Philosophy 259: Sex, Love and Death
Paper #2
Topic 3: Is death bad for the person who dies?
For many, death is defined as the “end.” We know that for many losing someone is a painful and deeply sad experience but is it bad for the one dies? To argue this view, to views were observed. Philosophers Epicurus and Nagel both believe that the state of being dead is not bad but their view differ in the process of death itself. Epicurus believes that even though we suffer before the actual “state of death’ we should learn to embrace the benefits and pleasures of life rather than focus on our non-existence and what happens after death. Nagel, however, does not believe that death is something that we should embrace, it is evil due to the deprivation …show more content…
Now, Nagel’s argument is pretty valid. Many people fear death because it deprives us of the potential benefits we could have experienced and some people that death will cause them to miss out on or lose precious activities that they could have done, however, is death bad? Nagel says death is not bad but the process is bad because it takes away our benefits of life but then if that is the case then is it bad when we are deprived of something that we want? For example, if a kid wants a chocolate bar at a store but the parent refuses does that mean that the parent is evil? No, it the parent just refused to buy the kid the chocolate bar. The problem with Nagel’s theory is that he assumes that evil is when you were deprived of something that you want or hoped for. Nagel’s view assumes that ‘it is evil to take pleasure away from someone’ but that is not true because even if some people do not achieve what they wanted or hoped for, they can’t say that something is evil because evil is defined as something that is morally wrong or …show more content…
Epicurean theory states that the goal of life is to be happy. We should seek pleasure in what we do and I, also, believe that this is a positive viewpoint. Epicurus argues that the reason we fear death is because we fear the process of death. I believe this is also true. If we think about death, some people do think about the afterlife or what happens after death but mainly, most people focus on how they will die or what the process of death feels like. But if death is regarded as the state of ‘ceasing to live’ then what is their to fear? Before we were born or during our prenatal state many people do not know what happened or how we feel and so we could assume that death is the same thing given that we assume that death is when we cease to exist. If we do not remember or feel any sadness and fear before our existence then we probably won’t feel anything after we die. We just cease to exist. So basically something should be regarded as intrinsically bad only if it causes pain. But in death we see to exist, so we do not feel anything so what is their to fear? This is also summarized in Epicurus’ reading: “Get used to believing that death is nothing to us. For all good and bad consists in sense-experience, and death is the privation of sense-experience.” (Epicurus,
Paper #2
Topic 3: Is death bad for the person who dies?
For many, death is defined as the “end.” We know that for many losing someone is a painful and deeply sad experience but is it bad for the one dies? To argue this view, to views were observed. Philosophers Epicurus and Nagel both believe that the state of being dead is not bad but their view differ in the process of death itself. Epicurus believes that even though we suffer before the actual “state of death’ we should learn to embrace the benefits and pleasures of life rather than focus on our non-existence and what happens after death. Nagel, however, does not believe that death is something that we should embrace, it is evil due to the deprivation …show more content…
Now, Nagel’s argument is pretty valid. Many people fear death because it deprives us of the potential benefits we could have experienced and some people that death will cause them to miss out on or lose precious activities that they could have done, however, is death bad? Nagel says death is not bad but the process is bad because it takes away our benefits of life but then if that is the case then is it bad when we are deprived of something that we want? For example, if a kid wants a chocolate bar at a store but the parent refuses does that mean that the parent is evil? No, it the parent just refused to buy the kid the chocolate bar. The problem with Nagel’s theory is that he assumes that evil is when you were deprived of something that you want or hoped for. Nagel’s view assumes that ‘it is evil to take pleasure away from someone’ but that is not true because even if some people do not achieve what they wanted or hoped for, they can’t say that something is evil because evil is defined as something that is morally wrong or …show more content…
Epicurean theory states that the goal of life is to be happy. We should seek pleasure in what we do and I, also, believe that this is a positive viewpoint. Epicurus argues that the reason we fear death is because we fear the process of death. I believe this is also true. If we think about death, some people do think about the afterlife or what happens after death but mainly, most people focus on how they will die or what the process of death feels like. But if death is regarded as the state of ‘ceasing to live’ then what is their to fear? Before we were born or during our prenatal state many people do not know what happened or how we feel and so we could assume that death is the same thing given that we assume that death is when we cease to exist. If we do not remember or feel any sadness and fear before our existence then we probably won’t feel anything after we die. We just cease to exist. So basically something should be regarded as intrinsically bad only if it causes pain. But in death we see to exist, so we do not feel anything so what is their to fear? This is also summarized in Epicurus’ reading: “Get used to believing that death is nothing to us. For all good and bad consists in sense-experience, and death is the privation of sense-experience.” (Epicurus,