Does it matter to us whether or not humankind continues to exist after we cease to be? And if so, why? Samuel Scheffler offers a number of speculative scenarios with which to aid our thinking about these questions. In the first, although we would live out our full life, the earth and all its inhabitants will be destroyed 30 days after our death. In the second, for unexplained reasons, the entire population of the earth becomes infertile, so that although all those currently alive will live out their normal span, there will be no future generations. Scheffler thinks that in both these cases it is plausible that our commitment to values will be undermined resulting in lassitude and despair. What this shows, he thinks, is the limits of egoism. Despite what many economists and others try to tell us about our self-interest and our motivations for action, in fact there is a sense in which, for each of us, the lives of people not yet born matter more to us than our own lives. Indeed, in the absence of a “collective afterlife”, the very meaning of our current valuations falls away. So, it seems we have a reason to promote the continued preservation of humankind, even in the face of our own demise. And that, Scheffler thinks, is a pertinent observation.

The first two lectures presented here, entitled “The Afterlife (Part I)” and “The Afterlife (Part II)”, were presented as the Berkeley Tanner Lectures in 2012. To these, Professor Scheffler adds a third lecture, entitled “Fear, Death, and Confidence,” which takes the argument further, addressing the related problem raised by the late Bernard Williams of whether an eternal life would also lead to the undermining of value. Scheffler concurs but for different reasons than Williams put forward. He sees the finitude of human life as contributing fundamentally to the value we place on persons, objects and actions. And this coheres with the view presented in the “Afterlife” lectures in that it confirms our dependence on certain forms of life (an aspect of which is their mortality) and on our faith in the continuance of such a form of life long into the future (though not forever, obviously) to sustain structures of value with which we are familiar.

It is a fascinating and original approach and rightly the subject of much debate in philosophical circles. Here, four commentaries on the lectures are provided. Susan Wolf, Harry G. Frankfurt, Seana Valentine Shiffrin, and Niko Kolodny offer substantive critiques of Scheffler’s dramatic speculation. To these, Scheffler provides a response which, if not rebutting all challenges, at least makeing clear that this is a discussion which will go on for some time.

It is a great pleasure to be able to read such clear and thoughtful argument. To witness, through the commentaries and response, the very essence of healthy academic philosophy in action. All of which makes it easy to recommend this volume. ( )

One of the headiest question that you can ask is: what happens after we die? Is there a place or perspective where our consciousnesses go to live on in another form? Or is this it? Are we doomed to a single existence in a single body? And, moreover, how do our answers to these questions affect the way in which we go about our lives? Noted philosopher Samuel Scheffler was asked to deliver the Tanner Lectures on Human Values at the University of California at Berkeley and engage in a conversation about what it meant to envision an afterlife. In Death and the Afterlife, his lectures and the commentaries of other philosophers investigate the nature of catastrophic events, the value of the preservation of life, and the values that an afterlife brings with it.

Scheffler’s first scenario involves the reader imagining that they knew that humanity, through some cataclysmic event, was going to be wiped out thirty days after their death. How much would that knowledge effect the reader’s life and choices? Would everyday actions and experiences be enhanced knowing that the end is nigh? How would this affect what you value? Scheffler’s “afterlife” is the totality of life continuing after an individual’s death, not a spiritual one. We take it for granted that other people will continue to live after we die and that humanity has a nearly infinite future. Can we even comprehend a end to humanity since we’ve been inundated with the knowledge that the actual Solar system will last for another 4ish billion years? The concept of a potential afterlife is embedded so deep into our other constructs (justice, morality, creativity, etc.) that without it, the world becomes a very different place. His second deals with a world where the reader never dies. Can one still lead a value-laden life without the fear of death?

The commentaries on these lectures from Susan Wolf, Harry Frankfurt, Seana Shiffrin, and Niko Kolodny further tackle the complex, implied meaning of an afterlife. Since these are direct responses, there’s a bit of nitpicking and word-parsing here, but the overall back-and-forth is interesting. The philosophies are inherently egoistic as they involve how important or value-driven the decisions of the “I” are in the face of either imminent death or immortality. The conjectures the contributors draw are still worthwhile nonetheless and lead the reader to a few different perspectives on how we think about death and the afterlife. A thought-provoking book. ( )