Is Death Bad? - Epicurus on Death

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Күн бұрын

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@naturalisted1714 2 жыл бұрын

Non-existence (before birth) was, for each and every living being in the universe, followed by a life, due to the birth of a life. Lives will be born after you no longer exist. And so, _that_ non-existence will also be followed by a life, due to the birth of a life. Only experience is experienced. And so as long as there are brains doing consciousness-anywhere, even if it's just one brain in the entire universe-then death/non-existence will be followed by a life. This gives us reason to be concerned about ceasing to exist... Although there's nothing we can do about it.

@renegutierrez7184 3 жыл бұрын

Very good video. interesting, well explained, and succinct.

@tonyburton419 3 жыл бұрын

Agreed - although to clarify further must get round to reading David Benatars last book, "The Human Predicament" which discusses these themes in more detail.

@mayurkamble2059 2 жыл бұрын

Great Video. It will be eye opening to most of the people. I also fear about my death sometimes. Now, I can relax. Keep making such videos. You are doing great work here.

@That_Freedom_Guy Жыл бұрын

The last argument that things can still be bad for you whether you exist or not, because of an early death depriving you of more life, fails to explain how a non-existant person can feel anything. Where does the bad feeling reside, in the living or the dead?

@Robert-p7t2k 4 ай бұрын

We don't really know about subjective death; we can only speculate as to it's nature. But pain is a thing we know all too well. The pain of dying is what we fear along with proceeding into the unknown. That's (at least partially) why death has a bad reputation.

@petarhustle 2 жыл бұрын

2 years ago I almost died when I crashed into a car while cycling. I didn't know anything was coming to happen. We don't know when or how we are going to pass away, only the thought of that fear us.

@dylanrichardson199 3 жыл бұрын

I'm curious what, if any, distinctions philosophers draw between this and potential problems of valuing coming into existence or possible lives which aren't actual. It seems like the Epicurus view also requires not valuing the later to me? If so, Hillary Greaves's critique of the later view would also apply. Can't say Greaves or Nagel's critiques really work for me anyway though. Well done on the video btw!

@ThinkingAboutStuff 3 жыл бұрын

Lucretius actually draws a comparison between your pre-birth non-existence and your post-mortem non-existence. He argues that if non-existence it wasn't bad for you before you existed, then it's not bad for you after you've existed. Whether this works depends in part on one's view of time. Greaves's work is very interesting. This debate gets very complicated when one focuses on this question "At what time is death bad for you?" If Nagel says death is bad, is it bad for you before you die? That's strange. Is it bad for you after you die? If so, does that mean it's eternally bad for you? Is it bad, right now, for Ceasar that he's dead even though that was so long ago? Tough questions. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy has a good technical overview of these issues.

@CasualPhilosophy 3 жыл бұрын

This seems like another philosophical problem that falls along an internalist vs externalist divide. Is "what is is good for us" dependent solely on what we have access to in our experience, or could it consist of factors completely beyond our experience? What do you think?

@ThinkingAboutStuff 3 жыл бұрын

Yes! Great point. Epicurus is a hedonist and thinks something is good or bad for us only insofar as we can experience it. But that would mean it’s not bad for me if my spouse cheats on me as long as I never find out, which doesn’t seem correct to me. So I lean toward thinking some things can be good or bad for us apart from how they affect our experiences.

@tonyburton419 3 жыл бұрын

@@ThinkingAboutStuff Here is where some psychological behavioural science may help. So, using ACT, it will be inevitable that living brings pain, in various ways and forms which are experienced as internally "bad". But hidden in plain sight of that pain is what we care about. "We hurt where we care". Hence to reframe the pain that is where we can find our values at that time and place, within that context. If you have been betrayed - this hurts, but what does this reveal what you value in relationships? Trust, loyalty, honesty...you have confronted a part of you that is important despite the pain. These values might be a lighthouse or a guide as to how and in what way you can instantiate these in areas of your life right within that moment. By your actions and behaviours. So the lived bad may contain some wisdom within. Death is still a bad because one loses experience, but at least not experiencing it is consoling. And most pain - except from extreme perhaps from others (being stabbed, or accidental physical pain) is not an absolute bad. This is more complex than can be outlined here, , but the lived bad may contain valuable life information as to what matters the most while living

@dylanrichardson199 3 жыл бұрын

@@ThinkingAboutStuff , let me try this thought experiment out on you... Little green aliens 👽 come down to earth in their saucer 🛸, one approaches you, introduces himself and his mate and demands to see your leaders. Meanwhile, his mate walks up to one of the other aliens and publicly copulates with him. Your choices are either: A: reject them as moral agents B: acknowledge that the different consequences mean the cheating is not wrong

@ThinkingAboutStuff 3 жыл бұрын

@@dylanrichardson199 Interesting. I think part of what makes cheating wrong is the violation of trust with your partner. In fact, I think that's what makes cheating cheating. Monogamous relationships are predicated on a commitment to being exclusive. But if the aliens have no such expectation, that changes things. In fact, we don't need to imagine it. Some people are in open or polyamorous relationships where there is no such commitment or expectation of exclusivity. So sex outside those relationships don't qualify as "cheating" because they involve no such violation. (Of course, this all assumes there is no moral norm *requiring* monogamy in relationships.)

@dylanrichardson199 3 жыл бұрын

@@ThinkingAboutStuff , yes I suppose I should have specified that they where in a binding monogamous relationship, that "they had studied Earth's culture and adopted certain practices". I'll anticipate your response: if they had so easily disregarded the vow, then there was no real expectation. I.e it wasn't a *real* vow. Ok. My contention is that this is an appeal to consequences. To better illustrate this, consider having made a vow, in a moment of cloudy and hasty reasoning, to never drink water again and only consume vodka. Or to do 600 push-ups a day. Or with your significant other, to engage in a mutually non-monagmous relationship. What is it that distinguishes between these later vows and the vow of monogamy? One is to assume that to the aliens, the vow of monogamy share a particular property with the vows that you took, that when upheld, they have bad consequences. Perhaps you go back to saying something along the lines of, they didn't *really* mean these later vows. Ok. Why not?

@tuberklz 3 жыл бұрын

2:10 if there are people who think they survived you, your death will not be bad for them too

@bibbob9880 2 жыл бұрын

But wouldn't Epicurus argue that you simply wouldn't be there to miss out on anything because you're dead, the so-called "i" is non-existing and therefore there isn't any sense of consciousness that feels left out? or am I missing something. sry if it sounds confusing, English isn't my first language

@addammadd 2 жыл бұрын

Frankly, an existence without death is the most terrifying thing I can imagine. I think death is incredibly good for me. It keeps me under the impression that I am alive, that my existence matters as long as I am, and probably ceases to once I'm not.