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When Is Death Bad for the One Who Dies?
Author(s) -
Bradley Ben
Publication year - 2004
Publication title -
noûs
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.574
H-Index - 66
eISSN - 1468-0068
pISSN - 0029-4624
DOI - 10.1111/j.1468-0068.2004.00460.x
Subject(s) - value (mathematics) , philosophy , publishing , citation , classics , law , computer science , art , political science , machine learning
Epicurus might be interpreted as endorsing the following premises: (1) Anything that is bad for someone must be bad for that person at a parti-cular time., (2) There is no time at which death is bad for the one who dies. (Death is not bad for someone before she dies; it is not bad for her once she dies, because from that point on she no longer exists. ) Therefore, (3) death is not bad for the one who dies., While some still find this argument attractive,, most find its conclusion to be obviously false; thus much effort has been expended trying to refute its premises. In what follows I will examine the premises of Epicurus'argument in more detail, and draw out the axiological and metaphysical assumptions behind those premises. I will argue that there are good reasons to reject the second premise of Epicurus'argument. I will then provide a positive account of the time at which death is bad for the one who dies, and I will argue that my account is superior to competing accounts given by Thomas Nagel, Fred Feldman and Neil Feit. Roughly, I will argue that death is bad for the person who dies at all and only those times when the person would have been living well, or living a life worth living, had she not died when she did.,