‘Intimations of immortality’: a response to Bernard Williams

In this article, I address Bernard Williams's famous objection to immortality. Following others, I conceive of Williams's argument as presenting a dilemma for those who hope in immortality. The first lemma involves utter boredom, while the second lemma involves loss of one's distinctive character. I argue that each lemma fails to admit realistic alternative possibilities. The first fails to admit the possibility that our disposition to boredom is a radically contingent disposition. The second fails to admit the possibility that we retain some of our most important desires and projects in immortality – even while cycling through an array of desires and projects.