Thomas Nagel’s paper Death would be better if renamed “Why Death is Bad” because that is the issue he is dealing with throughout it. He is not raising a general view on what death is but rather to establish a specific point about death; that it is bad. He raises the question on how we should regard death and whether “it is a bad thing to die.” Nagel is building a case for saying that death is bad, that death is an evil and that when someone dies something bad happens to them. What Nagel is trying to establish is the reputation of Epicurus who said that death is neither good nor bad because since death is not something we experience, and death is the taking away of all experience; the ability to experience, it is nothing to us, neither good nor bad. What Nagel wants to establish it that Epicurus didn’t have it right. Nagel wants to restore our common sense or natural view that death is an evil. Nagel starts off by saying that death is an evil because “of what it deprives us of.” He takes it as that life is a good, simply for the fact that one is in a state of being alive. Life is good because of its positive features which are the things that are actually part of being alive. But death is bad because of its negative features such as “it brings to end all the goods that life contains.” This view that death brings an end to all the goods that life contains can been taken one of two ways. The first way is that you can agree with Nagel and say that when one dies all good things cease to exist for that individual. I say “for that individual” because good things continue to happen even after that person has died, but for them, all good things have ended. The second way one can view this is that because of the very fact that being de... ... middle of paper ... ... it’s just as possible that there’s a possibility that there is an afterlife as there is that there isn’t. He does not consider this problem. This is a very big point one should consider because for a lot of people, the possibility of an afterlife is what makes death a little less scary and shows that it can be a good thing. If there is an afterlife, this means that we never really die. We die in the physical sense that our bodies are no longer functioning, but in a way our consciousness still exists. We are “alive” even though we are dead. Suppose that the concept of immortality is the concept of living sometime, but never dying. Consider a living thing that goes into eternal suspended animation. It never dies, but this sort of immortality is hardly better than death. It is just like living forever, therefore it does not matter on the desirability of eternal life.
His perception of human nature is that: 1) we are all mortal, in other words, life is formulated with birth and death is eminent for every living being. 2) Humans are rational creatures and retain humanity and therefore should aim to be moral. 2) Reason is a special faculty, unique to only human beings that connects them to some truth about their own nature and essential concepts; these concepts are universal, timeless, and changeless. Also sensation, beauty, relationships, and possession all pass and die, they do not possess permanence. The only thing that remains with you is your reason. A grave philosophical error that is a source for supreme suffering for human beings is forgetting, ignoring, or acknowledging that things die and nothing lasts
Without God live is meaningless. We have no purpose for existence except to exist and at the end of life all that is left is death. If there is no life after death and no offer of immortality then life itself is absurd (Craig).
In the beginning of Death, Nagel presented the question of whether it is a bad thing to die. He furnished two positions on the subject. The first position is that life is all one possesses and to lose life is the greatest loss one can encounter. The second position is that death is a blank, not an unimaginable condition, that has no positive or negative value whatsoever. Stating his aim to be considering whether death is in itself an evil, Nagel clarified that the state of being dead, or nonexistent, is not in itself evil for several reasons. First, death is not an evil that one is able to accumulate more of. A person cannot receive a larger portion of death no matter how long they have been in that state. Secondly, one would not regard temporary life suspension as harmful. In the case of long-term suspended animation or freezing, one can view this as a continuation of their present life. Thirdly, few people regard the long period of time before their birth as a misfortune. From these points, Nagel concluded that humanity does not object to death because it involves indeterminable periods of nonexistence. He then proposed that if death is an evil at all, it can only be because of what it deprives us of, since it has no positive features. He did not, however, agree with the idea that death is bad because it brings an end to all the good things in life. Nagel formulated that if all good and bad life experiences were removed, what i...
In May Miller’s Poem “Death is not Master” the persona explains that death is not the master that will increase the desperation but it is a way to become eternally calm. Many poems on the topic of death explain it as powerful thing that fears the existence of human beings, but Miller’s persona death is a way to achieve eternal serenity. She explains death as something that can end all the worldly tears, desires and tension and transform the human memory into a sculpture which is unaware of tensions. Miller’s persona believes that blocking death will be unfair as it will be a barrier to the everlasting happiness and calmness that lies inside the grave. Miller’s persona is an elaboration of Christian beliefs that death ends all worldly problems
Discussion of D.Z. Phillips Conception of Immortality In his book 'Death and Immortality', D Z Phillips starts by asking the question: does belief in immortality rest on a mistake? The first two chapters are negative in the sense that they examine traditional philosophical, as well as common sense, conceptions of what immortality means. Phillips argues that philosophical analyses centred on the notion of immortality have generally been constructed around certain essential presuppositions: presuppositions that assume some form of continuation of personal identity after death. One cannot logically deny that, by definition, death entails the end of bodily existence, so one, it seems, is logically drawn to the notion that survival after death entails the survival of some kind of non-bodily identity - the soul. In the last two chapters Phillips disputes this presupposition, claiming that a perfectly valid conception of immortality can be maintained without resorting to any form of dualism.
states that death is not bad, for it is a natural thing that is apart of everyone’s life. There
In the essay, Death and Justice, by Edward I. Koch makes his argument of why he supports capital punishment by the examination of his opposition’s arguments that are most frequently heard. Koch claims the death penalty is just and supports his claims by rebutting the arguments. Koch believes that capital punishment is a mean to uphold justice, until another form of punishments are found as a better solution. Other punishment would be inadequate and therefore unjust for the crimes that deprive someone else life.. Robert Lee Willie and Joseph Carl Shaw committed murders before the murder, they were executed for. If theses individuals had received the death penalty in the beginning, than maybe an 18 year old woman, and two teenagers could still
Life and death are dualities. These two immaterial forces culminate into a beautiful and tenuous composition creating an awareness of abject mortality that indirectly contributes to the breadth and depth of human existence. This existence or being is marked by an incessant love of life, influenced by the pervasive knowledge of eventual death. The characters in Mrs. Dalloway endeavor to grasp the meaning of both life and death through the act of resistance and/or acceptance of the impermanence of human existence as it relates to them personally and to those around them. Nietzsche’s interpretation of the themes of life
In Thomas Nagel’s “Death,” he questions whether death is a bad thing, if it is assumed that death is the permanent end of our existence. Besides addressing whether death is a bad thing, Nagel focuses on whether or not it is something that people should be fearful of. He also explores whether death is evil. Death is defined as permanent death, without any form of consciousness, while evil is defined as the deprivation of some quality or characteristic. In his conclusion, he reaffirms that conscious existence ends at death and that there is no subject to experience death and death ultimately deprives a person of life. Therefore, he states that Death actually deprives a person of conscious existence and the ability to experience. The ability to experience is open ended and future oriented. If a person cannot permanently experience in the future, it is a bad or an evil. A person is harmed by deprivation. Finally, he claims that death is an evil and a person is harmed even though the person does not experience the harm.
Thomas Nagel begins his collection of essays with a most intriguing discussion about death. Death being one of the most obviously important subjects of contemplation, Nagel takes an interesting approach as he tries to define the truth as to whether death is, or is not, a harm for that individual. Nagel does a brilliant job in attacking this issue from all sides and viewpoints, and it only makes sense that he does it this way in order to make his own observations more credible.
Our soul has already had to have these concepts before birth. Which brings him to believe the soul is capable of existing without the body, and so it is immortal.
Everyone has or will experience a loss of a loved one sometime in their lives. It is all a part of the cycle of life and death. The ways each person copes with this loss may differ, but according to Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’s novel On Death and Dying, a person experiences several stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and, finally, acceptance. There is no set time for a person to go through each stage because everyone experiences and copes with grief differently. However, everyone goes through the same general feelings of grief and loss. There are also sections in Kahlil Gibran’s “The Prophet” that connect to the process of grieving: “On Pain,” “On Joy and Sorrow,” and “On Talking.” Kahlil Gibran’s “The Prophet” reflects on Kübler-Ross’s model of the different stages of grief and loss.
In Wislawa Szymborska’s poem, “On Death, without Exaggeration”, the idea of Death is assigned characteristics of Deaths waged war against numerous quantities of emerging life that, itself, destroys life. Szymborska grew up in Poland during the Second World War, she was surrounded by Death, in addition, the experiences she had helped her to cope with Death and remain hopeful. The poem seems to make the reader think Death is an inevitable part of life and in order to appreciate life one must accept Death. However, if you read closely in the last line of the second stanza, “which is always beside the point” (7), Death is revealed to be indifferent, not accepting. Szymborska uses persona, irony, and personification to create rich
Death is something that causes fear in many peoples lives. People will typically try to avoid the conversation of death at all cost. The word itself tends to freak people out. The thought of death is far beyond any living person’s grasp. When people that are living think about the concept of death, their minds go to many different places. Death is a thing that causes pain in peoples lives, but can also be a blessing.
... learning of important things is remembered. Meaning that the knowledge we acquired before birth was lost by us at birth, and afterwards by the use of the senses we recovered that which we previously knew. For example, we are able to perceive that two sticks are equal in length but unequal in width only because we have an innate understanding of the form of equality.(4) That is, we have an innate understanding of what it means for something to be equal even though no two things we encounter in experience are themselves perfectly equal. Since we can grasp this Form of Equality even though we never encounter it in experience, our grasping of it must be a recollection of immortal knowledge we had and forgot prior to birth. This argument implies that the soul must have existed prior to birth, which in turn implies that the soul’s life extends beyond that of the body’s.