The following consideration of belief in an afterlife and immortality is presented as an Appendix to the main text because it requires even more abstract notions and discussion than some parts of the preceding chapters. Readers may opt to skip what follows, but given the numerous references to belief in an afterlife made in previous chapters, I believe that there exists an intellectual obligation to have a harder look at the issue of the possibility of an afterlife.

I maintain that where potential electors believe in an afterlife, the possibility of an afterlife must be acknowledged as only a possibility in deliberating elective death, and that belief in an afterlife cannot function as a fact or premise in the deliberation. However, I now recognize that Battin was right to point out that deliberation of elective death by those who do not believe in an afterlife should also include the possibility of an afterlife. However, the question that needs answering is just what that acknowledging the possibility of an afterlife amounts to and just what is believed when it is believed there is an afterlife. As will become evident, these are most difficult questions and their treatment not only requires recourse to philosophical abstraction, but also is one bound to prove controversial, particularly with readers holding religious beliefs. What follows, then, is an attempt to sort out as best I can the content of belief in an afterlife and of acknowledgment that there might be one.