Discussion Topic #14: Existential Geometry

In Chapter 13, Other “Aspects of Death”, Kagen talks about various different life geometries. What I would like to do is to refer to his remarks, and perhaps my own (on the last 7 or 8 slides of lecture #18) as a springboard for this discussion assignment. Specifically, I would like you to do the following:

(1) Using your own considered deliberations, I want you to ask yourself which (if any) of the six life shapes described in the diagrams in Part 6 of Lecture #18, all things being equal, most appealing to you. Then I want you to explain your reasoning, remembering that you need not settle on any given one of them. (Condition: When you do this, I want you to assume that the diagrams have been constructed by those who accept a simple hedonist account of human well-being. However, I am not requiring that you be a hedonist, as opposed to a desire satisfaction or objective list theorist unless you have already decided that you are a hedonist. Doing this exercise should help you to determine two things. It should help you determine whether or not you think that a simple hedonistic account is adequate. Moreover, if you don’t think it’s adequate, this exercise should help you articulate why you think that’s the case.

(2) Upon deciding what the best of these “life geometries” is (if you think there is one), ask yourself the question: Are there any essential connections between this geometry of distribution of the good things of life and the capacity a life has for the sort of narrative continuity described in the previous lecture? (For instance, you might think that figure 2 describes a life which offers the best chance for meaningful narrative continuity because it represents the existence of growing accomplishment, in which the good things in life increase continually from birth to death. Perhaps you think that such a life offers the promise of an especially coherent personal narrative because this is a life trajectory in which one’s plans and projects best come to fruition.)