Death, badness, and the impossibility of experience

Journal of Ethics

Volumn 1, Issue 4, 1997, Pages 341-353

  Fischer, John Martin ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA   (United States)

Author keywords

Badness; Death; Deprivation; Epicurus; Experience; Harm

Indexed keywords

EID: 0005015946     PISSN: 13824554     EISSN: 15728609     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1023/A:1009771331402     Document Type: Article

References (30)

1. I am indebted to G. Dworkin for bringing this passage to my attention. In "Death," T. Nagel expresses a similar view: "It is sometimes suggested that what we really mind is the process of dying. But I should not really object to dying if it were not followed by death" T. Nagel, Mortal Questions (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1979), pp. 1-10
2. reprinted in J.M. Fischer (ed.), The Metaphysics of Death (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1993), pp. 61-69.
3. T. Nagel, Mortal Questions (1979), pp. 1-10.
4. If the individual has unpleasant experiences simply as a result of discovering or recognizing that a certain event has taken place, this is a relatively "direct" way in which that event results in unpleasant experiences. If, however, the event has consequences (other than mere recognition by the individual) that then cause unpleasant experiences in the individual, this would be a relatively "indirect" way in which the event results in unpleasant experiences. For a similar distinction, see J.McMahan, "Death and the Value of Life," Ethics 99 (1988), pp. 32-61, esp. pp. 32-34
5. this essay is reprinted in Fischer (ed.), pp. 233-266. I mean to include both direct and indirect ways of resulting in unpleasant experiences in my discussion in this paper.
6. Nagel, p. 4.
7. See J. Feinberg, Harm to Others (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984), pp. 86-87
8. R. Nozick, "On the Randian Argument," in J. Paul (ed.), Reading Nozick (Totowa, NJ: Rowman and Littlefield, 1981), p. 221.
9. For the purposes of this discussion, I will not distinguish between something's being bad for an individual and that thing's harming the individual.
10. H.S. Silverstein, "The Evil of Death," Journal of Philosophy 77 (1980), pp. 414-415 reprinted in Fischer (ed.), pp. 95-110.
11. S.E. Rosenbaum, "How to Be Dead and Not Care: A Defense of Epicurus," American Philosophical Quarterly 23 (1986), p. 221
12. the essay in reprinted in Fischer (ed.), 119-134. Another proponent of (ER II) is W. Glannon, who appears to base much of his view of death's badness on something like it. In his article, "Temporal Asymmetry, Life, and Death," American Philosophical Quarterly 31 (1994), pp. 235-244
13. Glannon is not always careful to distinguish (ER I) from (ER II). For example, the following suggests that Glannon is a proponent of (ER I):⋯ it is irrational to care now about the goods of which we allegedly will be deprived by death. For it is rational to be concerned about the pleasure and pain, the happiness and suffering, that we actually experience as persons. Yet we cannot experience anything after we die (p. 238) [emphasis added]. But I believe that Glannon's considered view is (ER II). He says: We care about future experienced goods to the extent that we can anticipate actually experiencing them in the lived future. By contrast, in the postmortem future there are no goods that we can actually experience, and so there is no reason to be concerned now about the non-actual goods of which death purportedly deprives us (p. 238) [emphasis added]. Also, Glannon says: On the intuitively plausible assumption that the value of our lives is a function of what we can experience, something is intrinsically good or bad for us only if it is possible for us actually to experience it as such (p. 238).⋯ Even if death is bad in the extrinsic sense of depriving the deceased of the goods they would have experienced if they had continued to live, it does not follow that it is rational to be concerned about death. For what makes our concern about a state of affairs rational is the possibility of our experiencing it as intrinsically good or bad, and we cannot experience anything in the state of post-mortem nonexistence (p. 241) [emphasis added].
14. The "Principle of Alternative Possibilities" states that an agent can be morally responsible for what he has done only if he could have done otherwise. In "Frankfurt-style" counter examples to this principle, an agent acts "on his own" in just the way we believe an agent typically acts when we hold him morally responsible; and yet some counterfactual intervener is associated with the agent in such a manner as to render it plausible that the agent cannot do other than what he actually does. The version of Nagel's example I develop in the text takes its cue from Frankfurt-type counterexamples to the Principle of Alternative Possibilities: H.G. Frankfurt, "Alternate Possibilities and Moral Responsibility," Journal of Philosophy 66 (1969), pp. 828-839
15. "Freedom of the Will and the Concept of a Person," Journal of Philosophy 68 (1971), pp. 5-20.
16. The presence of White, so described, appears to rule out the possibility of the betrayal's directly resulting in unpleasant experiences. Although this makes the example a bit less elegant, I also stipulate thatWhite is in a position to prevent indirect unpleasant experiences.
17. Of course, in the modified case your friends arrange for White's presence, but I assume that this in itself (and absent any interventions by White) cannot be a relevant difference. 12 Nagel, p. 5.
18. I do not here suppose that there is some interesting connection between the issues related to moral responsibility and those related to death; rather, I am simply attempting to identify the notion of possibility that is relevant to (ER II). Alternatively, one could simply say that it corresponds to Austin's "all-in" notion of possibility (or "can"): J.L. Austin, "Ifs and Cans," in his Philosophical Papers (London: Oxford University Press, 1961). That is, "narrow possibility" - having a pathway genuinely accessible to one - is picked out by Austin's "all-in" sense of "can."
19. I do not deny that someone could dig in his heels and simply insist that I have not "proved" that narrow possibility is the relevant notion of possibility. I concede this, but I think it is clear that if one bases value on the possibility of experience, it is not plausible to adopt the broader notion of possibility. The intuitive motivation for connecting value with the possibility of experience does not sit well with employing the broad notion of possibility.
20. Rosenbaum, "How To Be Dead and Not Care: A Defense of Epicurus," and "Epicurus and Annihilation," The Philosophical Quarterly 39 (1989), pp. 81-90. The latter essay is reprinted in Fischer (ed.), pp. 293-304.
21. Rosenbaum, "How To Be Dead and Not Care: A Defense of Epicurus," p. 219.
22. Suppose one sought to defend the existence requirement by basing it on some sort of requirement of the possibilty of "being affected." On this approach, something could not be bad for one, if it were impossible for one to be affected by it (quite apart from experiencing it). It seems to me that the Frankfurt-style counterexample employed above against (ER II) would also work against this sort of approach.
23. Glannon.
24. See, for example, A.L. Brueckner and J.M. Fischer, "Why Is Death Bad?" Philosophical Studies 50 (1986), pp. 213-223
25. reprinted in Fischer (ed.), pp. 221-229. See also, F. Kamm, Morality, Mortality, Vol. One (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993).
26. I am grateful to M. Otsuka for this example.
27. For these points, see Silverstein. Silverstein believed that in order to sustain his analogy between space and time, he had to argue that the future "exists atemporally." But I wish to employ the analogy with space and time without making this further argument. I do not believe that one needs to establish the additional (highly contentious) fact about the future, in order to employ the analogy. For criticism of Silverstein here, and one alternative picture of the ontological status of future events, see: P. Yourgrau, "The Dead," Journal of Philosophy 86 (1987), pp. 84-101
28. reprinted in Fischer (ed.), pp. 137-156.
29. T. Nagel also suggests the analogy between time and space in the context of death, saying "For certain purposes it is possible to regard time as just another type of distance" (Nagel, p. 6).
30. Thus, the conclusion I draw from the analogy between space and time in the context of death is different from the respective conclusions of Silverstein and Nagel. Silverstein believes that one is atemporally harmed by one's death. I believe that Nagel holds that the time of the harm of death is indeterminate. In contrast, I believe that the time of the harm is the time during which one is dead (of course, I am thereby committed to the view that one can be harmed during a time at which one does not exist). I thank M. Otsuka, D. Copp, H. Silverstein, A. Brueckner, and D. Zimmerman for their help. My work on this paper has been supported by a Fellowship for Independent Study and Research from the National Endowment for the Humanities (let us hope that the NEH does not die!). I read a version of this paper at the Western Washington State University Philosophy Conference, Bellingham, Washington in March, 1996. I benefited greatly from the stimulating discussion at this conference.