PHL 415--Week 3
Thomas Nagel’s Death
Nagel's General Argument
1. Conscious existence ends at death.
2. There is no subject to experience death or the after
effects.
3. Death deprives a person of life.
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Therefore 4, Death deprives a person of conscious existence
and the ability to experience.
5. The ability to
experience is open ended and future oriented.
6. If a person
cannot permanently experience in the future, it is a bad or an evil. (asymmetry
justification)
7. A person is
harmed by deprivation. (talking behind one's back example)
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Therefore 8, death is an evil and a person is harmed even
though the person does not experience the harm.
Asymmetry Justification--There is an asymmetry between the
time before we were born and the time after our deaths. The time before we were
born cannot be changed and there was no exposure to experience. However, once
we are born, we experience, and thus the time after our deaths is a deprivation
of possible experiences.
Birth
Death
Time-------à| LIFE |-------àTime
A B
A¹B
Death is an evil because it deprives us of possible
experiences during Time B.
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Adapted and edited from
David Banach’s, Death
I. Definitions
A. Death—permanent death,
unsupplemented by any form of conscious survival.
B.
Evil—deprivation of some quality or characteristic.
II. The Problem of Death.
If we believe that death is the permanent end of our
conscious existence, is it a bad thing?
“”If death is the unequivocal and permanent end of our
existence, the question arises whether it is a bad thing to die.”(1)
III. Two possible positions.
A. Death deprives of us life which
is essential quality we all we have. Therefore, it is the greatest of all
losses because we lose something essential to our being. (Nagel's position)
“..life is all we have and the loss of it is the greatest loss we can
sustain.”(1)
B. Death is the end of the
subject. It is a mere blank, without a positive or negative value. There is no
subject left to experience the value. “
…and that if we realize that death is not an unimaginable condition of the
persisting person, but a mere blank, we will see that it can have no value
whatever, positive or negative.”(1)
IV. If death is an evil, it is not because of its positive
features, but because of what it deprives us. Namely, the essential quality of
life.
A. Life has value apart from its
contents. When we take away all the good and bad experiences in life what is
left over, the bare experience of life, is valuable in itself.
“There are elements which, if
added to one’s experience, make life better; there are other elements which, if
added to one’s experience, make life worse. But what remains when these are set
aside is not merely neutral: it is emphatically positive…The additional
positive weight is supplied by experience itself, rather than by any of its
contents.”(2)
1. The value of life does not
attach to mere organic survival. Surviving in a coma does not appeal to us as a
form of living.
2. The good of life can be
multiplied by time. More is better than less. The quantities need not be
continuous.
B. The state of being dead, or
nonexistent, is not evil in itself. It cannot be what makes death bad.
“…But if death is an evil, it is
the loss of life, rather than the state of being dead, or non-existent, or
unconscious, that is objectionable.” (3)
1. Death is
not an evil that one accumulates more of the longer one is dead.
“Death,
however, is not an evil of which Shakespeare has so far received a larger
portion than Proust. If death is a disadvantage, it is not easy to say when a
man suffers it.” (3)
2. We would not regard a temporary
suspension of life as a great misfortune in itself.
“If it ever happens that people
can be frozen without reduction of the conscious lifespan, it will be
inappropriate to pity those who are temporarily out of circulation.” (3)
3. We don't regard the long period
of time before we were born, in which we did not exist, as a great misfortune.
“…none of existed before we were born (or conceived), but few regard that as a
misfortune.” (3)
V. Three objections.
A. It can be doubted that anything
can be an evil unless it causes displeasure. How can a deprivation of life be
an evil unless someone minds the deprivation?
B. In the case of death there is
no subject left. How can it be a misfortune if there is no subject of the
misfortune? Who suffers the misfortune?
C. How can the period of
nonexistence after our death be bad, if the period before our birth is not bad?
VI. Replies to the objections.
A. The good or ill fortune of a
person depends on a person’s history and possibilities rather than just their
momentary state. Therefore, a terrible misfortune can befall a person even
though they are not around to experience the misfortune.
“Often we need to know his history
to tell whether something is a misfortune or not; this applies to ills like
deterioration, deprivation and damage. Sometimes his experiential state is
relatively unimportant—as in the case of a man who wastes his life in the
cheerful pursuit of a method of communicating with asparagus plants.”(5)
1. We consider ourselves to have
been injured when someone acts against our wishes or interests, even when we
are not aware of his or her actions.
“Loss,
betrayal, deception, and ridicule are on this view bad because people suffer
when they learn of them.”(5)
2. The discovery of wrongs done to
us in our absence makes us unhappy because they are misfortunes. They are not
misfortunes only because they made us unhappy when we discovered them.
“For the
natural view is that the discovery of betrayal makes us unhappy because it is
bad to be betrayed—not that betrayal is bad because its discovery makes us
unhappy.” (5)
3. We consider a person who has
suffered a severe brain injury, to have a grave misfortune, even though they
may be quite happy in their new condition. We recognize this only when we
consider the person he could be now.
“Such a development would be
widely regarded as a severe misfortune, not only for his friends and relations,
or for society, but also, and primarily for the person himself….there is some
doubt, in fact, whether he can be said to exist any longer.” (5-6)
B. Although the person as a
subject does not survive his or her death, it can still be the subject of the
misfortune. If he or she had not died, it would have gone on enjoying whatever
good there is in living.
“He has lost his life, and if he
had not died, he would have continued to live it, and to possess whatever good
there is in living.”(7)
C. The period of time after death
is time that death deprives us of. This is not true of the period of
non-existence before birth. This explains the differences in our attitudes
towards these two periods of non-existence. The asymmetry problem.
“Therefore any death entails the
loss of some life that its victim would have led had he not died at that or any
earlier point. We know perfectly well what it would be for him to have had it
instead of losing it, and there is no difficulty in identifying the loser.” (8)
D. The direction of time is
important.
“Distinct possible lives of a
single person can diverge from a common beginning, but they cannot converge to
a common conclusion from diverse beginnings. (The latter would represent not a
set of different possible lives of one individual, but a set of distinct set of
possible individuals, whose lives have identical conclusions.) Given an
identifiable individual, countless possibilities for his continued existence
are imaginable, and we can clearly conceive of what it would be for him to go
on existing indefinitely. However inevitable it is that this will not come
about, its possibility is still that of the continuation of a good for him, if
life is the good we take it to be.” (8)
VII. The question still remains
whether the non-realization of the possibility for further life is always a
misfortune, or whether this depends on what can naturally be hoped for.
A. Perhaps we can only regard as a
misfortune those deprivations which add gratuitously to the inevitable evils we
must endure. In this case, only premature death would be a great evil.
“Even if we can dispose of the
objections against admitting misfortune that is not experienced, or cannot be
assigned to a definite time in that person’s life, we still have to set some
limits on how possible a possibility must be for its non-realization to be a
misfortune (or good fortune, should the possibility be a bad one). The death of
Keats at 24 is generally regarded as tragic, that of Tolstoy at 82 is not.
Although they will both be dead forever, Keats’ death deprived him of many
years of life which were allowed to Tolstoy; so in a clear sense Keats’ loss
was greater.”(9)
B. Whether we see death as a
deprivation depends upon the point of view we take up. Nagel’s point is whether or not we consider
something from a personal or impersonal point of view.
1. Observed from the outside,
objectively, a human being cannot live much more than 100 years. From this
point of view, we can only feel deprived of those years which are allotted to
beings of our type, but which we do not live long enough to enjoy.
This
is an impersonal POV. Remember the Tolstoy and Keats example.
2. When looked at in terms of our
own experience, subjectively, our life experience seems open ended. We can see
no reason why our normal experiences cannot continue indefinitely. On this view
death, no matter how inevitable, is the cancellation of an indefinitely
extendible good. The fact that death is inevitable does not affect how it feels
in our experience to look forward to the end of our experience.
This is a personal POV. “If there
is no limit to the amount of life that it would be good to have, then it may be
that a bad end is in store for us all.” (10) Thus, death is an evil for each
one of us according to Nagel.
PHL 415--Week 3
Lucretius, Nagel, and Fischer/Brueckner
Birth Death
Time-------à|
LIFE |-------àTime
A B
A=B
Lucretius thinks that it is irrational to have different
attitudes towards A and B. He thinks they are the same and thus thinks they are
symmetrical.
Birth Death
Time-------à|
LIFE |-------àTime
A B
A¹B
Nagel thinks that it is rational to have different attitudes
towards A and B because A and B are different; and thus thinks they are
asymmetrical. Nagel supposes that one cannot be born earlier; thus, we can't be
deprived in that way of experiences and the only way we can be deprived is
through our death.
Fischer/Brueckner believe, following Nagel, that it is
rational to have different attitudes towards A and B; and thus they think they
are asymmetrical. However, they think Nagel's reason does not work because it
may be logically possible for one to be born earlier. If this is the case, then
Nagel's reason for supporting the asymmetry does not hold. In its place, they
offer their own reason for supporting the asymmetry. Drawing upon the work of
Derek Parfit who claimed there is an asymmetry between past and future
experienced bads, the reasoning goes like the following:
Fischer/Brueckner
General Argument
0) Deprivation of life is bad. (unstated given Nagel's
argument)
1) There is an asymmetry between past and future experienced
goods.
2) We are indifferent to the past, specifically pre-natal
non-existence.
3) We are partial to the future, specifically future
experienced goods like pleasure.
4) Death deprives us of future experienced goods.
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Death is a bad/evil thing because it deprives us in a way
that pre-natal non-existence does not.
and thus, the asymmetry between A and B is justified.
F/B's point is simple. Our attitude towards things in the
past is very much different from our attitudes towards things in the future.
This is a natural explanation of the asymmetry between A and B.