Epicurus Bad Argument

Epicurus believed that death was a neutral event and that a person ceases to exist at the moment of death. Death is considered neither good or bad by Epicurus and his followers, but it is important to remember the distinction between dying and death. Dying could be considered a “bad” state of life since Hedonists regard pain as the only “bad” and pleasure as the only “good” in an individual’s life. This is not the case with death – based on what Feldman calls Epicurus’ termination thesis – as Epicurus states that “death is nothing to us” and that events in our lives without significant meaning should neither be feared nor treasured. According to Epicurus, death was cessation or termination of experience and existence. What Epicurus referred …show more content…
It is important to remember that according to Epicurus, the only sensation that is intrinsically bad for us is pain but there are other extrinsically bad occurrences that can harm an individual. In the fourth premise in Epicurus’ argument, the meaning of the word “bad” is unclear because “bad” is not explicitly stated as being intrinsically or extrinsically bad. The same definition of “bad” would have be applied to all other premises and the conclusion if we assumed that Epicurus meant that it is not intrinsically bad to die. This would entail that the fifth premise would then state that “being dead is not intrinsically bad for you” which is followed by the conclusion, “So, you should not fear death”. The fault in Epicurus’ argument lies in his assumption that death should not be feared just because death is not intrinsically bad, especially in the Hedonistic sense where only things that cause pain are considered bad. In other words, just because death is not painful, it does not mean we should not fear it since there are other reasons to fear death. Feldman gives an example of how a death can be painless but extrinsically bad. He describes a young boy who passes away during a surgical operation “as a result of some foul-up with anesthesia […] dies while unconscious on the table”. In this situation, I think that Feldman believes that people, regardless if they are Hedonists or not, should fear the possibility of living a shorter or less pleasurable life. He explicitly conveys his claim when he says, “his [the young boy’s] life is extrinsically bad for him because his life is on the whole intrinsically less valuable for him than it would have been if he had not died when he in fact died.” Feldman would argue that since the boy died at such a young age, the intrinsic good and value of life was lost to death. In contrast, Epicurus