The Doomsday Scenario

The aim of this paper is to attempt to argue against a few of Samuel Scheffler’s claims that human life is only valued if there are others to come after our deaths, and to try to prove the possibility of our actions having value despite an apocalyptic event occurring, if we can look at our lives from an existentialist point of view. In his paper, Scheffler uses a scenario known as the Doomsday Scenario to justify why he believes value of life is dependant on our collective continuance.
The Doomsday Scenario goes as follows: o You will live a long and full, healthy life. However, 30 days after your death, the world and everyone you love will be hit by an asteroid that wipes out humankind on earth. You have knowledge of this tragedy throughout
This concept plays with the thought that activities can only have meaningful value if done based on your own free will, not based on what has been considered valuable in society, and any actions thought to be made based on what another would do, is an inauthentic act, thus providing no value to you, or anyone else for that matter (Crowell, 2016). I believe that authenticity can be used to challenge the idea that a collective afterlife must exist for values to remain strong despite an impending doom. For example, one can participate in cancer research because it is considered a “valuable” activity to perform for the future. Though, if one has inauthentic reasons for committing to this work – the pay is good, the credit they get feeding into their ego – then the worth of the activity diminishes significantly, as the person is not acting in good faith. In this sense, I can say that any activity initially seen as valued could be corrupted by the bad faith of other people, so it is up to the individual to see the worth in that activity and to commit to it based solely on its personal value to
From what I’ve gathered through my research, I have come to understand that human beings take death to be quite personal to them – I take this to be because maybe we cannot fully comprehend the reality of death, so we dread its impending arrival. Existentialists command for people to attempt to detach from death in a personal sense, and to step back and look at it as a vital step in life – and not just human life, but all – and urge people to see death “neither as a friend nor as a stranger” (Gray, 119). What I believe is meant by this is not to look at death in a hopeful or despairing sense, but to just look at it neutrally and to just be aware of its existence as a way of life. Our death as a whole should not be seen as wasted, but as a necessary and natural part of life and the existence of the universe, so we should exist to the fullest while we are able to enjoy existence as it is in the