Abstract
On a view most secularists accept, the deceased individual goes out of existence. How, then, can death be a bad thing for, or harm, the deceased? I consider the doctrine of subsequentism, according to which the bad thing for the deceased, or the harm of death to the deceased, takes place after he or she has died. The main puzzle for this view is to explain how we can predicate a property at a time (such as having a misfortune or being harmed) to an individual who does not exist at that time. This is the Problem of Predication. I consider alternative attempts to solve this puzzle, including one suggested by Ben Bradley, and I argue that they do not succeed. I go on to provide a new way of addressing the Problem of Predication and thus defending subsequentism against this specific threat, contrasting my approach with others currently on offer.
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Notes
Nagel (1970).
Timmerman (forthcoming) is complementary to my article in that he focuses less on the Problem of Predication and more on the proper interpretation of the question of when death is bad. He concludes that on two of the four interpretations he considers, subsequentism is true.
Among others, I have suggested this approach: Fischer (2020): 66–67.
James S. Taylor discusses the relationship between temporally relational properties and issues about the timing of the harm of death in Taylor (2014).
Silverstein offers a very insightful discussion of the relationship between temporal and spatial properties (in the context of issues about the timing of death’s harm) in Silverstein (1980). There is a huge literature seeking to explicate the general distinction between intrinsic and relational properties and also a large literature on the distinction between temporally non-relational and temporally relational facts: for some discussion, see Fischer, ed. (1989). I have claimed that typically (and oversimplifying here) a temporally relational fact is an individual’s possessing a temporally relational property at a time: Fischer (1986). All of these distinctions are challenging to characterize, although we can recognize clear cases on each side of the lines. Here we’ll have to content ourselves with being able to recognize and distinguish temporally non-relational and temporally relational properties. We will here be relying only on clear cases.
I have invoked an admittedly vague notion of anchoring. There are other problems with the contention that all attributions at T of temporally intrinsic properties to not-still-existent-at-T individuals must be anchored in the possession of intrinsic properties by an individual (or individuals) at T. Consider, for example, the properties arguably now possessed by Aristotle: being an important philosopher, an insightful philosopher, a meticulous philosopher, and so forth.
Bradley (2009): 73–111.
Bradley (2009): 107.
Bradley (2009): 107.
This is the specific problem addressed by Johansson (2013), Feit (2016), and Carlson and Johansson (2018), and others. I do not think we need to accept a “welfarist” account of well-being (or goodness in life), but nothing in my discussion will hinge on this issue. I prefer an approach that compares lives (in different possible worlds), but does not do it solely on the basis of welfare at moments (or some function of such data).
For similar worries, see Feit (2016).
I owe this point to correspondence with Randoph Clarke.
Clarke (2014).
In a pioneering paper, Fred Feldman contends that the badness of death is given by the truth of a certain comparative proposition about possible worlds: Feldman (1991). For a further discussion and development, see Feldman (1992): 143–56. Feit (2002) is an early discussion of Feldman’s view. Bradley offers a critique of the idea that this sort of analysis of the badness of death provides an adequate defense of subsequentism: Bradley (2009). Bradley’s point is that the comparative proposition is presumably true at all times, rather than the specific times of the deprivation. He distinguishes different questions, and points out that Feldman’s approach does not answer the question of when—in the sense of “at what specific time or times”—death is bad for the individual who dies: Bradley (2009): 84–6. My suggestion in what follows can be construed as a defense of the basic outlines of Feldman’s view in light of Bradley’s critique. More specifically, I propose to develop the general idea of Feldman’s approach in a way in which it answers Bradley’s incisive objection.
For a helpful overview of the literature on grounding, see: Bliss and Trogdon (2016).
Strictly speaking, one might think that events such as, Agent’s mother’s dying, or Agent’s work being lauded, are not events that occur “in” (or are “parts of”) Agent’s life. In this paper I adopt a broader conception of “in Agent’s life,” according to which such events are indeed parts of her life. This is just a simplification, and we could adjust the terminology without losing the intended content.
Purves (2016).
Purves (2016): 105.
Although they each give this "episodic" answer to the question "When is death bad?", Purves interprets the question differently from Bradley and Feit. Purves interprets the question "When is death bad?" as the question "What time(s) ground the fact that a person’s total well-being is lower that it would have been had their actual death not occurred?" He thinks the answer to that question is the episodic response, viz. "the times that the person would have been alive and had a positive level of well-being had the person’s actual death not occurred" (2016, p. 103).
Bradley (2009:85) and Feit interpret the question "When is death bad?" as "[W]hich are the times such that the death makes its victim worse off at those times than she would have been at those times if the death had not occurred?" The answer to this interpretation of the question is also, they think, the episodic response, viz. the times that the person would have been alive and had a positive well-being level had the person's actual death not occurred. (I am indebted to Timmerman [forthcoming] for the distinction between these two interpretations of the question, which are two of four he distinguishes.).
Bradley can be found giving the episodic response in his (2004) and (2009). Feit defends the following in (2021):
Time-Focused Deprivation Account: An event is bad for a person at any given time if and only if the person would have had a higher well-being level at that time if the event had not occurred (p. 89).
Feit had put forward a holistic approach in his (2002):
OBAT: State p is overall bad for s at t if and only if (1) p starts being overall bad for s at or before t, and (2) p does not stop being overall bad for s before t (p. 372).
So, it seems as if Feit took the holistic approach in his (2002) paper, but now accepts the episodic approach, as evidenced by his (2021) paper.
I am grateful for very helpful comments on previous versions of this paper by Randolph Clarke, Michael Cholbi, Jens Johansson, Andrew Law, and Michael Nelson. I have also benefitted from comments from various anonymous referees from journals that were wise enough to reject this paper in its previous incarnations, as well as an anonymous referee for this journal. Finally, I owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to Travis Timmerman for his detailed, insightful, and constructive comments on many (!) previous versions of the paper, as well as his unflagging encouragement (especially after I received those referees’ reports).
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Fischer, J.M. When is Death Bad, When it is Bad?. Philosophia 49, 2003–2017 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-021-00344-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-021-00344-4