Thomas Nagel's Death

As I have just read “Death” by Thomas Nagel, I gained much insight in regards to what death really means to him. He begins his argument by stating the question that always rises concerning whether it is a bad thing to die or not. He notes that there is disagreement in this matter and starts by giving reasons towards his hypothesis towards the subject. He asserts that life is worth living even if the negative aspects may overshadow the positive ones, and that experience itself should be what matters most, as opposed to the contents of those experiences. Nagel goes on to say that his conclusion about death is that it is definitely bad since it deprives people of the goods in life. He mentions that it’s the experiences, activities, and certain …show more content…
He then provides another reason why his philosophy holds true. He mentions the possibility of an intelligent person receiving a brain injury that results in diminishing their mental state to that of an infant. The person that this tragic thing happened to seems to be perfectly content, and in addition doesn’t directly feel any pain or suffering, but our instincts lead us to believe that of course this is a misfortune. We look at it as misfortune because if this horrible thing didn’t happen to the person, they would be substantially more successful in life, rather than only being capable of achieving tasks an infant is capable of doing. Nagel then goes on to refute the hypothesis that Lucretius made regarding prenatal existence. He explains how Lucretius observed that we shouldn’t fear death since it is the “mirror image” of our prenatal existence, but Nagel knocks his philosophy down. He states that the time before a man’s birth and after a man’s death the man does not exist, however, the time after his death he is being deprived of the goods in life due to his