Life, death, and meaning: key philosophical readings on the big questions

Part I: The meaning of life. The meaning of life / Richard Taylor ; The absurd / Thomas Nagel ; "Nothing matters" / Richard Hare ; Philosophy and the meaning of life / W.D. Joske ; Philosophy and the meaning of life / Robert Nozick ; The meanings of life / David Schmidtz ; The meanings of lives / Susan Wolf

Part II: Creating people. Whether causing someone to exist can benefit this person / Derek Parfit ; Why not let life become extinct? / John Leslie ; On becoming extinct / James Lenman ; Why it is better never to come into existence / David Benatar

Part III: Death. How to be dead and not care : a defense of Epicurus / Stephen E. Rosenbaum ; The misfortunes of the dead / George Pitcher ; Annihilation / Steven Luper ; Some puzzles about the evil of death / Fred Feldman ; Pre-vital and post-mortem non-existence / Frederik Kaufman ; Why death is not bad for the one who died / David B. Suits

Part IV: Immortality. Immortality : a letter / James Lenman ; The Makropulos case : reflections on the tedium of immortality / Bernard Williams ; Why immortality is not so bad / John Martin Fischer ; "From here to eternity" : is it good to live forever? / Christine Overall

Part V: Suicide. Of suicide / David Hume ; Suicide and duty ; Immanuel Kant ; Suicide : a qualified defense / David Benatar

Part VI: Optimism and pessimism. Optimism / Margaret A. Boden ; Optivism and meaning / Samantha Vice ; The sad truth : optimism, pessimism, and pragmatism / Bruce N. Waller ; On the sufferings of the world / Arthur Schopenhauer.