Abstract
Perhaps death’s badness is an illusion. Epicureans think so and argue that agents cannot be harmed by death when they’re alive (because death hasn’t happened yet) nor when they’re dead (because they do not exist by the time death comes). I argue that each version of Epicureanism faces a fatal dilemma: it is either committed to a demonstrably false view about the relationship between self-regarding reasons and well-being or it is involved in a merely verbal dispute with deprivationism. I first provide principled reason to think that any viable view about the badness of death must allow that agents have self-regarding reason to avoid (or seek) death if doing so would increase their total well-being. I then show that Epicurean views which do not preserve this link are subject to reductio arguments and so should be rejected. After that, I show that the Epicurean views which accommodate this desideratum are involved in a merely verbal dispute with deprivationism.
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Notes
This view and argument originates with Epicurus and was rigorously defended by Lucretius in his epic poem De Rerum Natura. I take all contemporary Epicureans to endorse this argument in one form or another.
For the purposes of this paper, this phrasing should be understood as the equivalent of “Deprivationism is involved in a merely verbal dispute with Epicurean views developed to accommodate such claims.” In arguing that one view is involved in a merely verbal dispute with another view, I am not claiming that one view is getting something correct in some way that the other view is not. Rather, I am merely claiming that proponents of the views appear to disagree about some subject matter, but that the appearance of disagreement is illusory. In sections three and four, I address the question of whether Epicureans or deprivationists are getting something right in a way their supposed opponents are getting wrong. Those claims, however, are logically independent of my argument that Epicureanism and deprivationism are involved in a merely verbal dispute about the central issues over which they purportedly disagree.
I am using the term ‘self-regarding reasons’ in a stipulative sense. Self-regarding reasons are the genuinely normative reasons one has to act in light of considerations about one’s well-being. Self-regarding reasons may just be prudential reasons, but without the conceptual baggage. It is sometimes assumed, if only implicitly, that prudential reasons concern only what is good for and bad for persons. But, given Epicureans’ and deprivationists’ divergent uses of terms such as good for and bad for, no such assumption should be made.
Comparativism can be formulated as follows: For any person S and event E, E is extrinsically bad (good) for S if and only if, and to the extent that, S’s total net receipt of intrinsic goods over intrinsic evils would have been greater (or smaller) if E had not occurred. See Ekendahl and Johansson (2016: 40). For other formulations of comparativism, see Feldman (1992), Feit (2002), Johansson (2005), and Luper (2009: 86–87). Many deprivationists accept comparativism, while Epicureans often deny it. According to Ekendahl and Johansson, to avoid absurdity, Epicureans should accept that death can reduce a person’s net receipt of intrinsic goods, but deny that such a death would be extrinsically bad (2016: 40–41). Severing the connection between extrinsic goods and the receipt of intrinsic goods seems no more plausible to me than denying that death can reduce a person’s net receipt of intrinsic goods. At any rate, PL and PD are weaker than comparativism and consistent with either accepting or rejecting it.
In certain cases, death may benefit a person, yet be part of a larger series of events that collectively harm a person. PD entails that this person has some self-regarding reason to seek death, but still allows that the individual has most reason, all things considered, to prevent the collective harm, which requires avoiding death. For more on plural harm and death, see Feit (2015, 2016).
In his (1970), Nagel argues that the badness of death is determined by how one’s life could have gone, not would have gone. However, every subsequent form of deprivationism is formulated in terms of how one’s life would have gone had the person’s actual death not occurred.
See also Draper (2004), Hetherington (2013), Olson (2013), and Suits (2001). I do not discuss ancient Epicureans, such as Lucretius or Epicurus, since historical interpretations of their work are contentious and because I do not need to take a stand on the correct interpretation of their positions for the purposes of my argument. That being noted, I am inclined to interpret Lucretius and Epicurus as attempting to assuage worries that death is intrinsically bad. Consequently, ancient Epicureanism can be seen as consistent with deprivationism without succumbing to anachronism. But whatever the correct historical interpretation, Epicurus’ and Lucretius’ version of Epicureanism is still subject to my dilemma. For a compelling historical interpretation of ancient Epicureanism, see Warren (2001).
Hershenov (2007: 176).
Smuts (2012: 211–213).
Taylor (2012: 44) Taylor’s distinction between harms to and harms for persons is a bit under-described. As I understand him, harms for persons can affect a person’s total well-being (i.e. the net total non-instrumental good accrued in one’s lifetime), but cannot affect a person’s momentary well-being (i.e. the net non-instrumental good possessed at any moment in time). I take this to be the charitable interpretation of Taylor. If, contrary to my interpretation, Taylor suggests that harms for persons cannot even affect one’s total well-being, then Taylor would either be committed to holding that (i) death can be a harm to persons, thereby giving up his Epicureanism or holding that (ii) death can never affect one’s total well-being. I find (ii) wildly implausible and presume Taylor would not want to accept (i). See chapter five of Taylor (2012) for an extended discussion of this distinction.
Rosenbaum (1986: 218).
More precisely, Rosenbaum writes that death “is roughly the time at which a person becomes dead…Several facts should be noted about death, in this sense. It is not clearly a part of a person's lifetime, although it may be a (very) small part. Also, it is not clear that it takes time or, if so, how much time it takes. It may be a mere moment in time separating being alive from being dead.” Rosenbaum (1986: 217–218).
Green (1982: 100).
Green might actually understand any event that impedes normal functioning to be an objective evil regardless of how the event affects a person’s total well-being. If so, then Green’s view can be precisified to either accommodate or reject ED. If it is precisified to be incompatible with ED, it should be rejected. If it is precisified to accommodate ED, then as I argue in the next section, Green will be involved in a merely verbal dispute with deprivationism.
More broadly, (i) should be read to encompass any closely related evaluative claims about death (e.g. Death can be good for a person). For ease of the dialectic, however, I will focus on the question of whether death can be bad for a person.
This is drawn from Jenkins (2014: 16).
As Jenkins (2014: 21) uses the term, a prima face dispute is anything that, at first glance, has the appearance of a real dispute.
Jenkins (2014: 20).
Epicureans usually argue that death is not to be feared. Some deprivationists have argued that fear is a fitting attitude, while others deny this. See Scheffler (2013: 87) and Draper (1999). To be clear, Epicureans and deprivationists can consistently accept or reject the claim that people should fear deaths that are bad forD them. So, debates about fitting attitudes toward death cut across debates about the badness of death. See Bradley (2015) and Timmerman (2016) for recent deprivationist discussions of fitting attitudes toward death.
Jenkins (2014: 21).
Again, they may still disagree about which of the specific senses of bad for, harm, and so on are the correct senses of these terms. That could be a substantive dispute, but that is a substantive dispute over an issue that cuts across the prima facie dispute over D.
See Ben Bradley’s (2012) for a more detailed discussion of this issue.
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Acknowledgments
For helpful feedback on earlier versions of this paper, I am very grateful to Per Algander, Gregory Antill, Sophie Ban, Kurt Blankschaen, Ben Bradley, Erik Carlson, Jason Chen, Yishai Cohen, Mark Couch, Kirsten Egerstrom, Karl Ekendahl, Neil Feit, Daniel Fogal, David Hershenov, Jens Johansson, Robert Kelly, Vicente Medina, David O’Connor, Steve Kershnar, David Limbaugh, Hille Paakkunainen, Michael Rabenberg, Stewart Shapiro, Nate Sharadin, David Sobel, Rhys Southan, Steve Steward, James Stacey Taylor, Yvonne Unna, Rodrigo Valencia, Jeff Watson, the anonymous referees at this journal, and audiences at the University at Buffalo, Stockholm University, the National Autonomous University of Mexico, the University of Tampa, and the 2015 Pacific American Philosophical Association meeting.
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Timmerman, T. A dilemma for Epicureanism. Philos Stud 176, 241–257 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-017-1014-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-017-1014-2