Is death bad? Death is bestowed upon every individual spreading between the thoughts of every man and woman. Many people insist that death is dreadful and horrifying, while others are neutral having no objection to the inevitable. The discussion between these two opposing forces leads to many fascinating ideas on the mystery of death. Many philosophers argued that, logically death should not be feared, however mankind still resent the ideas of death. American philosopher, Thomas Nagel, discusses the notion that death is bad because it deprives an individual the possibility of life. “Death” by Thomas Nagel, discusses what makes death bad for the individual and what problems arise from his theories. Nagel opposing intelligent philosophers such
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Nagel states, “ These ideas can be illustrated by an example of deprivation whose severity approaches that of death. Suppose an intelligent person receives a brain injury that reduces him to the mental condition of a contented infant, and that such desires as remain to him are satisfied by a custodian, so that he is free from care.”(6) In other words, imagine a full grown adult was involved in a serious accident, resulting to the individual’s knowledge to be compatible to that of an infant. The adult’s academic abilities are reduced to an infant, however the person is still happy. The adult has no awareness of what has occurred to him, therefore there was no suffering in the eyes of the adult. The point Nagel is trying to state is that other people would depict this as a misfortune even if the injured adult was never aware of what happened to him. The reason it is labeled as a misfortune is the fact that the injured adult was deprived of what he could have been able to do. The adult could have been succeeded academically and raise a family of his own. However, that was all lost due to the fact that it was all taken away from him from the sustaintal accident. The adult was deprived of a promising future. Death be described as such, stating that death deprived the individual who died a
Nagel states, “ These ideas can be illustrated by an example of deprivation whose severity approaches that of death. Suppose an intelligent person receives a brain injury that reduces him to the mental condition of a contented infant, and that such desires as remain to him are satisfied by a custodian, so that he is free from care.”(6) In other words, imagine a full grown adult was involved in a serious accident, resulting to the individual’s knowledge to be compatible to that of an infant. The adult’s academic abilities are reduced to an infant, however the person is still happy. The adult has no awareness of what has occurred to him, therefore there was no suffering in the eyes of the adult. The point Nagel is trying to state is that other people would depict this as a misfortune even if the injured adult was never aware of what happened to him. The reason it is labeled as a misfortune is the fact that the injured adult was deprived of what he could have been able to do. The adult could have been succeeded academically and raise a family of his own. However, that was all lost due to the fact that it was all taken away from him from the sustaintal accident. The adult was deprived of a promising future. Death be described as such, stating that death deprived the individual who died a