The human predicament

the long version

"Are our lives meaningful, or meaningless? Is our inevitable death a bad thing? Would immortaility be an improvement? Would it be better, all things considered, to hasten our death by suicide? Many people ask these big questions - and some people are plagued by them. Surprisingly, analytic philosophers have said relatively little about these important questions about the meaning of life. When they have tackled the big questions, they have tended, like popular writers, to offer comforting, optimistic answers. [This book] invites readers to take a clear-eyed and unfettered view of the human condition."--Jacket.