Essays on Infinite Lifespans   Russell Blackford 261 to get close to that limit if we find ourselves living healthy lives without pain or anxiety. Much of our striving for more than that seems futile, or even counterproductive. Still, I will argue that there is more to a good life than the Epicureans articulated  in  their  philosophy.  That  ‘something  more’  is what makes it undesirable to die. DEATH AS A DEPRIVATION OF ADDITIONAL LIFE We could reject the Epicurean account very quickly if we insisted that being alive, as such, is a good thing, and saw death as a misfortune simply because it deprives us of addi- tional life. That, however, creates more problems, since the concept of deprivation is not straightforward. It appears to include the idea of being denied something that it was pos- sible to have. However, in what sense is it possible for a person to  have  a  longer  life  than  (speaking  without  tense  for  the moment) she actually does have? That question raises intrac- table issues about determinism, fate, and free will, issues that it seems better to avoid if we are to make any progress. To avoid them, I want to focus more closely on the concept of fearing death. There is a relationship between fearing some kind of future event and acting to avoid or resist it. For exam- ple, we try to avoid disease by inoculations, healthy diet, good hygiene, etc. Similarly, we may avoid violence by fleeing it, or we may use force to resist. Even if the Universe is determinis- tic, our own actions to avoid or resist such things must surely form part of the chain of deterministic causes. If so, actions such as fleeing or opposing violence are rational. Thus, whether or not determinism (or fate) prevails in the Universe, there are many actions that we can take to avoid or resist events that would otherwise be the death of us. If addi- tional life is a good thing, it is rational to take such actions.