In his recent book,
Life, Liberty, and the Defense of Dignity, he offers «four benefits» of mortality: interest and engagement, suggesting that adding, say, twenty years to the human life span would not proportionately increase the pleasures of life; seriousness and aspiration, proposing that the knowledge that our life is limited is what leads us to take life seriously and passionately; beauty and love, presenting the idea that it is precisely their perishability that makes, for instance, flowers beautiful to us, just as the coming and going of spring makes that season all the more meaningful; and, finally, virtue and moral excellence, by which he means the virtuous and noble deeds that mortality makes possible, including the sacrifice of our own life for a worthy ca
Life, Liberty, and the Defense
of Dignity, he offers «four benefits»
of mortality: interest and engagement, suggesting that adding, say, twenty years to the human
life span would not proportionately increase the pleasures of life; seriousness and aspiration, proposing that the knowledge that our life is limited is what leads us to take life seriously and passionately; beauty and love, presenting the idea that it is precisely their perishability that makes, for instance, flowers beautiful to us, just as the coming and going of spring makes that season all the more meaningful; and, finally, virtue and moral excellence, by which he means the virtuous and noble deeds that mortality makes possible, including the sacrifice of our own life for a worthy ca
life span would not proportionately increase the pleasures
of life; seriousness and aspiration, proposing that the knowledge that our life is limited is what leads us to take life seriously and passionately; beauty and love, presenting the idea that it is precisely their perishability that makes, for instance, flowers beautiful to us, just as the coming and going of spring makes that season all the more meaningful; and, finally, virtue and moral excellence, by which he means the virtuous and noble deeds that mortality makes possible, including the sacrifice of our own life for a worthy ca
life; seriousness and aspiration, proposing that the knowledge that our
life is limited is what leads us to take life seriously and passionately; beauty and love, presenting the idea that it is precisely their perishability that makes, for instance, flowers beautiful to us, just as the coming and going of spring makes that season all the more meaningful; and, finally, virtue and moral excellence, by which he means the virtuous and noble deeds that mortality makes possible, including the sacrifice of our own life for a worthy ca
life is limited is what leads us to take
life seriously and passionately; beauty and love, presenting the idea that it is precisely their perishability that makes, for instance, flowers beautiful to us, just as the coming and going of spring makes that season all the more meaningful; and, finally, virtue and moral excellence, by which he means the virtuous and noble deeds that mortality makes possible, including the sacrifice of our own life for a worthy ca
life seriously and passionately; beauty and love, presenting the idea that it is precisely their perishability that makes, for instance, flowers beautiful to us, just as the coming and going
of spring makes that season all the more
meaningful; and, finally, virtue and moral excellence, by which he means the virtuous and noble deeds that mortality makes possible, including the sacrifice
of our own
life for a worthy ca
life for a worthy cause.
It matters to God; hence it is
meaningful to speak
of the way in which, once we have come to the end
of our
life in this world, something abides — and that something is
of enormous importance and gives
dignity to our humanity, both for you and me as particular persons and also for human society in its total reality — a society
of which each
of us is a member, by virtue
of our belonging together in what an Old Testament text beautifully calls «a bundle
of life».