Death Flashcards
Difference between fear and anxiety
Fear is fear of an object, fear can be overcome with courage. Anxiety cannot be met with courage, anxiety is what causes the sting of fear
What is the ontological question
What is it like to be dead
Landsberg
community - that two people who form communion may experience the death of the other
Edward’s view
Believes the ontological quest is logically impossible to solve
Death is not a state
Existentialism
Focuses on the unique being and freedom of each individual
Ontology
The study of what sorts of things exist and what they are
Study of being
Ewin’s view
Four concepts of death; loss of soul, vital functions, bodily integration, capacity for what is human
Perry’s view
Two conditions for meaningful survival: Survival and identity condition; the thing that survives must be you, and something must have survived after biological death
Three things that makes a person a person; same body, same sole, same mental state(ambiguous)
Problems with perry’s view
Seeing to remember vs actually remembering
Martin’s Views
believes in reincarnation
Traditional christian view
On some future day all the dead will be bodily raised both righteous and unrighteous alike god
Judgement day
Survival of a person depends on God’s resurrecting the person in both body and soul
Tension in the Christians View
Each person will be in God’s presence immediately after death?
There is one day upon which all people will be resurrected and judged?
People Die at different times
Disembodiment Theory
The soul continues to exist until resurrection without the body
The body will be raised from the ground to be reunited with the soul
The body will be transformed into a glorified body
Davis view
Disembodiment theory
The same body a person had while alive comes to be again
Soul is sufficient for survival because survival of soul entails survival of psychology
Three problems for reconstitution of earthly bodies
Which parts?
Cannabalism, what if parts are eaten
Death by duplication
Two Epicurean Beliefs
Termination thesis
- A person ceases to exist at the moment of death
Hedonism
- The only thing that is good is pleasure; the only thing that is bad is pain
Epicurus believes
Sensation ceases at death, so death is nothing to us
It is pointless to agonize over something that brings no trouble when it arrives
Epicurus Arguement
Each person ceases to exist at the moment of death
If 1, then no one has any pain after death
The only thing that is bad is pain
If 2 and 3 then death is not bad for the person who dies
Therefore death is nothing to us
Lucretius beliefs
Banquet agreement
Population argument
Reconstitution argument
Symmetry argument
The time before you were born and the time after you die are symmetrical in the sense they are both times you did not exist
Banquet Argument
Life is a banquet, your born on time and there is a time to leave
Population Argument
Please die so that there is room for the next generation
Reconstitution agreement
If death means nothing and is nothing you should not be worried about being reconstituted
Symmetry argument
The time at which you existed and the time after you existed, you should not care about it because no one cares you did not exist
Depreivation account of the badness of death
Is death bad for the person who dies on the account that the person is deprived of life
Negal beliefs
Death is bad for the person who dies when it deprives that person of future possible goods
Problems with Negals view
Showing that the dead person can actually be harmed
Assigning the harm of death
Symmetry problem
Desire satisfaction theory
The satisfaction of desires is good; not having desires satisfied is bad
Objective value theory
Some things are good or bad whatever we think and know about them
Two cases of ; can what you don’t know hurt you:
Unknown betrayal
Adult as a contented infant
Rosenbaum beliefs
Defends epicurus
What we dont know cant hurt us but only if we are able to experience it
The experience condition
Something can only be good or bad for a person if it is experienced
The existence condition
Something can only be good or bad for a person if that person exists
The “no subject” problem
No one you are talking about because they do not exist once they are dead
The asymmetry problem
Suggests that as we are wandering through life, nature holds up a mirror and looking back there is a period at which we did not exist, so therefore we should not be worried about the time after we exist
Three problems to the asymmetry argument
Backfire objection
- Accept that prenatal nonexistence must have been bad for us
Point to an asymmtery
- Between prenatal nonexistence and posthumous nonexistence
Deny Lucretius notion
- That we should have symmetrical attitudes toward symmetrical periods of non-existence
Frances Kamm
Insult Factor
- Death insults us by taking everything we have
Williams Views
Defends desire-satisfaction theory
Claims that death and immortality could be bad for the same reason - desires do not get satisfied
Contingent desires
Desires that you wish to have fulfilled if you are around to do so
If I wake up tomorrow I would like to have lunch
Categorical Desires
Those desires for the sake of which you continue living
Give your life meaning
Myth of Sisyphus
Life is absurd
Rolling the boulder up to the top of the hill only to find that the boulder comes back down indefinetly forever
Who believes in absurdity of life
Thomas Nagel and Albert Camus
Who believes death gives life meaning
Heidegger
Martha Nassbaum
Bernard Williams
Camus Views
Absurd is born of the confrontation between that humans need to be assured that our individual lives habve meaning and the unreasonable silence of the world
To escape the absurd we could have faith
Or suicide
Confucianism
Ritual propriety promoting harmony and order in society
Mourning period and rituals following death
Tension
Realizing that death is natural and rituals suggest that dead person is still alive
Daoism
Moving away from the ways we have been socialized and traditional ritual
Epicurean view of fear of death
Fear of death can ruin your life
Fear of death rests on our belief that death is or will be bad
Rorty views
Fearing death is irrational insofar as being dead is not bad for th eperson who dies
But fearing deathc ould be appropriate because it can prevent it
Murphy Views
The fear of death could be instrumental in bringing about some behavior or action that would allow a person to avoids death
Who believes fear of death is irrational, death is not bad
Epicureans
Who believes that fear of death is rational, death is not bad
Rorty
Who believes death is bad, fear of death is irrational
Feldman
Who believes fear of death is rational and death is bad
Overall’s
Feldman
We should avoid fearing death, as it can make our lives worse than if they would be if we dont fear death
Aquinas Belief
Suicide is morally wrong
Murder is a sin so suicide is too
Hume Views
Argues suicide is not always wrong
A person who ends their own life does no harm to society, at best the person no longer does good
Age nad sickness may make life a burden worse than annihilation
Nonman ever threw away a life worth living
Brandt Views
Suicide is not always wrong
Sometimes people can be a burden to society, so suicide is not wrong
Sometimes the inclination to die is stronger than the inclination to stay alive, so we might actually be doing ourselves a favor by dying
Objection 3 to aquinas view
We can suffer a lesser danger to avoid a greater danger
However the passage from life to death is up to god, there is no chance for repentance
Voluntary assisted suicide
when the person whose life is ending is asking for it to be ended
Involuntary assisted suicide
I do not want to die, someone else ends their life because it is not worth living
Nonvoluntary assisted suicide
does not actively ask, but may have no objection
What is autonomy
The ability to act on your own values and principles
Intuitive possibility of the epicureans
Fear of death is irrational, death is not bad
Infinitive possibility of Amelie forty
Fear of death is rational,death is not bad
Intuitive possibility Fred Feldman of
Death is bad, fear of death is irrational
Intuitive possibility of Christine overalls
Fear of death is rational, death is bad
