Death and immortality

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.title[
# Death and immortality
]
.subtitle[
## Thomas Nagel
]
.date[
### PHIL 2350 The Meaning of Life - FS23
]

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# Agenda for this week

1. Course evaluation
2. Video Lecture 1: Thomas Nagel: Death
3. Video Lecture 2: Bernard Williams: The Makropulos Case: Reflections on the Tedium of Immortality
4. Exam

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# Course evaluation

If you have not done it yet, head out to https://evaluation.missouri.edu/ and fill out the course evaluation form.

The form will be available until Dec 7th.

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# Questions for this week

1.	Why, according to Nagel, death is always bad for those who die?
2.	Why might one think that death is _not bad_ for those who die?
3.	According to Nagel, why is the deprivation of a good a bad thing for a person?
4.	According to Nagel, can something that we don’t experience be a bad thing for us?
5.	According to Nagel, is _not having been born yet_ a bad thing?
6.	According to Nagel, is death bad for an 82-year-old person?
7.	According to Williams, why is death reasonably considered a bad thing?
8.	According to Williams, why is immortality undesirable?
9.	According to Williams, what are categorical desires?
10.	According to Williams, does death have a role in giving meaning to life?

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# Death and the meaning of life

If life is meaningful through __self-fulfillment__ (Feinberg), or through __youthful play__ (Schlick), or by one's __active engagement in projects of worth__ (Wolf), then death must be a _bad thing_, because it prevents one from doing the activities required for one's life to have meaning.

If life is meaningful, then there must be an __afterlife__, because if there's no afterlife, then the importance and value of life would be finite, and thus severly limited.

- Is death really a _bad thing_ for us? 
- Can death ever be a _good_ thing? 
- Can death have an essential role in giving _meaning to life_?

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# Nagel's _Death_

Main thesis: Death is always bad for those who die.

1.	If something deprives someone of a good, then that thing is bad for that person. 
2.	Life is a good for a person.
3.	Death is the deprivation of a person’s life.
4.	Therefore, death is always bad for the person who dies.

Important note: We are not concerned here with the goodness/badness of death _for others_, different from the deceased person. People might suffer due to losing the life of a person, and in that sense, it’s obviously bad for them. But is death bad _for the person who dies_?

But isn't it _obvious_ that death is bad for us?

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# Argument from intrinsic hedonism

By Epicurus (~300 BCE):

1.	A person’s experiences of pleasure are the only things that are intrinsically good for her, and her experiences of pain are the only things that are intrinsically bad for her (intrinsic hedonism).
2.	Therefore, something is good or bad for a person only if it is an _experience_.
3.	A person’s death is not an experience.
4.	Therefore, a person’s death is not good or bad for her.
5.	Therefore, a person’s death is not bad for her.

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# No-subject argument

1.	Something can be bad for a person only if the person exists.
2.	Death occurs to a person that doesn’t exist.
3.	Therefore, death is not bad for a person.

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# The symmetry argument

By Lucretius (~60 BC)

1.	Death is bad for a person if and only if not having been born yet is bad for a person.
2.	Not having been born yet is not bad for a person.
3.	Therefore, death is not bad for a person.

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# Nagel: death as deprivation

- The deprivation of a good is a bad thing for a person because __it is the loss of the person’s valuable possibilities__ that the lost good previously afforded to her. 
- Valuable possibilities: possibilities of happiness (experiences of pleasure/pain, or satisfaction of desires, or attainment of other goods such as health, knowledge, etc.).
- This is bad for the person even if the person now doesn’t exist, or is not able to experience the loss. 
- But to be _deprived_ of a good, the person must have possessed it (previously).

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> 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 can be satisfied by a custodian, so that he is free from care. Such a development would be widely regarded as a severe misfortune, not only for his friends and relations, or for society, but also, and primarily, _for the person himself_. This does not mean that a contented infant is unfortunate. The intelligent adult who has been reduced to this condition is the subject of the misfortune. He is the one we pity, though of course he does not mind his condition—there is some doubt, in fact, whether he can be said to exist any longer. (p. 218)

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## Response to the intrinsic hedonism argument

Nagel: Premise (2) is false, as it is not the case that something is good or bad for a person only if it is an experience. An event can be bad for that person even if that person doesn’t _experience_ the consequences of that event. We can have the loss of possibilities without experiencing any pleasure or pain.

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# Response to the no-subject argument

1.	Something can be bad for a person only if the person exists.
2.	Death occurs to a person that doesn’t exist.
3.	Therefore, death is not bad for a person.

Nagel: Premise (1) is false, as it is not the case that something can be bad for a person only if the person exists. An event can be bad for that person even if that person no longer exists. A person can lose valuable possibilities and so become a proper subject of harm, even if that person is deceased.

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# Response to the symmetry argument

1.	Death is bad for a person if and only if not having been born yet is bad for a person.
2.	Not having been born yet is not bad for a person.
3.	Therefore, death is not bad for a person.

Nagel: Premise (1) is false, as it is not the case that death is bad for a person if and only if not having been born yet is bad for a person.

- It’s not clear how to identify a subject who has not been born yet, but it is clear how to identify a subject who will die, after being granted life. 
- Furthermore, the deprivation of the good of life can only occur to the person who already has had it.

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# Dying at 24 vs. dying at 82

Nagel’s account can explain the commonsense idea that to die at 24 is worse than to die at 82: The life of a 24-year-old carries many possibilities. The life of an 82-year-old carries fewer possibilities.

But does that mean that death is _not bad_ for an 82-year-old person?

Nagel’s response: No, because from the person’s perspective, life appears open-ended and essentially limitless.

> “Viewed in this way, death, no matter how inevitable, is an abrupt cancellation of indefinitely extensive possible goods. Normality seems to have nothing to do with it, for the fact that we will all inevitably die in a few score years cannot by itself imply that it would not be good to live longer.” (p. 221)