PHI2010 Week 10 Notes Death Death What is death D eath is the unequivocal and permanent end of our existence Nagel page 734 Permanent Death No form of conscious survival Is it bad to die 1 Death is dreadful 2 No objection to death per se But hopefully it won t be premature or painful Nagel Is death in itself an evil If it is evil then how great of an evil What kind of evil What Makes Death Evil Nagel Death is an evil because it brings to an end all the goods that life contains Nagel page 734 Death is evil because of what it deprives us of E g perception desire activity thought etc This fact shows that life is not about mere organic survival e g dying now or being in a coma for 20 years or length of life e g being frozen and waking up 300 years later What about believers in immorality and or afterlife Whether death is good or bad matters even those who believe in an afterlife because their view about death colors their view about the afterlife Argument Nagel 1 There are elements which if added to one s experience make life better 2 There are other elements which if added to one s experience makes life worse 3 What remains when these are set aside is not merely neutral it is without doubt positive 4 Life is worth living even when the bas elements of experience outweigh the good ones The additional positive weight is supplied by experience itself rather than by any of its contents Asymmetry There is an asymmetry between the goodness of life and the badness of death Nagel 735 It is being alive doing certain things having certain experiences that we consider good If death is an evil it is the loss of life rather than the state of being dead or nonexistent or unconscious that is objectionable Why this asymmetry between life being good and death being bad is important If it s good to be alive then you get a point for every moment you are alive E g Kanye age 38 has more good than Tupac age 25 Death not like life in that being dead longer doesn t give more bad E g Notorious Big 1997 doesn t have more bad than ODB 2004 If death is a disadvantage it is not easy to say when a person suffers it Objections Three main objections to view that death is bad because it is loss of the good of continued life 1 Something cannot be bad if it is not unpleasant What you don t know can t hurt you 2 Difficult to say who death is bad for and when it is bad for them 3 Asymmetry between how we feel about our nonexistence before birth and nonexistent after death Objection 1 We could determine if something is good or bad in terms of good or bad states in the moment This doesn t always work e g person who wastes life in cheerful pursuit of a method of communicating with asparagus page 736 Better View Good and bad not just about what experienced in moment but in terms of history and possibilities E g adult surgically reduced to mental conditions of content infant The infant is good in the moment but the adult reduced to that state is a subject of misfortune All three objections have something to do with time Objection 2 Some goods are relational E g being in a state needing to wear diapers not bad being degenerated into a state of needing diapers is E g being a corpse is not bad but being a man who became a corpse is e g lost his wife etc such that not being a corpse is Objection 3 MOST IMPORTANT Lucretius claimed that death is simply the mirror image of one s nonexistence before birth Reply This is not true they are not same kind of nonexistence The time after your death is time of which you are deprived The direction of time matters If you were born much earlier than that would not have been you Nagel Is death bad YES Why is death bad Being dead is not worth than life the loss of life is worse than death Loss of life is bad because it is an end to your history and your possibilities Loss of life is worse than the time before you were born because once you were born you started being you you were not you before you were born Read Badness of Death by Kagen Kagen What is bad about death Is death bad Yes W hat s bad about death is that when you re dead your not experiencing the good things in life Death is bad Deprivation Account The deprivation account is an explanation of why we think death is bad The key thought is the central bad about nonexistence is that it deprives you of the goods of life you might otherwise be getting The deprivation account tells us that it s bad for us that there s this period after we die because if only we weren t page 742 Loss vs Schmoss Loss When I have lost something then I don t have it but I did have it but I did have it earlier Kagen page 743 E g nonexistence after you die will get it later Kagen page 743 Schmoss before we were born When I have schmost something I don t have it yet but I Lucretius Puzzle Lucretius It s a mistake to think death is bad for us We think death is bad for us because if we no longer exist and if we were still alive then we could enjoy the good things in life i e deprivation account BUT There is another time you don t exist the time before you were born If nonexistence it is the deprivation account makes it seem that it is shouldn t you be upset at the fact that there was also this eternity of nonexistence before you were born Kagen page 741 But Lucretius suggests that s silly right Nobody is upset about the fact that three was an eternity of nonexistence before they were born In which case he concludes it doesn t make any sense to be upset about the eternity of nonexistence after you die Kagen page 741 Responses 1 Agree with Lucretius There s nothing bad about eternity of nonexistence before I was born so there s nothing bad about nonexistence after I die 2 Partly agree with Lucretius Symmetry There s something bad about the eternity of nonexistence after I die and there s something bad about nonexistence before I was born Apply deprivation account to both 3 Partly agree with Lucretius Asymmetry There s nonexistence before I was born and after I die but there is an important difference an asymmetry that explains why we care about one loss after we die but not the other Most go with option 3 Kagen What is the difference that would justify holding this asymmetry attitude It s easy …