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Desirableness of Immortality
12/02/09

Bernard Williams, in "The Makropulos Case," presents us with the notion of a categorical desire. A categorical desire is one that is forward-looking, and it not necessarily contingent on the individual being alive. In this sense, a categorical desire is a desire that surpasses death and, ultimately, could lead to death, in the case of suicide. While a categorical desire does not presuppose the continuance of life, it assists in the debates of how to live and whether to live. I take this to mean that a categorical desire is an unconditional urge that leads to a decision whether one has a reason to live - such as a treasured hobby or a specific goal - or a reason to die; the desire to be alive exists because the individual plans to do something. Ultimately, though, the decision is up to the individual, as a categorical desire has the potential to surpass the life of the person if a net benefit of death is a rational choice for the individual.

The decision to commit suicide is one of many potential categorical desires, but it is a decision that subsequently ends life, so it must be strongly noted as a possibly. Yet, most categorical desires are life affirming, and such a desire provides the impetus for continued life. Because of life-affirming categorical desires, death would be a misfortune to the individual who possesses them.

In discussing the life of Elina Makropulos (EM), the subject of a play by Karel Capek, Williams addresses the plot of a 42 year-old woman, in body, who has extended her life with an elixir. Elina is now age 342, yet she retains the personal identity of the original 42 year-old, which Williams defines as "constancy of character" (p. 82). I take this to mean that EM continues through her extended, potentially immortal life with a continuation of the same character and memory without interference. We'll call this the EM model, and it is the first of three models that Williams argues against. EM is bored with life; due to the repetitions and patterns throughout her life, she feels alienated and detached (p. 82). In the play, EM reaches a state of joylessness and indifference, which eventually results in a display of her coldness in which she refuses to take the elixir and dies. Williams uses this model to suggest that mortality provides a terminus to life - a palpable end result to life that could have continued while those around her ended in patterns of aging and disease.

The second model that Williams argues against is immortality with the same physical body, yet the character of the individual changes. In this model, which I'll call the Changing Character model, the individual leads a sequence of coterminous lives that result in her body remaining the same while her psychological state, from memories to character, are different. In such a situation, it is difficult to ascertain whether the individual can remain committed to living not only the current character of life, but future characters of life. In a sense, the Changing Character model is similar to reincarnation, yet we can assume that the individual knows that she will continue on with the same body and an inability to die. Williams correctly argues that wiping out the character of the person with each new life creates a situation whereas with each successive life, the individual may or may not find it congenial to carry on into the next life, and therefore her desires may change with each character (p. 85). While it might be possibly to cure the boredom of the EM model through changing characters, it is not clear whether each character will wish to carry on or embrace the next stage of immortality as their future selves.

In the third model, the Teiresias model, the sequence of characters remains with the same physical body, but the memory of the individual also remains. Williams relates this model to a fantasy (p. 86), with Teiresias never owning a character of which he can call his own. The conclusion that Williams reaches is that Teiresias becomes "not...a person but a phenomenon" (p. 86). Essentially, Williams argues that an immortal individual with a series of changing characters, yet who has the memory of each character, becomes fantastical and never truly owns his personhood. Because of this lack of personhood, it is difficult to say that such a phenomenon would wish to continue life as an immortal being. When Williams states that the fantasy has to ignore the connection, he is implying that while Teiresias has memory of each of his characters, he us unable to combine the sequence as his being whole. He would be unwilling to accept himself as a series of characters, while he retains the memories of each. In this sense, Teiresias cannot view himself as whole because his lack of personhood means that he cannot equate the sequence of characters as a combined whole of identity.

As Williams argues against each of these models, he ultimately argues that immortality is undesirable. If an individual retains a categorical desire that causes him or her to want to live, then is unwelcome. Yet, with each of the three possible models, it can be argued that the life-affirming categorical desires of the individual are removed. In the EM model, boredom, detachment, and coldness of being the only immortal being in a world of mortals makes life unlivable. In the Changing Character model, we cannot be sure that a person would have such a desire for a future self that he or she will not know. With each new character, there is a chance that categorical desires will either not exist or will be negative, and therefore life-ending, rather than life-affirming. In the Teiresias model, the instability of changing characters with retained memory while not being able to see the whole picture of identity is troublesome. Even in a situation whereas a person studies intently and seeks to obtain a body of knowledge that is timeless - what Williams calls a Platonic introjection (p. 89) because of Plato's adulation of intense intellectual inquiry - we cannot say for sure that boredom and coldness will not eventually set in. At some point, it is likely to me that the "driving power" (p. 89) or, essentially, the force directed toward an object of a categorical desire, will begin to fade. Eventually, we will fulfill our categorical desires or the inability to fulfill them will be strenuous. While the span of our current lifetime might seem short, immortality seems to provide too much stress on a sole character, while changing characters might not possess the impetus to continue on to the next character because of a lack of connection to the future selves. When Williams states that we might be "lucky in having the chance to die" (p. 92), he is arguing that death provides an end to life before we become bored and cold, yet also assists in providing the drive to fulfill goals and categorical desires. The terminus that is death then becomes a rational end that renders immortality undesirable.

References

Williams, B. (1993). The Makropulos case: Reflections on the tedium of immortality. In J. M. Fischer (Ed.), The metaphysics of death (pp. 73-92). Stanford: Stanford University Press.