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Improving the Epicurean argument for the harmlessness of death
The famous Epicurean argument that death (considered as leading to
nonexistence) is not a harm is that death doesn’t harm one when one is
alive and it doesn’t harm one when one is dead, since the nonexistent
cannot be harmed.
However, the thesis that the nonexistent cannot be harmed is
questionable: posthumous infamy seems to be a harm.
But there’s a neat way to fix this gap in the Epicurean argument.
Suppose Bob lives 30 years in an ordinary world, and Alice lives a very
similar 30 years, except that in her world time started with her
existence and ended with her death. Thus, literally, Alice is always
alive—she is alive at every time. But notice that the fact that the
existence of everything else ends with Alice does not make Alice any
better off than Bob! Thus, if death is a harm to Bob, it is a harm to
Alice. But even if it is possible for the nonexistent to be harmed,
Alice cannot be harmed at a time at which she doesn’t
exist—because there is no time at which Alice doesn’t
exist.
Hence, we can run a version of the Epicurean argument without the
assumption that the nonexistent cannot be harmed.
I am inclined to think that the only satisfactory way out of the
argument, especially in the case of Alice, is to adopt eternalism and
say that death is a harm without being a harm at any particular time.
What is a harm to Alice is that her life has an untimely shortness to
it—a fact that is not tied to any particular time.
https://alexanderpruss.blogspot.com/2024/06/improving-epicurean-argument-for.html
The famous Epicurean argument that death (considered as leading to
nonexistence) is not a harm is that death doesn’t harm one when one is
alive and it doesn’t harm one when one is dead, since the nonexistent
cannot be harmed.
However, the thesis that the nonexistent cannot be harmed is
questionable: posthumous infamy seems to be a harm.
But there’s a neat way to fix this gap in the Epicurean argument.
Suppose Bob lives 30 years in an ordinary world, and Alice lives a very
similar 30 years, except that in her world time started with her
existence and ended with her death. Thus, literally, Alice is always
alive—she is alive at every time. But notice that the fact that the
existence of everything else ends with Alice does not make Alice any
better off than Bob! Thus, if death is a harm to Bob, it is a harm to
Alice. But even if it is possible for the nonexistent to be harmed,
Alice cannot be harmed at a time at which she doesn’t
exist—because there is no time at which Alice doesn’t
exist.
Hence, we can run a version of the Epicurean argument without the
assumption that the nonexistent cannot be harmed.
I am inclined to think that the only satisfactory way out of the
argument, especially in the case of Alice, is to adopt eternalism and
say that death is a harm without being a harm at any particular time.
What is a harm to Alice is that her life has an untimely shortness to
it—a fact that is not tied to any particular time.
https://alexanderpruss.blogspot.com/2024/06/improving-epicurean-argument-for.html