Life, Death, and Meaning is designed to introduce students to the key existential questions of philosophy.

David Benatar is professor of philosophy at the University of Cape Town, South Africa.

PREFACE
INTRODUCTION
Chapter 1
THE MEANING OF LIFE
Richard Taylor, The Meaning of Life
Thomas Nagel, The Absurd
Richard Hare, 'Nothing Matters'
W.D. Joske, Philosophy and the Meaning of Life
Robert Nozick, Philosophy and the Meaning of Life
David Schmidtz, The Meanings of Life
Susan Wolf, The Meanings of Lives
Chapter 2
CREATING PEOPLE
Derek Parfit, Whether Causing Someone to Exist Can Benefit This Person
John Leslie, Why Not Let Life Become Extinct?
James Lenman, On Becoming Extinct
David Benatar, Why it is Better Never to Come into Existence
Chapter 3
DEATH
Stephen E. Rosenbaum, How to be Dead and Not Care: A Defense of Epicurus
George Pitcher, The Misfortunes of the Dead
Steven Luper, Annihilation
Fred Feldman, Some Puzzles About the Evil of Death
Frederick Kaufman, Pre-Vital and Post-Mortem Non-Existence
David B. Suits, Why Death is not Bad for the One who Died
Chapter 4
IMMORTALITY
James Lenman, Immortality: A letter
Bernard Williams, The Makropulos case: reflections on the tedium of immortality
John Martin Fischer, Why Immortality is Not So Bad
Christine Overall, From here to eternity: Is it good to live forever?
Chapter 5
SUICIDE
David Hume, Of Suicide
Immanuel Kant, Suicide and Duty
David Benatar, Suicide: A Qualified Defence
Chapter 6
OPTIMISM AND PESSIMISM
Margaret A. Boden, Optimism
Samantha Vice, Optimism and Meaning
Bruce N. Waller, The sad truth: optimism, pessimism, and pragmatism
Arthur Schopenhauer, On the Suffering of the World