THE MAKROPULOS CASE:

REFLECTIONS ON THE TEDIUM OF

IMMORTALITY BY WILLIAMS

By Tilda Evans
 EM
• A theme throughout William’s essay is
that he uses the case of EM to support the
idea that we would not want to be
immortal.
• Elina Makropulos, who has a series of
aliases, is a character from an opera by
Janacek, who is immortal by drinking an
elixir.
• EM hates being immortal, eventually
leading her to stop taking the elixir. EM’s
state suggests three claims:
• That death is not necessarily an evil
• That death can provide an end to great
suffering
• And that it can be a good thing not to live https://simonparrismaninchair.com/
too long. 2012/05/09/met-opera-the-makropulos-
 WILLIAMS BEGINS BY COMPARING
LUCRETIUS’S VIEW ON DEATH TO NAGEL’S

LUCRETIUS NAGEL

• Finds comfort in the conviction that death • Criticises Lucretius’s first argument, as it
brings the complete annihilation of life. implies that nothing can be an evil for a
• Argues that death is never an evil. man if he does not know about it. Gives
• Says that when we fear death, we are just example of a betrayal that a man doesn’t
confused, based on the idea that we shall be know about still being a betrayal.
there after death to mourn our loss of the • Death is bad because it leads to a
praemia vitae. BUT if death is an annihilation,
deprivation in experiences.
we won’t mourn this loss.
• Praemia vitae: the rewards and delights of life.
• His second argument says that if makes sense
to want to die later rather than earlier, as there
would be a shorter amount of death. This
appears to contradict the claim that death is
never an evil.
 WILLIAMS BEGINS BY COMPARING
LUCRETIUS’S VIEW ON DEATH TO NAGEL’S

LUCRETIUS NAGEL

• Finds comfort in the conviction that death • Criticises Lucretius’s first argument, as it

r
brings the complete annihilation of life.

ne
implies that nothing can be an evil for a
• Argues that death is never an evil. man if he does not know about it. Gives

in
• Says that when we fear death, we are just example of a betrayal that a man doesn’t
confused, based on the idea that we shall be know about still being a betrayal.

W
there after death to repine our loss of the • Death is bad because it leads to a
praemia vitae. BUT if death is an annihilation,
deprivation in experiences.
we won’t mourn this loss.
• Praemia vitae: the rewards and delights of life.
• His second argument says that if makes sense
to want to die later rather than earlier, as there
would be a shorter amount of death. This
appears to contradict the claim that death is
never an evil.
 BUT!

• If we disagree with Lucretius, this may imply that it is better to

be immortal. Williams must now prove that is is not the case.
• ‘But now – if death, other things being equal, is a misfortune;
and a longer life is better than a shorter life; and we reject the
Lucretian argument that it does not matter when one dies; then it
looks as though - other things being equal – death is at any time
an evil, and it is better to live than die’. (Page 89). Nagel seems
to permit this conclusion.
 HOWEVER, WILLIAM’S DISAGREES
WITH NAGEL.

• While Nagel thinks that death is bad because it leads to a

deprivation, William’s says it is bad because it prevents our
categorical desires.
• He agrees with Lucretius that the things I want, I want only on
the assumption that I am going to be alive. However, he disagrees
with the idea that all desires are conditional on being alive.
 TWO TYPES OF DESIRES

CATEGORICAL DESIRES HYPOTHETICAL DESIRES

• ‘Some desire [that] propels him on into • More hedonistic desires, which are
the future’ (Page 86) cancelled out by our death.
• ‘Not one that operates conditionally on • They are contingent on our being alive.
him being alive’ (Page 86)
• An example of a hypothetical desire is
• Contingent fact that most people have my desire to eat cake.
categorical desires
• An example he gives of a categorical
desire is the rational desire to commit
suicide, as this desire is clearly not
contingent on the person’s alive-ness.
 CRITIQUE: COULD AN IMMORTAL BEING BE
SUSTAINED BY HYPOTHETICAL DESIRES ALONE?

• Williams makes it clear that immortality is not desirable because we need

categorical desires to give our life meaning. Eventually we would run out of
these desires, which would render our immortal life meaningless.
• However, if we established a hedonistic line of reasoning, perhaps we could
enjoy our immortal life with hypothetical desires. These are things like
eating cake and watching your favourite film.
• Hedonists claim that happiness is found in pleasure, or the absence of pain.
• If this is the case, then we can still assume that if we are to reject Lucretius
then we are admitting that it is better to live forever, surviving on our
hypothetical desires.
https://
somnowell.com/
blog/if-i-yawn-does-
mean-i-am-tired/

BOREDOM

• Williams claims that if we were to run out

of categorical desires, life would be
rendered meaningless.
• This is because when we run out of
categorical desires, we will get bored, as is
the case with EM. This is why we do not
want to be immortal.
• ‘In EM’s case, her boredom and distance
from life both kill desire and consist in the
death of it’ (Page 91)
 TWO CONDITIONS FOR IMMORTALITY
THE FIRST CONDITION
• It must be me who survives, so this
eliminates cases of regeneration or
reincarnation.
• I should be able to recognize myself.
THE SECOND CONDITION
• The future situation must be
attractive to me now and should meet
my current desires.
• ‘The second important condition is
that the state in which I survive
should be one which, to me looking
forward, will be adequately related,
in the life it presents, to those aims
which I now have in wanting to
survive at all’ (Page 91)
 CRITICISM: IS THE SECOND
CONDITION CORRECT?

• There could be a case where my future desires do not reflect my current

ones.
• I am currently strongly anti-death penalty, and assume I shall remain so.
However, if I were to see my future and see that my family had been
horrendously murdered by an evil psychopath, leading me to change my
desire to eradicate the death penalty, it may not come as a shock.
• By this reasoning, if my desires evolve as I age, perhaps the second
condition is not necessary in the case of immortality.
 WILLIAMS’ SUGGESTIONS TO AVOID
BOREDOM

• One might make an immortal man content just by stripping him of his
consciousness, thus unable to feel this boredom. This does not seem like a
reasonable response.
• You could occupy your existence through intense intellectual enquiry. BUT
if this is done it will not meet the second condition that it should be me
who lives forever, and that the eternal life should be in prospect of some
interest.
• The case may be different for people whose desire was always to do this,
but Williams says ‘even if it offered something for freedom of intellect, it
offers nothing for freedom of the individual’. (Page 97)
 FANTASY CHARACTER

• An attractive yet impossible move for those

in favour of immortality are cases of a
fantasy character.
• Williams critiques this ‘fantasy character’
aka ‘The Teiresias Model’. An example of
this is The Doctor in the series Doctor Who.
• This character is immortal and has consistent
memories of their past, yet changes to look
different, effectively living different lives.
• Williams rejects the idea of The Teiresias
Model.
• A phenomenon, not a person.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Doctor_
%28Doctor_Who%29
 CRITICISM: DEFINITION OF AN
IMMORTAL BEING

• If immortal, would I continuously age and deteriorate, or would I stay

at my current age? ‘No-one need deny that since, for instance, we
grow old and our powers decline, much may happen to increase the
reasons for thinking death a good thing. But these are contingencies’.
(Page 89)
• Furthermore, there is a difference between living for an infinite
amount of time or living until, say, the Earth gets destroyed. There is
not way humans could have infinite desires, whether they be
categorical or hypothetical.
• In the case of EM she drinks an elixir to stay immortal. Surely, a
distinction should be made between those who choose an infinite life
and those who do not.
https:// https://
• Would everyone be immortal or just one person? ‘EM, of course, is in twilightsaga.fando www.dreamstime.com
a world of people who do not share her condition [which is] a form of m.com/wiki/ /royalty-free-stock-
isolation which would disappear if her condition were generalized’. Edward_Cullen photo-old-man-
(Page 90). Think about the concept of an afterlife. image20313005
 IMMORTALITY IS BAD, BUT NOT
BECAUSE OF BOREDOM

• I would argue that boredom is not the reason immortality is bad, as Williams suggests.
• We all experience boredom, not just immortal beings. Williams has done little to show that
boredom leads to a meaningless life.
• Rather, immortality is bad because generally we want our lives to have a total of more positive
than negative experiences. Think of the hedonic calculus. Generally, we have more control over
positive experiences than negative ones. Mostly, things like buying myself a treat, going out to
see friends, or going to watch a movie are things that bring me joy. I have made an active
decision to do all of these things. Conversely, things like the loss of a loved one, my favourite
mug breaking in a dishwasher or my bus getting cancelled bring me a greater sense of loss.
• Due to this, statistically if I were to live forever, after a while I would grow to have achieved all
of the things that I can control e.g. the positive experiences, and only be left with the negative
experiences out of my control.
 QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION

• Do you agree with Lucretius that we should not fear death? If so, what does
that mean for the case for immortality?
• If you agree that immortality is bad, do you think it is because of boredom, that
statistical chance of unhappiness, or something else? If so, what?
• Having heard the arguments, would you choose to be immortal?