A Critique of Epicurus’s Argument about Death
Kejia Jiang
Word count: 1419
As the founder of Epicureanism, Greek philosopher Epicurus presented the view that it is irrational to fear or hate death and death is not a misfortune for one who dies. The main idea he used to defend his argument was that no one will feel painful while dead, therefore death is not a bad thing for people and there is no need to fear it. At the first glance, the argument may seem to be plausible. However, after serious consideration, I find that the argument is not true. In this paper, I will show how the argument fails. First, I will state and explain the argument, along with its premises. Then I will present my disagreement with the argument, especially …show more content…
A2 is also straightforward and there should be no doubt about it. After someone is dead, both his physical and psychological body disappeared from this world. As far as today’s scientific knowledge we have to death is concerned, A1 should be true. To make sure that A3 can be concluded from A2, we should make a clear distinction between the stages of dying and dead. Dying is the process happened before people actually become dead, and it usually involves a lot of pain caused by the disease. Here, we should consider the latter situation and agree with what Epicurus presented. Following A2 as the premise, people will no longer exist and thus have no consciousness while dead. Therefore, People will lose the feeling of pain after they …show more content…
Why should we justify the badness of something only on the sense of painfulness or pleasure? Despite painful feelings or leading to painful experience, as Feldman mentioned in his passage Epicurus and the Evil of Death, there are other things can be bad for people. Consider one situation like following: Tom and Jack were twin orphans and adopted by different families when they were very young. Tom was adopted by a famous musician, who provided Tom with the best education opportunity and the best living conditions. While Jack was adopted by a farmer who lives in the countryside. Although the farmer could not provide the same living conditions as Tom’s adoptive family, he seen Jack as his own son and took best care of him. Both Tom and Jack had a very happy childhood. After thirty years, Tom grown up and became a famous conductor who went to performance around world every year, while Jack took his adoptive father’s farm and became a very ordinary farmer. We cannot say that Jack’s life is painful than Tom’s because they both have a very happy life, but in different ways. However, if the situation was opposite when they were adopted, Jack may have the same opportunity to become as successful as Tom. So we can say that it was a pity for Jack not to be adopted by the musician family and it was bad for him. He once had the chance to be happier than
Kejia Jiang
Word count: 1419
As the founder of Epicureanism, Greek philosopher Epicurus presented the view that it is irrational to fear or hate death and death is not a misfortune for one who dies. The main idea he used to defend his argument was that no one will feel painful while dead, therefore death is not a bad thing for people and there is no need to fear it. At the first glance, the argument may seem to be plausible. However, after serious consideration, I find that the argument is not true. In this paper, I will show how the argument fails. First, I will state and explain the argument, along with its premises. Then I will present my disagreement with the argument, especially …show more content…
A2 is also straightforward and there should be no doubt about it. After someone is dead, both his physical and psychological body disappeared from this world. As far as today’s scientific knowledge we have to death is concerned, A1 should be true. To make sure that A3 can be concluded from A2, we should make a clear distinction between the stages of dying and dead. Dying is the process happened before people actually become dead, and it usually involves a lot of pain caused by the disease. Here, we should consider the latter situation and agree with what Epicurus presented. Following A2 as the premise, people will no longer exist and thus have no consciousness while dead. Therefore, People will lose the feeling of pain after they …show more content…
Why should we justify the badness of something only on the sense of painfulness or pleasure? Despite painful feelings or leading to painful experience, as Feldman mentioned in his passage Epicurus and the Evil of Death, there are other things can be bad for people. Consider one situation like following: Tom and Jack were twin orphans and adopted by different families when they were very young. Tom was adopted by a famous musician, who provided Tom with the best education opportunity and the best living conditions. While Jack was adopted by a farmer who lives in the countryside. Although the farmer could not provide the same living conditions as Tom’s adoptive family, he seen Jack as his own son and took best care of him. Both Tom and Jack had a very happy childhood. After thirty years, Tom grown up and became a famous conductor who went to performance around world every year, while Jack took his adoptive father’s farm and became a very ordinary farmer. We cannot say that Jack’s life is painful than Tom’s because they both have a very happy life, but in different ways. However, if the situation was opposite when they were adopted, Jack may have the same opportunity to become as successful as Tom. So we can say that it was a pity for Jack not to be adopted by the musician family and it was bad for him. He once had the chance to be happier than