A Wise Death Glenn Braddock

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A Wise DeathGlenn Braddock

• Socrates message for Evenus wish him well and
  bid him farewell, and tell him, if he is wise, to
  follow me as soon as possible.
• the aim of those who practice philosophy in the
  proper manner is to practice for dying and
  death. (Plato, Phaedo)

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Death and Wisdom

• Two assumptions about wisdom
• A wise person is not unnecessarily bothered,
  worried, or harmed
• A wise person leads, or at least attempts to
  lead, a good and valuable life
• Some things that make life worth living
• Projects and goals
• Relationships with others
• Commitments, passions
• A wise death?
• What does a wise person think about death?
• How does a wise person organize his or her life
  and attitudes given the fact that he or she will
  die?
• Death and the two assumptions If its possible
  to eliminate or reduce the harm of death, can a
  person do so and still live a worthwhile life?

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Death in this discussion

• The end of a persons existence
• My death for me, your death for you
• Not the dying process

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Epicurus and the insignificance of death

• Get used to believing that death is nothing to
  us. For all good and bad consists in
  sense-experience, and death is the privation of
  sense-experience.
• So death, the most frightening of bad things, is
  nothing to us since when we exist, death is not
  yet present, and when death is present, then we
  do not exist. Therefore it is relevant neither
  to the living nor to the dead, since it does not
  affect the former, and the latter do not exist.
  (Letter to Menoeceus)

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An objection to Epicurus argument

• Experiencing pain or the removal of pleasure are
  not the only ways to be harmed
• Can also have desires that go unsatisfied and
  interests that are thwarted
• Usually when interests are thwarted, we
  experience unpleasant feelings, but the feelings
  do not make the event bad
• For the natural view is that the discovery of
  betrayal makes us unhappy because it is bad to be
  betrayed not that betrayal is bad because its
  discovery makes us unhappy (Nagel, Death)
• Interest-thwarting account of deaths badness is
  consistent with our common intuitions about the
  comparative badness of actual deaths

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The Epicurean timing challenge

• when we exist, death is not yet present, and
  when death is present, then we do not exist
• So when is the subject harmed by the thwarting of
  his or her interests?
• Some possibilities
• There is no determinate time (Nagel)
• After death The dead have some kind of reality
  even though they dont exist (Yourgrau)
• During life when the person acquires the
  interests that will be defeated by death
  (Pitcher, Feinberg)

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What all of this suggests about the harm of death

• There is no universal answer to the question
  Does death harm the person who dies?
• It depends on whether or not the persons
  interests are thwarted by death
• Our interests are largely in our own control we
  can make our own plans, set our own goals, adjust
  our own desires
• So we have some control over whether we will be
  harmed by our own deaths
• Should a wise person adjust his or her interests
  to eliminate or reduce the harm of death?

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Problems with becoming Epicurean

• The goal of the Epicurean life the health of
  the body and the freedom of the soul from
  disturbance (Epicurus, Letter to Men.)
• To secure tranquility, limit yourself to natural
  desires for necessary things relatively easy to
  satisfy
• The purest security is that which comes from a
  quiet life and withdrawal from the many
  (Diogenes Laertius, Principle Doctrines)
• There is no need for things which involve
  struggle (Diogenes Laertius)
• So becoming Epicurean involves avoiding
• Difficult, long-term projects
• Unnecessary entanglements in personal
  relationships
• Commitments and passions
• If you adjust your life in this way, you protect
  yourself from the harm of death but at the cost
  of living an empty life

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Epicurean vs. Stoic attitude adjustment

• Epicurean Reduce your desires to those whose
  satisfaction are well within your control most
  basic needs
• Stoic Want only what actually happens calmly
  accept fate.

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Living with Fate

• Epictetus
• Do not seek to have events happen as you want
  them, but instead to want them as they do happen,
  and your life will go well (The Handbook)
• Marcus Aurelius
• To love only what happens, what was destined. No
  greater harmony (Meditations)
• So this is how a thoughtful person should await
  death not with indifference, not with
  impatience, not with disdain, but simply viewing
  it as one of the things that happens to us
  (Meditations)

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Problems with becoming Stoic

• Fatalism and helplessness
• Epictetus The most important aspect of piety
  towards the gods is certainly both to have
  correct beliefs about them, as beings that
  arrange the universe well and justly, and to set
  yourself to obey them and acquiesce in everything
  that happens and to follow it willingly, as
  something brought to completion by the best
  judgment (Handbook)
• Coldness, lack of caring and real commitment?
• Epictetus If you kiss your child or your wife,
  say that you are kissing a human being for when
  it dies you will not be upset (Handbook)
• Marcus Aurelius Blot out your imagination. Turn
  your desire to stone. Quench your appetites.
  Keep your mind centered on itself (Meditations)

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Common mistake in Epicureanism and Stoicism

• Focus on complete invulnerability
• Tendency to lead to self-centeredness, coldness,
  lack of commitment, lack of worthwhile interests
• Steven Luper To completely eliminate deaths
  sting, we require an analgesic so powerful that
  it would numb us to life (Invulnerability)

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Seneca On the Shortness of Life

• It is not that we have a short time to live, but
  that we waste a lot of it. Life is long enough,
  and a sufficiently generous amount has been given
  to us for the highest achievements if it were all
  well invested. But when it is wasted in heedless
  luxury and spent on no good activity, we are
  forced at last by deaths final constraint to
  realize that it has passed away before we knew it
  was passing. So it is we are not given a short
  life but we make it short, and we are not
  ill-supplied but wasteful of it.

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Seneca, On the Shortness of Life, continued

• But one man is gripped by insatiable greed,
  another by a laborious dedication to useless
  tasks,another sluggish with idleness
• Many pursue no fixed goal, but are tossed about
  in ever-changing designs by fickleness which is
  shifting, inconstant and never satisfied with
  itself. Some have no aims at all for their
  lifes course, but death takes them unawares as
  they yawn languidly
• Call to mind when you ever had a fixed purpose
  how few days have passed as you had planned when
  you were ever at your own disposal what work you
  have achieved in such a long life
• You are living as if destined to live forever
  your own frailty never occurs to you
• No one keeps death in view, no one refrains from
  hopes that look far ahead

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Stoicism about death without fatalism and
without goal of invulnerability?

• Stoics emphasize living in accordance with
  nature often passive acceptance of fate
• But might interpret this more loosely, as
  understanding, accepting, and adjusting to
  reality
• Senecas argument (here) is not that we should
  prepare ourselves for death at any moment, but
  that we should prepare ourselves for death when
  it is likely to come normal life expectancy
• Objection A mans sense of his own experience
  does not embody this idea of a natural limit.
  His existence defines for him an essentially
  open-ended possible future If there is no limit
  to the amount of life it would be good to have,
  then it may be that a bad end is in store for us
  all (Nagel, Death)
• Possible reply what counts as a harm or
  misfortune is constrained by the way the world
  actually works, not by metaphysical possibility

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Some Seneca-inspired advice on facing death

• Keep death in view
• Not morbid fascination with the event of dying
• Not obsessive thinking about, accepting, and
  making yourself invulnerable to the fact that
  death might come at any moment
• Rather, accept that you are mortal, that you will
  change as you age, and that your life is likely
  to last a certain number of years
• Dont waste time on ? (Seneca idleness,
  pleasure-seeking, too much concern about what
  others think of you, etc.)

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Seneca advice, continued

• Have a plan. Adjust your projects to
• The likely length of your life
• The likely structure of your life -- aging
• Your own abilities
• Life is long enough, and a sufficiently generous
  amount has been given to us for the highest
  achievements

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Summary

• Epicurean argument for harmlessness of death does
  not work because we can be harmed by unsatisfied
  desires and defeated interests, not just by
  unpleasant experiences
• Since we have some control over our interests, we
  have some control over whether we will be harmed
  by our own deaths
• Living a worthwhile life requires taking the
  risks that go along with engaging in projects,
  making commitments, having relationships. So the
  wise person will not seek invulnerability to
  death
• But the wise person can accept the reality of
  mortality and arrange his/her attitudes and goals
  accordingly, to minimize the possibility that
  death will thwart interests

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Questions about science, personal death, and the
annihilation of humanity

• Should we attempt to extend the normal human life
  span?
• Would the end of the human species be a bad
  thing?