The Crux Of Jeffrie Murphy's Rationality And The Fear Of Death

The question of whether or not a fear of death is rational is the crux of Jeffrie Murphy’s article Rationality and the Fear of Death in which he sets out to argue that it is irrational to fear death and concludes that a fear of death is on the one hand rational if it helps the person live a meaningful life and on the other hand irrational when it has no real purpose in helping one live the way he wishes to. Murphy’s conclusion however leaves much to be desired about where one draws the line between a fear of death aiding in the quality of one’s life versus an irrational fear of death that in a sense drives one away from living. I plan on trying to define where this line can be drawn in reference to Murphy’s conclusion, as well as arguing further …show more content…
Irrationality is thus defined as that which is inappropriate or not fitting to its object whereas rationality is that which is obviously fitting and appropriate. Murphy then makes the important distinction that what he is investigating is when a person is irrational in fearing death and not a fear of death being irrational itself by providing four conditions for when it is rational for a person to fear some state of affairs. The first pair of which is that the person holds the belief that the state of affairs will be obtained and that the state of affairs is not easily avoidable and is very undesirable or evil for the person. Additionally, the second pair states that the fear of the state of affairs could be instrumental in bringing about some behavior or action that would allow the person to avoid it and that the fear is compatible with the satisfaction of the other important desires of the person. Fulfillment of the first two conditions satisfies that a fear itself is rational while fulfillment of the second two indicates that a person is rational in his fearing (Murphy, …show more content…
Murphy concludes that a prudent fear of death is perfectly rational, meaning that it provokes people into maintaining a reasonable diligence with respect to living the kind of life they regard as meaningful and that it does not interfere with all the good things in one’s life; additionally, the second part of his conclusion is that a fear of death is irrational when it can serve no legitimate purpose in one’s life or when it cannot aid one in avoiding bad things (Murphy, 1976). He implies a person with this kind of irrational fear that interferes with his life typically is the kind that requires medical or psychological help, but it seems like those are only the extreme cases and that a rational fear of death is quite normal and