Epicurus’s thinking of the soul was that since the soul is made of material and that if the soul dies, then the body dies and therefore there is no reason to fear death. This is because he believes if the soul leaves the body we will not exist to experience the death of the body. This is known as the Argument from Experience, there are two counter arguments to this argument. Firstly, the Argument from Deprivation, which states that death is harmful due to the deprivation of pleasurable experiences one is missing out on by being dead. This argument takes a comparative view on why death is harmful. Secondly, we have the Argument from Interests, death is harmful because it harms our interests after death. For these arguments to hold we assume
…show more content…
Nagel claims that death is always harmful for the person who dies. This leads to a fault in the argument in which we intuitively recognize, which is that there is no difference in hurt if you die young or if you die old. McMahan’s argument combat’s this fault by way of comparing the enjoyment in ones actual life (the one in where they are dead) by measuring the quantity and quality of enjoyment in a hypothetical life where they would still be alive. Here we establish the opportunity cost of death by recognizing that the older someone becomes, the less pleasures someone can experience since there are less possible future years of life and given a person’s circumstances (poor vs wealthy, healthy vs unhealthy) we take into account quality of life. McMahan’s existentially quantified argument disproves the Argument from Experience which is a universal quantified argument, since it states that death will never be harmful. McMahan provides the argument that death can occasionally be harmful, hence only needing one instance to discredit the Argument from Experience. Being existentially quantified gives strength to the argument, since it allows cases to which someone would not be harmed by death. For example, if someone dies of a heart attack at 90 years of age, given their age something is bound to fail due to our biological aging, if not the heart then the liver, brain, etc.. We could conclude that this individual’s time has come or that they had lived a fulfilled
Nagel claims that death is always harmful for the person who dies. This leads to a fault in the argument in which we intuitively recognize, which is that there is no difference in hurt if you die young or if you die old. McMahan’s argument combat’s this fault by way of comparing the enjoyment in ones actual life (the one in where they are dead) by measuring the quantity and quality of enjoyment in a hypothetical life where they would still be alive. Here we establish the opportunity cost of death by recognizing that the older someone becomes, the less pleasures someone can experience since there are less possible future years of life and given a person’s circumstances (poor vs wealthy, healthy vs unhealthy) we take into account quality of life. McMahan’s existentially quantified argument disproves the Argument from Experience which is a universal quantified argument, since it states that death will never be harmful. McMahan provides the argument that death can occasionally be harmful, hence only needing one instance to discredit the Argument from Experience. Being existentially quantified gives strength to the argument, since it allows cases to which someone would not be harmed by death. For example, if someone dies of a heart attack at 90 years of age, given their age something is bound to fail due to our biological aging, if not the heart then the liver, brain, etc.. We could conclude that this individual’s time has come or that they had lived a fulfilled