called Aman the Blessed, or the Undying Lands, where all elves eventually go.
The fulfillment of life for Tolkien’s elves seems to come from rather familiar and recognizable sources. There is connection formed between different individuals, and Tolkien unsurprisingly (given his religious background) views the bonds of marriage and love with a certain amount of sanctity and importance. Elves are monogamous, and there is only one mentioned instance of remarriage among the large number of individuals his legendarium speaks of. Furthermore, themes of friendship and loyalty are prominent features, not just between elves, but between all races. In addition, the categorical desires elves pursue are not unique to them: elves preoccupy themselves with constructive and creative work, and the effort of bringing about good in the world runs through the ages.
But perhaps we should consider the character and temperament of elves for new arguments for how an immortal life might be bearable. The life cycle of elves is vastly prolonged in comparison to dwarves and humans, and their maturation is much longer. One might think then that elves see the passing of time differently. To contrast, each passing year of our life seems to go by faster than the last. But, born into an immortal life, with the ages sprawling out far in front of them, we might wonder if the anxiety for accomplishment and productivity infect elves as much as they do the humans of Tolkien’s world. Humans, as seen by Tolkien, are characterized by their ambitions and desire for achievement.
One might define somewhat more rigorously the elven temperament that helps them cope with their immortality as being a greater amount of equanimity, or a certain coolness towards the moment-to-moment occurrences of daily life. Perhaps with this, categorical desires might be less quickly exhausted. Tolkien does not portray the elves as being infinitely productive however: they too grow weary with life after a certain, unspecified moment. But the elves seem to have rather defined periods of life. After they grow weary of life in Middle-Earth, however beautiful they find it, they eventually make the journey west, across the sea to the Undying Lands. If we were to achieve immortality, no reasonable corollary would exist. However much we might tinker with traditionally human characteristics, it is difficult to say that we would not grow world-weary if we were immortal. We might grimly imagine that in a society of biologically immortal beings, our journey west would simply be assisted suicide.
In Tolkien’s portrayal of humans, he refers to their mortality as “the gift of man”, but it is a fate they often seem to rally against, much to their detriment. Sauron promised immortality with his rings, but the humans who did take up the nine rings simply became ring wraiths, a shell of their former selves. Tolkien then seems rather sympathetic to Williams’ view of immortality being undesirable, at least for us humans.
In conclusion, while we might perhaps be unconvinced by the details of Williams’ argument but nevertheless agree that too long a life would not be eternally desirable. We should not however conclude that research should be halted in anti-aging or longer lifespans–a longer, though still limited life is probably a good thing. We perhaps do not need to till the heat death of the universe to accomplish all our categorical desires, but a doubling or tripling of our current lifespan would give us greater opportunity to pursue those categorical desires we were at other times interested in. It might also alleviate the seemingly chronic anxiety we have towards being more productive.
Bibliography
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Tolkien, J. R. R. The Hobbit. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2012.
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“What is CRISPR-Cas9?” yourgenome, Last updated 19 Dec 2016, http://www.yourgenome.org/facts/what-is-crispr-cas9. Accessed 2 April 2017.
Williams, Bernard. “The Makropulos case: reflections on the tedium of immortality.” Problems of the Self, Cambridge University Press, 1973, pp. 82-100.