#3 – Can death be harmful? Fischer against Epicureanism.

In this episode, I consider some initial objections against Fischer's view that death can harm the one who dies: that death cannot be experienced as a harm, that it has no time at which it is harmful, and that we have no more reason to fear an early death than we have do regret a late birth. Absent a successful defense to each of these challenges, Fischer would have to concede the argument to Epicurus and his followers, who contend that death is harmless. Lastly, I consider the indifference objection to Epicureanism, that were death harmless one has no reason to avoid death. Ultimately, I disagree with Fischer as I do not think Epicureanism can successfully avoid reformulations of this objection.

Transcript

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Welcome to Mortality Matters, a podcast about conceptual issues in the philosophy of death and the meaning of life. I am your host Matthew Sternberg. Can death be bad for the one who dies? Is it even possible for your death to harm you? In this episode, I shall consider several reasons as to why death does not harm the one who dies from chapter two of John Martin Fisher's book, death Immortality and Meaning in Life. In this chapter, Fisher is building off the supposition that he made in the earlier part of this chapter in which he argued that death consists in the permanent cessation of the life of the one who dies. Further, supposing that there is no afterlife and that death is a kind of experiential blank in which there is nothing, it is like to be dead. Multiple challenges arise as to the possibility of its harm. Given that death is an experiential plank, how can you be harmed by what you cannot even experience? That is the first challenge. The second challenge considers the timing of mortal harm. If death is bad for you, when is it bad for you? When does the badness of death occur? Presumably either before, during, or after you die. To this point, one might consider a quote from Epicurus who gave the following argument. So death, the most terrifying of ills is nothing to us since so long as we exist. Death is not with us, but when death comes, then we do not exist. It does not then concern either the living or the dead. Since for the former, it is not, and the latter are no more. End quote. So the idea behind the quote is that death, if it is supposed to be bad for you is a misfortune without a subject. That is to say there is no one for whom death would be bad for. While you were alive, you haven't died yet, and so it's not bad for you then and after you have died, it's not bad for you then either because you're already dead. So you might put it in terms of the timing of the harm, such that at any time death is not bad for you. So there is no time at which death is bad for the one who dies. However, if you think that in order for death to harm you, there has to be a time at which it is harmful, that is to say in which it is bad for you. I make no distinction between those two terms. Well then it can't be harmful because there's no time at which it would harm you. So that's the timing challenge to those who do think that death does harm, the one who dies. So if you wish to resolve the timing puzzle, you have to identify the time at which death does harm the one who dies if there is a time at all. One set of responses you might have to the timing puzzle is to think, well, there is no time at which death harms the one who dies, because unlike other harms such as stubbing your toe, or the pain of a toothache or something like this, death has no time at which it harms you. It's just timelessly harmful. All of these positions have been defended in the literature where there seems to be at least five different positions here. The first three being death harm's, the one who dies before, during, or after the event of death itself. In which case, that's three possible positions. The first you might think of as a pist position where the harm of death occurs before the event of death itself. The second you might think of as a concurrent position where the harm of death would concur thus to say occur at the same time or simultaneous with the death itself. And the third position being a kind of posterior position where the timing of the harm of death would occur subsequent to the event of death itself. So if you think that death is a timed harm as to say there is a time at which death does harm the one who dies, then there's three possible positions to that proposition. Namely that the time of the harm would occur either before or during or after the time of the event of death itself. Alternatively, you might also think that the time of the harm of death may be always the case. Suppose it's always true that when you die, it's harmful to you. That would be kind of an like an eternalist position. And then the fifth possible position is to deny that death has a time at which the harm would occur to you. That the nature of mortal harm itself is timeless. This is, um, a different position which denies that mortal harm has a time associated with it to begin with. Of course, each of these positions would need to be motivated in order to argue that mortal harm is possible. And yet the challenge from Arianism is so strong that in order to affirm the common sense view, that death does harm The one who dies, one must first identify the timing at which it would be so harmful. The third challenge considers our own attitudes regarding our own death, how we may fear its approach or lament the deaths of others. And yet we seem to have these asymmetrical attitudes about the future as we do about the past. So there's a quote from Lucretius that Fisher includes in this chapter. Quote, look back again to see how the unending expanse of past time before we are born has been nothing to us, for nature holds this fourth to us as a mirror image of the time to come after our death. Is there anything terrible there? Does anything seem gloomy? Is it not more peaceful than any sleep and quote? So the idea here is we seem to have these kinds of fears about the future specifically. About our future death, and yet we are not really afraid or have any kind of similar sense of regret or remorseful attitudes about our late birth. You might think about all of the time if history that occurred before you were born and it should come as some comfort to you that you really are. Most of us tend to be fairly ambivalent about that time. We're not remorseful over the fact that we weren't born thousands of years prior to whatever your birthday would be. Even though potentially we could have missed out on quite a lot of interesting and good experiences that would've been possible had we been born significantly earlier. However, so Lucretia's argument goes, the past and the future are not relevantly different. There's no dissimilarity between the past and the future, which would render it rational for us to fear our own death in the future, but not also then rational to lament our late birth that we weren't born earlier, so as to not miss out on the positive experiences that could have been acquired in the past. And so instead of lamenting our past, we should adopt a attitude about the future as we presently do about the past, and not be too concerned about our upcoming death and all the time and all the possible experiences, which could be positive, which we may have if we were to die later. And so the idea behind these symmetry arguments from Lucretius is to try to comfort you. So the thought behind both Lucretius and Epicurus way of thinking is to try to calm our irrational anxieties. These are anxieties that we may have about the inevitable, specifically about our own death, which there's no reason to have these anxieties or have any of these fears because they're not based in anything rational. So that's the ideas. And insofar as we can think about how we're not gonna be around when we die, this should provide us with some comfort as to calm our anxieties about our own mortality. So the epicurean is not merely engaged in a rational exercise by which he can demonstrate theoretically that death does not harm the one who dies. And there's no reason to fear death, but also to engage in a kind of therapy of our desire that we would desire to have. Immortal lives. This is an irrational desire. We shouldn't have this desire or further that we would have anxiety about our own death. And so it's an attempt to kind of come to grips and to achieve a kind of tranquility about one's own mortality, presuming of course that they are correct. So the epicurean denies that death is bad for the one who dies, and further, there is no reason to fear death as it doesn't harm you. So presumably we should only fear that which is harmful. So one reason you might fear death is, well, you might be imagining what it's like to be a corpse laying in the ground, perhaps having worms eat you. There's a mistake in that, right? So people who are dead are not conscious corpses. There's nothing, it's like to be dead. You just don't exist. So if the source of your fear is to be trapped in a box or to be eaten by worms or something, those are really only dangers if you were alive and conscious. So being eaten by worms doesn't actually harm a corpse because the corpse can't experience anything. However, there may be other reasons to fear your own death, not based in imagining what it's like to be a corpse, but based in other kinds of rational considerations such as missing out on the goods of life. Furthermore, epicureanism may have its own problems and there may be other reasons to reject it. Fisher considers a hypothetical hermit who has no family to care for him, and in fact, no one cares for him or about him. He happens to be walking along a train track and sees a train coming. The train is traveling incredibly quickly and will kill him instantly and painlessly if he doesn't get outta the way. Now imagine yourself as the hermit. You're walking down the train tracks and you happen to see the train coming. So consider to yourself if you were epicurean, would you have reason to get off the train tracks? Well, you might think, of course, it would be very painful to be hit by the train, but suppose for the moment that you know for certain that the death would be instantaneous and be painless. I'm not exactly sure how you could know this for certain, but the point is to try to eliminate that as a variable from the hypothetical so we can focus on what reasons you have to continue to live. Now, if you were to subscribe to Epicureanism as a way of thinking about your own mortality, suppose you decided that the arguments make sense and there is no reason to fear death, and this actually does provide you with some solace about your own death anxiety, and you're walking down the train tracks, you see the train coming, and you consider, what reason do I have to jump off the tracks to avoid being killed by the train? So the objection goes as an epicurean, you would have no consistent reason as to say if you were consistently epicurean, you must be indifferent about the prospect of your own death caused by the train. After all, death is nothing to you. That's from the quote from Epicureus, right? And it's not as if you would have reason to urgently embrace the coming of the train. You have no reason to say be suicidal, but you have no reason to preserve your own life, either. The consistent epicure. If fully rational would be indifferent about the prospect of being killed, and so further consistent and fully rational, epic curium may also be indifferent about suicide or even forming a last will and testament, or at least presuming for the moment we're only focusing on his self-interested reasons. That is to say which reasons he has out of consideration only for himself, because of course one may care for others and form a last will and testament for the sake of one's inheritors. But that's why Fisher describes a hypothetical in which it's a hermit who doesn't have anyone and is relatively asocial. So a natural response to the hypothetical would be to say, but of course you have reason to jump off the track because it will kill you. And death is scary. Death is not only scary, but death harms you, right? This is the natural thought, but that thought is unavailable to an epicuren who denies both of those propositions, who says there is no reason to fear death, and death does not harm the one who dies. So what reason would a consistent epicurean have to get off the track? So in response to this objection, Fisher defends the epicure by considering the possible goods of life. If the hermit had a reasonable expectation that there could be certain goods of life like pleasure in the future, in his future, then that would provide him sufficient reason to prefer to continue living, which would give him reason to get off the train tracks. Now, one point I haven't mentioned was that Epicurus was a hedonist, as to say he thought that ultimately what made good things good was pleasure, and what made bad things bad was pain. Epicurus actually had a somewhat nuanced and complex version of hedonism. It wasn't as simple as advocating for a life of sensualism and immediate pleasures, and of course in his system, it wasn't merely the presence of pleasure, which was good, but also the absence of pain. And furthermore, it wasn't merely the presence of pain, which was bad, but also the absence of pleasure. However, the nuances of Epicurus value theory are not altogether important in order to respond to this objection of indifference. However, I note his value theory to try to motivate the thought that in order for something to be harmful to you, it's necessary that it be possible to experience it. That experience is a kind of constraint on the possibility of harm. This further gives us some reason to doubt that death actually harms us. Because even in principle, it's not the kind of thing which could be experienced. There's no possibility of experiencing death itself as opposed to dying, which may be experienced. So Fisher argues that a consistent epi curion could point to the goods of life, the expected pleasures. If you are the hermit walking down the tracks and you have subscribed to Epicureanism, you can still consistently maintain that. Death is not bad, but it's also not good. It's just evaluatively neutral. However, if you can reasonably expect certain pleasures in the future, this would give you reason to continue living for the sake of the future. Pleasure, if not for anything else. So even. Hermit who's completely a social with no relationships or any other complications, even the hermit would've reason to get off the train tracks. And likewise, the hermit would have further reason not to commit suicide. All else being equal and the like. I'm not sure that an epic curian could consistently maintain this deprivation is position. Fisher is reading into his rendition of Epicureanism and the Epic Curian, denial of the Harm of Death. This notion of what I'm calling deprivation, which typically argues something inconsistent with epicureanism, which is that death does harm the one who dies in virtue of the absence of possible experience. Typically when somebody dies and we say this person died early, we're imagining that they could have lived a longer life filled with a net balance of positive goods as to say they could have had certain experiences which bettered their lives and on balance their lives would've been better off had they not died at that time. And that's what makes it an early death as opposed to a death. I suppose. That's on time. But how could a consistent epicurean argue that the hermit has reason to continue to live because of future pleasures, and yet we're he to be hit by the train while deliberating and thinking this over? Then his death at that time would not be bad for him. At the very minimum, the hermit would miss out on those positive experiences in the future that would obtain had he simply stopped deliberating and gotten off the train tracks. So I think we should introduce a distinction here between what we might describe as intrinsic bads and extrinsic bads. So something as bad for you intrinsically. If what makes it bad is the very thing itself, this might be one way. There are many ways of drawing the distinction between extrinsic and intrinsic goods and bads, but I prefer to draw that distinction in terms of the, in virtue of relation as to say something is good for you. Intrinsically, if what makes it good is the thing itself, it's goodness obtains in virtue of itself. It's good extrinsically if what makes it good is something else as to say it's goodness obtains in virtue of something else. And likewise, just as with goodness, we can also say this with badness such that intrinsic bads are their own bad makers as to say what makes something bad is the thing itself. And extrinsic bads are made bad in virtue of something else. So the easiest examples to think about are pleasure and pain. So if hedonism is true, then what makes any bad thing bad is pain. And what makes any good thing good ultimately is pleasure. So what is the epicurean telling us about mortal harm at the end of the day? I think what they would have to say is that death is not bad for us intrinsically as to say what makes it bad for the one who dies, if anything would be something else. And I'm not sure an epicure could consistently say that and still be epicure. I think this is a, an example where Fisher is reading his own views a bit too much into the epicurean response to this objection of indifference. Cuz I'm not sure that an epicure could consistently say that death is bad for the one who dies. Even extrinsically, let alone intrinsically for it's altogether obvious that it's not bad. Intrinsically, it's always in virtue of something else that your death would be bad for you. The only question is what, if anything, and if a epicurean is denying this, what they're in effect saying is that there is nothing that makes it extrinsically bad for you as well. Or at least that's one way to read it. Perhaps a mis that's a misreading of Epicureus view about death. But if all the epicure were doing is just drawing a distinction between what the bad makers of death are, I don't think that would be altogether interesting. Nor would it really soothe you. Perhaps you may need to change your attitude about death. If what ultimately made it bad for you was not the experiential blanket itself, but perhaps missing out on the goods of life. Perhaps the most fitting attitude towards that would be disappointment or some other kind of sadness, but it would not be fear. Fear would not be appropriate if that were ultimately what made death harmful. So returning to the hermit, if you are the hermit, standing on the train tracks, seeing the train approaching and deliberating about whether to get off the train tracks and to save your own life, if the possibility or reasonable expectation of your own future pleasures is what gives you reason to live. And death is incompatible with that. You can't experience future pleasures if you're dead, then it seems to me as if those future pleasures then give you reason not to die. And in turn, in virtue of those future pleasures, were the train to hit you while you were deliberating and were you to die. That death would be bad for you in virtue of the absence of those future pleasures. If that's the case, then death does harm. The one who dies and the epicurean view that death is harmless, is false death then would not be neutral evaluatively. So I think there's some tension here in Fisher's response to this indifference objection. I'm not sure that a epicurean can consistently maintain that death is harmless while also arguing that the possible goods of life give us reason to continue to live and to prefer to continue to live. An epicurean may respond to these objections by rejecting the view that the absence of these extrinsic factors, such as one's future pleasures would actually make your death bad for you. So this kind of epicurean would deny fisher's offer of a deprivation is explanation of the harm of death in order to consistently maintain his position that death is harmless. However, this kind of epicurean would then be challenged yet again with the indifference objection. Namely that the hermit would have no reason to jump off the train tracks. So I'm not exactly sure how epicurean can both maintain consistently that death is harmless, while also maintaining the view that we have reason to continue to live and reason to avoid death. Like if you're the hermit on the train track, there may be a solution here, though I can't quite think of one at the moment. All right, so in this episode we asked whether it's even possible for death to harm you. We considered some challenges to the common sense view that death does harm you, namely that death cannot be experienced and hence it cannot harm you. Further, there's no time at which death is bad for the one who dies. And thirdly, one should feel about one's own death the same way one feels about one's own birth indifference. And last, we considered the epic curian response, that death is harmless. In response to the epic curian denial that death is harmful, we considered the indifference objection. That were epicureanism true, then there would be no reason to not be indifferent to one's own death, that there would be no reason for the hermit to get off the train tracks, even to save his life. In subsequent episodes, we'll go into much more detail about the challenges to the proposition that death does harm the one who dies. And please don't forget to correct all mistakes in the comments.