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Day
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Topic
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Reading
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9/8
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Introduction
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Ezekiel Emanuel, “Why I Hope to Die at 75”
Naomi Rosenberg, “How to Tell a Mother Her Child is Dead”
Poem: Philip Larkin, “Aubade”
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I. What is good or meaningful about life?
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9/12
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Meaninglessness
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Richard Taylor, “The Meaning of Life”
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9/15
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Transcending Limits and Leaving Traces
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Robert Nozick, “Philosophy and the Meaning of Life”
Poem: Kay Ryan, “Things Shouldn’t Be So Hard”
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9/19
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Meaning and Absurdity
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Thomas Nagel, “The Absurd”
Poem: William Bronk, “Fides et Ratio”
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9/22
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Meaning and Living
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John (Fire) Lame Deer, Seeker of Visions (Chapter 7)
Poem: Brian Turner, “How Bright It Is”
Poem: Jimmy Santiago Baca, "Who Understands Me But Me"
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II. What is death for creatures like us?
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9/26
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Human Death
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David DeGrazia, “The Nature of Human Death”
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9/29
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Personal Identity and Survival (I)
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Derek Parfit, “Personal Identity” (excerpt from Reasons and Persons)
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10/3
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Personal Identity and Survival (II)
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Marya Schechtman, “The Malleability of Identity”
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10/6
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CLASS RESECHEDULED
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10/10
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Personal Identity and Survival (III)
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Kwame Gyekye, “The Relation of Ȱkra (Soul) and Honam (Body): An Akan Conception”
Poems: William Bronk, “The Length of Life” and “All Part of Things”
Poem: Reginald Dwayne Betts, "At the End of Life, A Secret"
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10/13
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Personal Identity and Survival (IV)
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Identity and the Self in Chinese Buddhism (several different readings)
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10/17
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Personal Identity and Survival (V)
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Sophie-Grace Chappell, “Seeds: On Personal Identity and Resurrection”
Poem, William Bronk, “Staying On”
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III. What is bad about death?
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10/20
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No Class
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10/24
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Death and Depravation
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Thomas Nagel, “Death”
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10/27
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Death and Harm
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John Martin Fischer, “Mortal Harm”
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10/31
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Death and The Story of Our Lives
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Kathy Behrendt, “Learning to be Dead: The Narrative Problem of Mortality”
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IV. How should we approach our own death?
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11/3
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Thinking of Death
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David Velleman, “Dying” from Beyond Price
Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, excerpts from On Death and Dying
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11/7
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Death and Ideology
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Beverley Clack, “Constructing Death as a Form of Failure: Addressing Mortality in a Neoliberal Age”
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V. Would it be good to be immortal?
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11/14
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Immortality
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Bernard Williams, “The Makropulos Case: Reflections on the Tedium of Immortality"
Poem: A.E. Stallings, “Thyme”
Poem: Carl Dennis, “Eternal Life”
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11/17
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Immortality (II)
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Connie Rosati, “The Makropulos Case Revisited”
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VI. Can we be harmed after we die?
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11/21
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When does harm occur?
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Katherine Hawley, “Persistence and Time”
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VII. How should we treat the dying? How should we think and talk about the dead?
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11/22 (Tue)
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How We Treat the Dying
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Atul Gawande, Being Mortal, pp. 111-147 (“A Better Life”)
Poem: Tony Hoagland, “Safeway”
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11/28
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Our Reactions to Deaths of Others
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Dan Moller, “Love and Death”
Ernest Morgan, “Death Ceremonies,” and “Simple Burial and Cremation” from Dealing Creatively with Death, pp. 77-88, 47-69, 125-145, 109-112
Poem: Tory Dent, “Variations”
Poem: Sharon Olds, "Birthday Poem for My Grandmother"
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VIII. Should we ever hasten death?
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12/1
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Suicide
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Anne Case and Angus Deaton, “Suicide, age, and wellbeing: an empirical investigation”
David Velleman, “A Right of Self-Termination?”
Poem: Bucky Sinister, “The Other Universe of Bruce Wayne”
Poems: Brian Turner, “Two Stories Down” and “Eulogy”
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12/5
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Assisted Suicide
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Ronald Dworkin, Thomas Nagel, Robert Nozick, John Rawls, Thomas Scanlon, and Judith Jarvis Thomson, “The Philosopher’s Brief”
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IX. Which deaths should we prevent?
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12/8
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Preventing Death
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Peter Unger, Living High and Letting Die (Chapter 2)
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12/12
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Which Deaths to Prevent?
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Govind Persad et al., “Principles for Allocation of Scarce Medical Interventions”
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