Existential Terror

The Journal of Ethics 19 (3-4):409-418 (2015)
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Abstract

Many of us feel existential terror when contemplating our future nonexistence. I examine several attempts to rationally justify existential terror. The most promising of these appeals to the effects of future nonexistence on the meaningfulness of our lives. I argue that even this justification fails, and therefore existential terror is irrational.

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10.1007/s10892-015-9204-7

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Ben Bradley
Syracuse University

Citations of this work

Unmoored: Mortal Harm and Mortal Fear.Kathy Behrendt - 2019 - Philosophical Papers 48 (2):179-209.
Death and existential value: In defence of Epicurus.Marcus Willaschek - 2022 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 106 (2):475-492.
The Rationality of Suicide and the Meaningfulness of Life.Michael Cholbi - 2022 - In Iddo Landau (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Meaning in Life. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 445-460.
Unamuno on making oneself indispensable and having the strength to long for immortality.Adam Buben - 2021 - International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 90 (2):133-148.

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References found in this work

Reasons and Persons.Derek Parfit - 1984 - Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press.
Mortal questions.Thomas Nagel - 1979 - New York: Cambridge University Press.
Meaning in Life and Why It Matters.Susan Wolf - 2010 - Princeton University Press.
Death and the Afterlife.Samuel Scheffler - 2013 - New York, NY: Oup Usa. Edited by Niko Kolodny.
Meaning in Life: An Analytic Study.Thaddeus Metz - 2013 - New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

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