Reading Analysis of Philosophy
Reading Analyses: An analysis (approximately 400 words long) where you explain and critically examine an argument in the assigned readings. Each analysis should be 4 paragraphs long: paragraph one should explain some argument in the reading; paragraph 2 should raise a (possible) problem for that argument; paragraph 3 should state what you take to be the best response to that problem; and paragraph 4 should who you think has the stronger argument, and why. Analyses are graded on clarity, accuracy, and strength of the objections considered. References to the reading are required. These should be in-text, author’s name and page number, e.g., (Kagan, p. 44).
chapter 10
The Badness of Death
Let’s take stock. Broadly speaking, up to this point we have been engaged in metaphysics. We tried to get clear about the nature of the person so that we could get clearer about the nature of survival, which in turn allowed us to reach a better understanding of the nature of death. I have, of course, defended a physicalist view, according to which, essentially,
people are just bodies capable of doing some fancy tricks, bodies capable of P functioning. And details aside, death is a matter of the body breaking, so that it’s no longer able to engage in the relevant functioning.
Of course, as we saw, depending on the par tic u lar theory of personal identity that you accept, we might have to say slightly diff erent things about
whether the death of my body means that I no longer exist, and we might need to distinguish between the death of the body and the death of the person,
and so forth. But details aside, the following is true: when the body breaks, I cease to exist as a person. And even if we can hold out the bare logical possibility of my surviving the death of my body, I see no good reason to believe that any of those logical possibilities actually happen.
As far as I can see, then, when my body dies, that’s it. Of course, as a fan of the body view, I believe that I will still exist for a while aft erward. I will exist as a corpse. But that’s not the kind of existence that gives me what matters, since what I want is not just to exist, nor even just to be alive, but to be a person, and indeed a person with pretty much the same personality.
And the truth of the matter is, when my body dies, that’s all history.
The Badness of Death
So that’s where we are at in terms of the metaphysics. We could summarize all of this by saying that when I die, I cease to exist. Of course, that’s a little bit misleading, given the view I have just endorsed, where even though I’m dead I still exist for a while as a corpse. But those issues won’t concern us in what we are about to turn to. Accordingly, in order to simplify the discussion
that follows, I propose to leave these complications aside. Let’s suppose that my body gets destroyed at the very moment that it dies. Perhaps I will be
merrily going my way when a bomb explodes nearby, killing me instantly and blowing my body to bits. If so, then the very same moment will mark
the end of my body, the end of my existence, the end of my personhood, and the end of what matters. Death will be the end— full stop. It remains true, of
course, that in other less tidy scenarios these various things can come apart; but as I say, these details won’t matter for the topics to come. What we’re going to do, then, in the remaining chapters, is to turn to value theory. We spent the fi rst nine chapters of this book trying to get clear about the metaphysical facts. But having done that, I now want to turn to ethical and evaluative questions, investigating them in light of our (slightly
simplifi ed) conclusion that death is the end. For example, we all believe that death is bad. But why is death bad? How can death be bad? And if it is bad,
would it indeed be better if we lived forever? As we shall quickly discover, there are plenty of puzzling issues to be explored here as well.
The Deprivation Account
The fi rst question we are going to consider is this: how and in what ways is death bad? I take it, aft er all, that most of us do believe that death is bad.
(Or, at least, would be bad, if it really were the end.) So the fi rst thing we need to ask is whether death really is bad, as we typically take it to be, and,
if so, what is it about death that makes it bad?
Of course, in thinking about this question I am simply going to assume (from here on out) that the metaphysical view that I’ve been sketching
is right, that physicalism is true. Th e death of my body is the end of my existence as a person. Death is my end. But if that’s right, how can it be bad for
me to die? Aft er all, once I’m dead, I don’t exist. If I don’t exist, how can it be bad for me that I’m dead?
It is, of course, easy to see how you might worry about the badness of death if you thought you would survive your death. If you believed in a soul,
for example, then you might reasonably worry about what is going to happen to your soul aft er you die. Are you going to make it up to heaven? Are
Th e Badness of Death 207
you going to go to hell? You might worry about how badly off you’re going to be once you’re dead. Th e question makes perfect sense. In contrast, however,
it has oft en seemed to people that if death really is the end— and this is of course precisely what I am assuming— then death can’t truly be bad for
me. How could anything be bad for me once I’m dead? If I don’t exist, it
seems reasonable to say, it can’t be bad for me.
People sometimes respond to this thought by saying that death isn’t
bad for the person who is dead. Death is bad for the survivors. Fred’s death
isn’t bad for Fred. Fred’s death is bad for the people who loved Fred and
who now have to continue living without Fred. Fred’s death is bad for
Fred’s friends and family. When somebody dies, we lose the chance to continue
interacting with the person. We’re no longer able to talk with them,
spend time with them, watch a movie, look at the sunset, have a laugh. We’re
no longer able to share our troubles and get their advice. We’re no longer
able to interact with them. All of that is gone, when somebody dies.
And the claim might be, that’s the central bad of death. Not what it
does for the person who dies. Death isn’t bad for the person who dies. It’s
bad because of what it does to those left behind.
Now I don’t in any way want to belittle the importance of the pain
and suff ering that happen to us when somebody that we care about dies.
Death robs us— we, the survivors— of our friends and loved ones. Th is is
certainly one central and very bad thing about death. Here’s a poem that
emphasizes this thought. It is by the German poet Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock,
and it is called Separation:
?
You turned so serious when the corpse
was carried past us;
are you afraid of death? “Oh, not of that!”
Of what are you afraid? “Of dying.”
I not even of that. “Th en you’re afraid of nothing?”
Alas, I am afraid, afraid . . . “Heavens, of what?”
Of parting from my friends.
And not mine only, of their parting, too.
Th at’s why I turned more serious even
than you did, deeper in the soul,
when the corpse
was carried past us.
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208 Th e Badness of Death
According to Klopstock, it seems, the crucial badness of death is losing
your friends. When they die, you lose them. And as I say, I don’t in any
way want to belittle the central badness of that. But I don’t think it can be at
the core in terms of what’s bad about death. I don’t think that can be the
central fact about why death is bad. And to see this, I want you to compare
two stories.
Story number one. Your friend is about to go on the spaceship which
is leaving to explore a distant solar system. She will be gone for years and
years. Indeed, by the time the spaceship comes back, one hundred years will
have gone by. (Because of “relativistic” eff ects, your friend will have aged
only ten years, but you will be long dead.) Worse still, twenty minutes aft er
the ship takes off , all radio contact between the earth and the ship will be
lost, until their return. Th us, all possibility of future communication with
your friend is about to be lost forever. Now, this is horrible. You’re losing
your closest friend. You will no longer be able to talk to her, get her insights
and advice. You’ll no longer be able to tell her about the things that have
been going on in your life or learn about hers. Th is is the kind of separation
that Klopstock was talking about. It’s horrible, and it’s sad. Th at was story
number one.
Story number two. Th e spaceship takes off , and then, tragically, twentyfi
ve minutes into the fl ight, it explodes in a horrible accident and everybody
on the spaceship is killed instantly, including your friend.
I take it that story number two is worse. Something worse has taken
place. But what is this worse thing? It can’t be the separation. Of course, we
do have the separation in story number two. You can’t communicate in the
future with your friend; she can’t communicate with you. But we had that
already in story number one. If there’s something worse about story number
two— and I think it’s pretty clear that there is something worse— it’s not
the separation. It’s something about the fact that your friend has died. Admittedly,
this is worse for you, too, since you care about your friend. But the
explanation of why it upsets you so to have her die presumably lies in the
fact that it is bad for her to have died. And the badness for her isn’t just a
matter of separation, because we already had that in story number one. You
couldn’t communicate with her. She couldn’t communicate with you.
If we want to get at the central badness of death, it seems to me, we
can’t focus on the badness of separation, the badness for the survivors. We
have to think about how it could be true that death is bad for the person
that dies. Th at’s the central badness of death and that’s the aspect that I’m
going to have us focus on. But that only points us in the right direction; it
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Th e Badness of Death 209
doesn’t yet answer our question. How can it be true that death is bad for the
person that dies? What exactly is it about my death, or the fact that I am
going to die, that makes that bad for me?
In thinking about this question it is important to be clear about what
we’re asking. In par tic u lar, we are not asking whether or how the pro cess of
dying can be bad. For I take it to be quite uncontroversial— and not at all
puzzling— that the pro cess of dying can be a painful one. Suppose, for example,
that I will someday be ripped to pieces by Bengali tigers. If so, then
the actual pro cess of dying would be horrible. It would be incredibly painful.
So it obviously makes sense to talk about the pro cess of dying as something
that could potentially be bad for me.
But at the same time, it must be admitted that the pro cess needn’t be
particularly painful or otherwise bad for me in itself. I might, aft er all, die
in my sleep, in which case the pro cess of dying would not be bad in itself. At
any rate, I take it that for most of us, although we might have some passing
concern that our pro cess of dying might be a painful one, that’s not the
central thing we are concerned about when we face the fact that we are going
to die.
Similarly, of course, many of us fi nd the prospect of dying to be unpleasant.
Th at is to say, one of the things that’s bad about my death for me is
that right now I’ve got some unhappy thoughts as I anticipate the fact that
I’m going to die. But again, that can’t be the central thing that’s bad about
death, because it would only make sense for the prospect of my death to be
a painful or unpleasant one if death itself is bad for me. Having fear or anxiety
or concern or regret or anguish or what ever it is that I have now at the
thought that I’m going to die piggybacks on the logically prior thought that
death itself is bad for me. If it didn’t piggyback in that way, it wouldn’t make
any sense to have fear or anxiety or dread or anguish or what ever it is that I
may be feeling right now.
Suppose I say to you, “Tomorrow something’s going to happen to you
and that thing is going to be simply fantastic, absolutely incredible, unqualifi
edly wonderful.” And you reply, “Well, I believe you and I have to tell
you, I’m just fi lled with dread and foreboding in thinking about it.” Th at
wouldn’t make any sense at all. It makes sense to be fi lled with dread or foreboding
or what have you only if the thing you’re looking forward to, the thing
you are anticipating, is itself bad. Maybe, for example, it makes sense to
dread going to the dentist, if you believe that being at the dentist is a painful,
unpleasant experience. But if being at the dentist isn’t itself unpleasant, it
doesn’t make sense to dread it in anticipation.
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210 Th e Badness of Death
So again, if we’re thinking about the central badness of death, it seems
to me that we’ve got to focus on my being dead. What is it about my being
dead that’s bad for me? And when we pose that question it seems as though
the answer should be simple and straightforward. When I’m dead, I won’t
exist. (Remember, we are putting aside the potential complication that I
might exist for a while as a corpse; for simplicity, we are supposing that I am
killed in an explosion that simultaneously destroys my body.) Doesn’t that
give us the answer, right there, to what’s bad about death? When I’m
dead, I won’t exist. Isn’t that the straightforward explanation about why
death is bad?
And what I want to say, in eff ect, is this. I do think the fact that I won’t
exist provides the key to getting clear about how and why death is bad. But
I don’t think it’s altogether straightforward. As we’ll see, it actually takes
some work to spell out exactly how nonexistence could be bad for me. And
even having done that, some puzzling questions will still remain.
Initially, to be sure, the basic idea seems to be straightforward enough.
When I’m dead, I won’t exist. Isn’t it clear that nonexistence is bad for me?
Pretty quickly, however, that answer can come to seem pretty unsatisfactory.
How could nonexistence be bad for me? Aft er all, the whole idea of
nonexistence is that you don’t exist! And how could anything be bad for
you when you don’t exist? Isn’t there a kind of logical requirement that for
something to be bad for you, you’ve got to be around to receive that bad
thing? A headache, for example, can be bad for you. But of course, you exist
during the headache. Headaches couldn’t be bad for people who don’t exist.
Th ey can’t experience or have or receive headaches. How could anything be
bad for you when you don’t exist? And in par tic u lar, then, how could nonexistence
be bad for you when you don’t exist?
So it’s not, as I say, altogether straightforward to see how an appeal to
nonexistence genuinely explains the badness of death, as opposed to simply
refocusing our attention on the problem. If I say that death is bad for me
because when I’m dead I don’t exist, we should still fi nd ourselves puzzled
as to how it could possibly be that nonexistence can be bad for me.
Th e answer to this objection, I think, is to be found in drawing a distinction
between three diff erent ways in which something can be bad for
me. First of all, something can be bad for me in an absolute, robust, intrinsic
sense. Take a headache, again, or some other kind of pain— stubbing
your toe or getting stabbed or being tortured. Pain is intrinsically bad. It’s
bad in its own right. It’s something we want to avoid for its own sake. FreCopyright
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Th e Badness of Death 211
quently enough, things that are bad for you are bad intrinsically; they’re
bad by virtue of their very nature.
Second, many things are instrumentally bad: something may not be
bad in itself, but bad by virtue of what it causes or leads to. In par tic u lar, it
might lead to something that is, in itself, intrinsically bad. Losing your job,
for example, is not intrinsically bad— it’s not bad in and of itself— but it is
instrumentally bad, because it can lead to poverty and debt, which in turn
can lead to pain, suff ering, and other intrinsic bads.
But there’s another way of something being bad for you, a third way
that it’s easy to overlook. Something can be bad comparatively. Something
could be bad because of what you’re not getting while you get this bad
thing. It could be bad by virtue of what economists call the “opportunity
costs.” It’s not that it’s intrinsically bad, nor even that it’s instrumentally
bad; it’s bad because while you’re doing this, you’re not getting something
better.
How could that be? Let’s have a simple example. Suppose that I stay
home and watch some game show on TV. I watch the show and I have a
good enough time. How could that be bad for me? In terms of the fi rst way
of being bad, being intrinsically bad, it’s not bad. It’s a pleasant enough way
to spend half an hour. And we can certainly imagine that it’s not bad in
the second way either: it isn’t instrumentally bad. (Watching a half hour of
TV, let’s suppose, won’t lead to anything bad for me.) But still, for all that, it
might be bad in the third way. Suppose, for example, that instead of staying
at home, watching a half hour of tele vi sion, I could be at a really great party.
Th en we might say that the fact that I’m stuck home watching tele vi sion is
bad for me in this comparative sense. It’s not that it is, in itself, an unpleasant
way to spend some time. It’s not that it leads to something unpleasant.
It’s just that there’s a better way to spend the time (if only I had remembered).
Because I’m forgoing that greater good, there’s something bad, comparatively
speaking, about the fact that I’m at home watching TV. Th ere’s a
lack of the better good. A lack is not intrinsically bad, and it needn’t be an
instrumental bad, but it’s still a kind of bad in this third, comparative, sense.
To be lacking a good is, in this comparative sense, bad for me.
Similarly, suppose I hold out two envelopes and I say, “Pick one.” You
pick the fi rst one and you open it up and you say, “Hey look, ten bucks! Isn’t
that good for me?” Well, of course, ten bucks is good. Admittedly, it’s not
intrinsically good (not worth having for its own sake), but it is certainly
instrumentally good (it can help you buy ice cream, for example, which can
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2
Th e Badness of Death 213
Epicurus
Despite the overall plausibility of the deprivation account, it’s not all smooth
sailing. Th ere are various objections that still need to be faced. Some people
have found these objections so overwhelming that they have concluded that
the deprivation account should not be accepted aft er all. Indeed, some have
argued for the rather surprising conclusion that death is not, in fact, bad for
me at all!
Th e fi rst objection starts with what seems to be a quite general metaphysical
principle: if something is true, there’s got to be a time when whatever
is being talked about is (or was, or will be) true. Facts can be dated. For
example, I— Shelly Kagan— am typing some words right now about the
badness of death. Th at’s a fact. When was it true? Th at is, when was I typing?
Right now: Tuesday, August 16, 2011, at 10:30 p.m. Here’s another fact:
Th omas Jeff erson used to be president of the United States. When was that
true? From March 4, 1801, to March 4, 1809. Th ings that are facts can be
dated.
Okay, that seems right. But if it is right, then immediately we’ve got a
puzzle. Can it really be true that my death is (or was, or will be) bad for me?
Aft er all, if my death is bad for me, that would be a fact. So we are entitled
to ask, when is that true? When is death bad for me? It doesn’t seem plausible
to answer by saying that it’s bad for me now. Death isn’t bad for me
now. I’m not dead now! Maybe, then, death is bad for me when I’m dead?
But that seems very hard to believe as well. I mean, when I’m dead, I won’t
even exist. How could anything be bad for me then? Surely you’ve got to exist
for something to be bad for you. So, there’s a puzzle about dating the badness
of death.
Now, it may be that this puzzle about time and the date of the badness
of death is what the ancient Greek phi los o pher Epicurus had in mind in a
passage I want to share with you. Th is passage has troubled people for two
thousand years. Epicurus seems to be putting his fi nger on something genuinely
puzzling about death, but it’s diffi cult to pin down exactly what it is
that’s bugging him. Here’s the passage from Epicurus that I have in mind:
So death, the most terrifying of ills, is nothing to us, since so
long as we exist, death is not with us; but when death comes, then
we do not exist. It does not then concern either the living or the
dead, since for the former it is not, and the latter are no more.?
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214 Th e Badness of Death
As you can see, it’s not altogether clear what Epicurus is bothered by
here, but one possible interpretation is that he’s thinking about our puzzle
concerning the timing of the badness of death. Death can’t be bad for me
now, because I’m alive. And death can’t be bad for me when I’m dead, because
at that point I will be no more. (How can things be bad for me then?)
But if death has no time at which it’s bad for me, then the purported fact
that death is bad for me can’t really be a fact aft er all. Contrary to what we
normally believe, death isn’t bad for me.
Regardless of whether this really is what Epicurus had in mind, we
need to ask ourselves, how can we respond to this argument? One way, of
course, is to accept it and conclude that death isn’t truly bad for me. And
some phi los o phers have indeed embraced that very conclusion (including
Epicurus). Most of us, however, want to insist that death really is bad. Th at
requires showing where the argument goes wrong. And as far as I can see,
if we are going to reject the argument, there are only two ways to do this.
First, we could grab the bull by the horns, agree that facts need to be dated,
and then say when death is bad for me. Alternatively, second, we could challenge
the assumption that all facts are datable.
Let’s start with the second. Could there be some facts that we can’t
date? Maybe. Here’s a possible example. Suppose that on Monday I shoot
John. I wound him with the bullet that comes out of my gun. But it’s not a
wound directly into his heart. He simply starts bleeding. And he bleeds
slowly. So he doesn’t die on Monday. He’s wounded and he’s dying, but he
doesn’t die on Monday. Next, imagine that on Tuesday I have a heart attack
and I die. John’s still around— bleeding, but still around. On Wednesday,
though, the loss of blood fi nally overtakes him and John dies. Th at’s the
sequence: I shoot John on Monday, I die on Tuesday, and John dies on
Wednesday.
I killed John. I take it we’re all in agreement about that. If I hadn’t shot
him, he wouldn’t be dead. I killed him. Th at’s a fact. But when did I kill
him? Did I kill him on Monday, the day I shot him? Th at doesn’t seem right.
He’s not dead on Monday, so how could I have killed him on Monday? And
Tuesday is clearly no better: John is still alive on Tuesday as well. John
didn’t die until Wednesday. So did I kill him on Wednesday? But how could
that be? I don’t even exist on Wednesday! I died on Tuesday. How can I kill
him aft er I’m dead? So I didn’t kill him on Monday, I didn’t kill him on
Tuesday, and I didn’t kill him on Wednesday. So when did I kill him?
Maybe the answer is that there’s no par tic u lar time at all when I killed
John. But for all that, it’s true that I did kill him. What makes it true that
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Th e Badness of Death 215
I killed him? What makes it true is that on Monday I shot him, and on
Wednesday he died from the wound. Th at’s what makes it true. But when
did I kill him? Maybe we can’t date that. Suppose we can’t. If we can’t, then
there are facts that you can’t date, like the fact that I killed John. If there are
facts that you can’t date, then maybe this is another one: my death is bad for
me. When is my death bad for me? Maybe that fact simply cannot be dated,
but for all that, it really is a fact. So that’s one way of trying to resist the argument:
we might reject the assumption that all facts can be dated.
Of course, the thought that all facts can be dated is a very powerful
one. Perhaps you’ll fi nd yourself thinking about this example for a while
and come up with an acceptable answer to the question of when I killed
John. Indeed, maybe on refl ection you will decide that it really is true that
all facts can be dated. (Th ere are, of course, other puzzling examples besides
the one I just gave that you would need to think about as well.) If
you do decide that all facts can be dated, and yet you still want to insist
that my death is bad for me, then you will need to take the other approach,
and come up with the time. Can we do that? Can we say when death is bad
for me?
I don’t think it would be very promising to claim that death is bad
for me now. I am not dead now, so it is very hard for me to see how my death
can be bad for me now. But it isn’t 100 percent clear to me that the other
alternative is similarly unacceptable. Why not say that death is bad for me
when I am dead? Aft er all, when is a headache bad for me? When the headache
is occurring. So why not say, similarly, that death is bad for me when I
am dead?
According to the deprivation account, the badness of death consists
in the fact that when you’re dead, you are deprived of the goods of life. So
when is death bad for you? Presumably, during the time when you are being
deprived of the goods of life. Okay, when are you deprived of the goods of
life? When you’re dead. When does the deprivation actually occur? When
you’re dead. So perhaps we should just say to Epicurus (if this really was
Epicurus’s argument), “You were right, Epicurus, all facts have to be dated.
But we can date the badness of death. My death is bad for me during the
time I’m dead, since during that time I am deprived of— I’m not getting—
the good things in life that I would be getting if only I were still alive.”
Th at does seem to be a possible response to the argument. But of
course, it just immediately returns us to an earlier puzzle. How could it be
that death is bad for me then? How could it be that death is bad for me when
I don’t even exist? Surely, I have to exist in order for something to be bad for
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216 Th e Badness of Death
me— or, for that matter, for something to be good for me. Don’t you need to
exist in order for something to be good or bad for you?
Th is line of thought points to a diff erent possible interpretation of
Epicurus’s argument. Perhaps the argument he has in mind is really this:
(A) Something can be bad for you only if you exist.
(B) When you are dead you don’t exist.
So (C) death can’t be bad for you.
Here’s the quote from Epicurus again:
So death, the most terrifying of ills, is nothing to us, since so
long as we exist, death is not with us; but when death comes,
then we do not exist. It does not then concern either the living
or the dead, since for the former it is not, and the latter are no
more.
Of course, the passage from Epicurus still isn’t altogether clear, but
maybe he’s got in mind something like this new argument. Maybe Epicurus
thinks: (A) something can be bad for you only if you exist; (B) when
you’re dead you don’t exist; so (C) death can’t be bad for you.
Regardless of whether this is what Epicurus had in mind, what should
we say about this new argument? For our purposes, we are taking (B) as
given. When you’re dead, you don’t exist. And so the conclusion (C), that
death can’t be bad for you, is going to follow, once we accept (A). Call (A)
the existence requirement. Something can be bad for you— or, for that matter,
good for you— only if you exist. Th at’s the existence requirement for
bads and goods.
If we accept the existence requirement, it looks as though we have to
accept the conclusion, that death can’t be bad for you. So what should we
say? Maybe we should just reject the existence requirement. Admittedly, in
typical cases— cases involving pains, being blind, being crippled, losing
your job, and so on— things are bad for you while you exist. Indeed, in the
ordinary case, in order to receive bads, you have to exist. But perhaps that’s
only the ordinary case— not all cases. Perhaps for certain kinds of bads you
don’t even need to exist in order for those things to be bad for you.
What kind of bads could be like that? Arguably, the comparative bads
of deprivation are like that. To lack something, aft er all, you don’t need to
exist. Indeed, the very fact that you don’t exist might explain why you are
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Th e Badness of Death 217
deprived, why you are lacking. Of course, not all lacks are like that. Remember
the tele vi sion case, where you are watching TV but could have been at a
great party. Obviously enough, you existed while you were watching TV
and deprived of the party. Similarly, in our envelope example, you existed
while you were getting the mere $10 instead of the $1,000. So sometimes
deprivations coincide with existence. But the crucial point about deprivations
is you don’t even need to so much as exist in order to be deprived of
something. Nonexistence guarantees that you’re deprived of something.
So perhaps we should just reject the existence requirement. Perhaps
we should say that when we’re talking about lacks, when we’re talking
about deprivations, (A) is wrong. Something can be bad for you even if you
don’t exist. Th e existence requirement is false. Th at would be a way to respond
to this second possible interpretation of Epicurus’s argument. By
rejecting the existence requirement, we’d be able to retain the thought that
death is bad.
Unfortunately, there are some implications of rejecting the existence
requirement that may be rather hard to swallow. Th ink about what we
would be saying. In rejecting the existence requirement, we would be saying
that something, in par tic u lar nonexistence, can be bad for somebody,
even though they don’t exist. Th at’s why my death can be bad for me. But
if nonexistence can be bad for somebody even though they don’t exist, then
nonexistence could be bad for somebody who never exists. It can be bad for
somebody who is a merely possible person, someone who could have existed
but never actually gets born.
It’s hard to think about somebody like that. So let’s try to get at least a
little bit more concrete. I need two volunteers. I need a male volunteer from
among my readers. And I need a female volunteer from among my readers.
Okay, good. Now what I want the two of you to do is this: go have sex and
have a baby.
Let me just suppose that this isn’t actually going to happen. Still, we
can consider the possible world in which it did happen. We can consider
the never- to- be- truly- actualized possibility in which this par tic u lar man
and that par tic u lar woman would have sex and have a baby. His sperm
joins with her egg to form a fertilized egg. Th e fertilized egg develops into a
fetus. It’s the fetus we created by mixing egg 37, say, with sperm 4,000,309.
Th e fetus is eventually born. Th e baby grows up. None of this is going to
happen, but it could have happened.
Th us, there is a person that could have been born but never does, in
fact, get born. Let’s call that par tic u lar person— who could have been born
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218 Th e Badness of Death
but never does get born—Larry. Larry is a possible person. He could exist
(my two readers could have sex), but he won’t exist (they won’t have sex).
Th at’s why Larry is only a possible person. Now, how many of us feel sorry
for Larry? Probably nobody. Aft er all, Larry never even exists. How can we
feel sorry for him?
Th at answer made perfect sense when we accepted the existence
requirement— the claim that something can be bad for you only if you exist.
Since Larry never exists, nothing can be bad for Larry. But once we give
up on the existence requirement, once we say something can be bad for you
even if you never exist, then we no longer have any grounds for withholding
our sympathy from Larry. We can say, “Oh my gosh! Th ink of all the
goods in life that Larry would have had, if only he’d been born. But he never
is born, so he’s deprived of all those goods.” And if death is bad for me, by
virtue of being deprived of the goods of life, then nonexistence is bad for
Larry too, by virtue of his being deprived of all the goods of life. I’ve got it
bad. I’m going to die. But Larry’s got it worse. We should really feel much
sorrier for Larry. But I bet you don’t feel sorry for Larry, this never- to- beborn-
at- all person.
In thinking about this case, it’s important not to slip back into some
form of dualism. In par tic u lar, don’t start imagining Larry as already having
a soul, desperately wishing he would be born. Th ere’s a scene in Homer,
I think, where some sort of sacrifi ce is being made and all the dead souls
hover around, longing to be alive again, wishing they could savor the taste
and smell of the food. If you’ve got a picture of the non ex is tent, merely possible
but never- to- be- born individuals as somehow really already existing
in a kind of ghostlike state, wishing they were born, maybe you should feel
sorry for them. But that’s not at all what is going on in the physicalist picture
that I am assuming. Non ex is tent people don’t have a kind of spooky,
I-wish- I-were- alive ghostlike existence. Th ey just don’t exist, full stop. So
once we keep that in mind about Larry, it’s very hard to feel sorry for him.
Of course, while I have been prattling on about how he’s deprived of
all the good things in life, maybe you have started feeling sorry for Larry.
So it’s worth getting clear about just what it would mean to take seriously
the thought that it’s bad for merely potential people never to be born. I want
you to get a sense of just how many merely potential people there are. It’s
not just Larry, the unborn person that would exist if we mixed egg 37 and
sperm 4,000,309, that would have to be an object of our sympathy. No, we
would need to feel sorry for a vastly larger number of merely potential
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Th e Badness of Death 219
people. For the fact is, there is an incredibly large number of merely potential,
never- to- be- born individuals.
How many? A lot. How many? I once tried to do the calculation, and
I recently updated it slightly. As you’ll see, the calculation is an utterly
“back of the envelope” sort of thing, extremely rough and completely inadequate
in all sorts of ways. But at least it’ll give you a sense of just how many
potential people there are.
Let’s start modestly and ask: how many possible people could we, the
current generation, produce? Well, how many people are there? In round
numbers, as I write in 2011, there are about 7 billion people. Roughly half of
them are men, half of them are women.
What we want to know then is, how many possible people could the
3.5 billion men make altogether with the 3.5 billion women? Th e crucial
point in thinking about this is to realize that every time you combine a different
egg with a diff erent sperm you end up with a diff erent person. If you
combine an egg with a diff erent sperm, you get a diff erent ge ne tic code that
develops into a diff erent person. Or if you combine that sperm with a diff erent
egg, you get a diff erent person. Th us, for example, if my parents had had
sex fi ve minutes earlier or fi ve minutes later, presumably some other sperm
would have joined with the egg. Th e baby that might eventually have been
born would not have been me. It would have been some sibling being born
instead of me. Change the egg, change the sperm, you get a diff erent person.
So what we really want to know is, how many sperm- egg combinations are
there with roughly 7 billion people in the world?
Let’s see. Th ere are 3.5 billion women. How many eggs can a woman
have? As we will see, the precise number doesn’t really matter all that much,
so we can approximate. In round numbers, a woman produces 12 eggs a
year, for roughly 30 years. So that’s the number of eggs per woman. Actually,
I discovered some time aft er having done this calculation that the number
of possible eggs is far greater than this. Although a woman ovulates and
gives off roughly this many eggs during her fertile years, I gather that there
are actually many, many other cells that could have developed into eggs but
never do. So that’s a much, much larger number of potential eggs. But this
will do for our purposes: 30 years times 12 eggs a year.
Men next. Th ere are roughly 3.5 billion men. Each man has a much
longer period in which he’s able to produce sperm. Let’s just use round numbers
here, and say he’s fertile for 50 years. How many times a day can the
man have sex? Well, certainly more than once, but let’s be modest here and
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220 Th e Badness of Death
just say once a day. So that’s 50 years times 365 times a year. Each time a
man ejaculates he gives off a lot of sperm. How much sperm? A lot. As it happens,
I looked this up once. In round numbers, there are 40 million sperm
each time a man ejaculates. So we need to take the number of times the
man can ejaculate over his life and multiply this by 40 million sperm.
Okay, so we take all the men that exist now and all the women that
exist now, and we ask, how many possible sperm- egg combinations are
there? Th at will give us a sense of the number of possible people the current
generation could produce. Of course, most of these people are never going
to be born— but what we are looking for is the number of possible people.
How many possible people are there? Here’s the equation:
3.5 billion women × 30 years/woman × 12 eggs/year × 3.5 billion
men × 50 years/man × 365 days/year × 40 million sperm/day =
approximately 3 million billion billion billion (3 × 10??)
I’ve done a lot of rounding here, including the fi nal calculation, but in
very rough terms that gives us 3 million billion billion billion diff erent possible
people. Th at’s 3 × 10??. Th at’s how many possible people we could have,
roughly speaking, in the next generation, of which, obviously, only a minuscule
fraction are going to be born. And the crucial point is this: if you’re
going to feel sorry for Larry, you’ve got to feel sorry for every merely possible
person. Every person who could have been born but never gets born.
And there are 3 million billion billion billion such merely possible people.
And of course, the truth of the matter is, we have barely scratched the
surface here. Because now we need to think of all those possible people and
think about all the possible children they could have. We got this initial
number starting with a mere 7 billion people. Imagine the number we would
get if we then calculated how many possible grandchildren we could have!
(Th e total is approximately 5 × 10??.) I don’t mean that we could actually
have all of those people at the same time, but each one is a possible person
that could have existed. And that was aft er just two generations! If you go to
three generations you end up with more possible people than there are particles
in the known universe. Four generations, and you’ll have even more.
If we think about the number of possible people, people who could have
existed but will never exist, the number just boggles the mind.
Suppose, then, that we’ve gotten rid of the existence requirement and
so things can be bad for you even if you never actually exist. Th en we have
to say of each and every single one of those billions upon billions upon bilCopyright
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Th e Badness of Death 221
lions upon billions upon billions of possible people that it’s a tragedy that
they never get born, because they’re deprived of the goods of life. If we
do away with the existence requirement, then the plight of the unborn possible
people is a moral tragedy that simply staggers the mind. Th e worst
possible moral horrors of human history don’t even begin to be in the same
ballpark as the moral horror of the deprivation for all of these unborn
possible people.
Now I don’t know about you, but when I think about it, all I can say is
it doesn’t strike me as being a moral catastrophe. I don’t feel anguish and
sorrow and dismay at the deprivation for the untold billion billion billion
billions. But if we give up the existence requirement and explain the badness
of my death via the deprivation account, we do have to say that the fact
that billions upon billions are never born is a moral tragedy of unspeakable
proportions.
If we are not prepared to say that that’s a moral tragedy, we could avoid
this conclusion by going back to the existence requirement. But of course, if
we do go back to the existence requirement, then we’re back with Epicurus’s
argument. Something can be bad for you only if you exist. When you’re
dead, you don’t exist. So death can’t be bad for you.
We’ve really gotten ourselves in a philosophical pickle now, haven’t
we? If I accept the existence requirement, we’ve got an argument that says
death isn’t bad for me, which is really rather surprising and hard to believe.
Alternatively, I can keep the claim that death is bad for me by giving up the
existence requirement. But if I give up the existence requirement, I’ve got to
say it’s a tragedy that Larry and the untold billion billion billion billions are
deprived of life as well. And that seems just as unacceptable. So what should
we do? What should we say?
Th e problem, again, is this. If we don’t throw in any existence requirement,
we have to feel sorry for the unborn billion billion billions. Th at doesn’t
seem acceptable. So it seems that we need some kind of existence requirement.
But if we throw in the existence requirement, we seem to end up saying
that death isn’t bad for me, because I don’t exist when I’m dead. Th at
doesn’t seem acceptable either. But maybe we have been misinterpreting the
existence requirement. Maybe it demands less than we realize. Or, to put
the point in slightly diff erent terms, maybe we can distinguish between two
diff erent versions of the existence requirement, a bolder and a more modest
version, where we have been unwittingly assuming the bold version, while
the more modest version would allow us to avoid both unacceptable implications.
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222 Th e Badness of Death
I think this is a promising idea, so let me suggest two diff erent ways of
understanding what the existence requirement comes to:
Modest: Something can be bad for you only if you exist at some
time or the other.
Bold: Something can be bad for you only if you exist at the same
time as that thing.
Th ese are two diff erent ways of understanding what the existence requirement
asserts. Th e modest version is called modest because it asks for
less. It says that something can be bad for you provided that you exist at
some time or the other. Th e bold existence requirement adds a further requirement.
It says that something can be bad for you only if you exist at the
very same time as the thing that’s supposed to be bad for you. Th ere’s got to
be a kind of simultaneity. If something’s bad for you, you had better exist at
the very same time that the bad thing is happening. Th at’s more demanding
than the modest requirement. Th e modest requirement doesn’t require
that you exist at the same time as the bad thing. It only requires that you
exist at some time or the other.
Suppose we accept the bold claim. For something to be bad for you,
you have to exist at the very same time as the bad thing. Th en death can’t be
bad for you, because you don’t exist at the time you are dead. Most of us
fi nd that an unacceptable conclusion. However, if we accept the modest requirement
instead, then things look rather diff erent. Now, for something to
be bad for you, you only have to exist at some time or the other; you needn’t
exist at the very same time as the bad thing. But of course I do exist at some
time or the other— aft er all, I exist right now. So death can be bad for me.
Admittedly, I won’t exist when I’m dead. But that’s okay. Th e modest existence
requirement doesn’t require that I exist at the very same time as the
bad thing. Th e bold version did, but the modest one doesn’t. So the modest
version of the existence requirement allows us to say that death is bad for me.
But notice, and this is the crucial point, the modest version does not
say that nonexistence is bad for Larry, too— because Larry never exists at
all! Since Larry never exists at all, he doesn’t satisfy even the modest existence
requirement. So nonexistence is not bad for Larry, or the untold billion
billion billions.
In short, with no existence requirement at all, we have to say that the
nonexistence of the billions and billions is bad. Th at seems unacceptable.
And with the bold existence requirement, we have to say death isn’t even
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Th e Badness of Death 223
bad for me. Th at seems unacceptable as well. But if, instead, we accept the
modest existence requirement, we’re able to say that nonexistence is not bad
for Larry, but death is bad for me. We are able to avoid both unacceptable
positions. Accordingly, the most plausible position seems to be one that
involves accepting the modest existence requirement.
If we accept the modest existence requirement, then we are saying
that in order for something to be bad for you, there has to have been a time,
some time or the other, when you exist. You’ve got to exist at least briefl y in
order to get into the “club,” as we might put it, of creatures that we care about
and are concerned about morally. To get into the club, you have to exist for
some period of time (past, present, or future). But once you’re in the club,
things can be bad for you, even if you don’t happen to exist at that par tic ular
moment.
If we accept the modest existence requirement, then we can say that
it’s not bad that Larry doesn’t exist, because, well, Larry doesn’t get into the
club. In order to get into the club of things that we feel sorry for, you have to
have existed at least for some moment or the other. But Larry and the billions
upon billions upon billions of potential people who never actually
come into existence don’t satisfy the requirement of having existed at some
time or the other. So we don’t have to feel sorry for them. Nonetheless, we
can feel sorry for a child who died last week at the age of ten because we can
point out that she did exist, even if only very briefl y. Such a child is in the
club of beings that we can feel sorry for. It can be bad for her that she’s not
still alive. (Th ink of all the good things in life she would be getting if she
were still alive!) So the modest existence requirement allows us to avoid
both extremes. It seems like the position we should accept.
Unfortunately, even the modest existence requirement is not without
its counterintuitive implications. Consider somebody’s life. Suppose that
somebody’s got a nice long life. He comes into existence, and lives 10, 20, 30,
40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90 years. It’s a nice life. Now, imagine that we bring it
about that instead of living 90 years, he has a somewhat shorter life— 10, 20,
30, 40, 50 years. We’ve caused him to die aft er 50 years as opposed to the 90
years he might have otherwise had. We will say, of course, that this is worse
for him— to live merely 50 years instead of the full 80 or 90 years. And if we
accept the modest existence requirement, we can indeed say that, because,
aft er all, whether you live 50 years or 90 years, you did exist at some time or
the other. So the fact that you lost the 40 years you otherwise would have
gotten is bad for you. Good. Th at gives us the answer we want. Th at’s not
counterintuitive.
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224 Th e Badness of Death
Now imagine that instead of living 50 years, the person lives only 10
or 20 years and then dies. Th at’s clearly worse still. Th ink of all the extra
goods he would have gotten if only he hadn’t died so young. And if I caused
him to die aft er 20 years instead of 50 or 90 years, I’ve made things worse.
Next, imagine that I caused him to die aft er one year. Th at’s worse still. All
of this is perfectly intuitive. Th e shorter his life, the worse it is for him, the
more he’s deprived of the good things in life.
In short: Ninety year life, not bad. Fift y year life, worse. Ten year life,
worse still. One year life, worse still. One month life, worse still. One day
life, worse still. One minute life, worse still. One second life, worse still.
Finally, imagine that I bring it about that the person never comes into
existence at all. Oh, that’s fi ne.
What? How can that be fi ne? But that’s the implication of accepting
the modest existence requirement. If I shorten the life he would have had so
completely that he never gets born at all (or, more precisely, never comes
into existence at all), then he doesn’t satisfy the requirement of having existed
at some time or the other. So although we were making things worse
and worse and worse and worse and worse as we shortened the life, when
we fi nally snip out that last little fraction of a second, it turns out we didn’t
make things worse at all. Now we haven’t done anything objectionable.
Th at, it seems, is what you’ve got to say if you accept the modest existence
requirement.
Of course, if we didn’t have an existence requirement at all, we could
say that it is indeed worst of all never to have been born at all. But if you
do say that, then you’ve got to feel sorry for Larry. You’ve got to feel sorry
for the untold billion billion billions.
So which view is it that on balance is the most plausible? However you
answer, note that being the most plausible here doesn’t mean that it has to
be all that plausible! I think that when we start thinking about these puzzles,
every alternative seems unattractive in its own way. Maybe the most
we should ask is, which is the least implausible thing to say here? And the
truth is, I’m not altogether certain.
Lucretius
Let me turn to one more puzzle for the deprivation account. Th is par tic u lar
puzzle arises whether or not we accept an existence requirement, because
we’re going to deal with somebody who certainly does exist at some time
or the other, namely, you or me. It’s a puzzle that we get from Lucretius, a
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Th e Badness of Death 225
Roman phi los o pher.?
Lucretius was one of those who thought it a mistake
to claim that death could be bad for us. He thinks we are confused when we
fi nd the prospect of our death upsetting. He recognizes, of course, that
most of us are upset at the fact that we’re going to die. We think death is bad
for us. Why? In my own case, of course, it’s because aft er my death I won’t
exist. As the deprivation account points out, aft er my death it will be true
that if only I were still alive, I could be enjoying the good things in life.
Fair enough, says Lucretius, but wait a minute. Th e time aft er I die
isn’t the only period during which I won’t exist. It’s not the only period in
which it is true that if only I were alive, I could be enjoying the good things
in life. Th ere’s another period of nonexistence: the period before my birth.
To be sure, there will be an infi nite period aft er my death in which I won’t
exist— and realizing that fi lls me with dismay. But be that all as it may,
there was of course also an infi nite period before I came into existence.
Well, says Lucretius, if nonexistence is so bad— and by the deprivation account
it seems that we want to say that it is— shouldn’t I be upset at the fact
that there was also this eternity of nonexistence before I was born?
But, Lucretius suggests, that’s silly, right? Nobody is upset about the
fact that there was an eternity of nonexistence before they were born. In
which case, he concludes, it doesn’t make any sense to be upset about the
eternity of nonexistence aft er you die.
Lucretius doesn’t off er this as a puzzle. Rather, he off ers it as an argument
that we should not be concerned about the fact that we’re going to die.
Unsurprisingly, however, most phi los o phers aren’t willing to go with Lucretius
all the way to this conclusion. Th ey insist, instead, that there must be
something wrong with this argument someplace. Th e challenge is to fi gure
out just where the mistake is.
What are the options here? One possibility, of course, is to simply agree
with Lucretius. Th ere is nothing bad about the eternity of nonexistence before
I was born. So, similarly, there is nothing bad about the eternity of nonexistence
aft er I die. Despite what most of us think, death is not bad for me.
Th at’s certainly one possibility— completely agreeing with Lucretius.
A second possibility is to partly agree with Lucretius. Perhaps we really
do need to treat these two eternities of nonexistence on a par; but instead
of saying with Lucretius that there was nothing bad about the eternity
of nonexistence before birth and so nothing bad about the eternity of nonexistence
aft er death, maybe we should say, instead, that just as there is something
bad about the eternity of nonexistence aft er we die, so too there must
be something bad about the eternity of nonexistence before we were born!
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226 Th e Badness of Death
Maybe we should just stick with the deprivation account and not lose faith
in it. Th e deprivation account tells us that it’s bad for us that there’s this
period aft er we die, because if only we weren’t dead then, we would still be
able to enjoy the good things in life. So maybe we should say, similarly, that
it is bad for us that there’s this period before we come into existence. Aft er
all, if only we had existed then, we would have been able to enjoy the good
things in life. So maybe Lucretius was right when he tells us that we have to
treat both periods the same, but for all that he could be wrong in concluding
that neither period is bad. Maybe we should think both periods are bad.
Th at’s a possibility, too.
What other possibilities are there? We might say that although Lucretius
is right when he points out that there are two periods of nonexistence,
not just one, nonetheless there is a justifi cation for treating them diff erently.
Perhaps there is an important diff erence between the two periods, a kind
of asymmetry that explains why we should care about the one but not the
other.
Most phi los o phers want to take this last way out. Th ey say that
there’s something that explains why it makes sense, why it’s reasonable,
to care about the eternity of nonexistence aft er my death in a way that I don’t
care about the eternity of nonexistence before my birth. But then the puzzle,
of course, is to point to a diff erence that would justify that kind of asymmetrical
treatment of the two periods. It’s easy to say that it’s reasonable to
treat the two periods diff erently; the philosophical challenge is to point to
something that explains or justifi es that asymmetrical treatment.
One very common response is to say something like this. Consider
the period aft er my death. I’m no longer alive. I have lost my life. In contrast,
during the period before my birth, although I’m not alive, I have not lost my
life. I have never yet been alive. And, of course, you can’t lose something
you’ve never yet had. So what’s worse about the period aft er death is the fact
that death involves loss, whereas prenatal nonexistence does not involve loss.
And so (the argument goes), we can see why it’s reasonable to care more
about the period aft er death than the period before birth. Th e one involves
loss, while the other does not.
Th is is, as I say, a very common response. But I am inclined to think
that it can’t be an adequate answer. It is true, of course, that the period aft er
death involves loss while the period before birth does not. Th e very defi nition
of “loss,” aft er all, requires that in order to have lost something, it must
be true that you don’t have something that at an earlier time you did have.
Given this defi nition, it follows trivially that the period aft er death involves
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Th e Badness of Death 227
loss, while the period before birth does not. Aft er all, as we just observed,
during the period before birth, although I do not have life, it is also true
that I haven’t had life previously. So I haven’t lost anything.
Of course, there’s another thing that’s true about this prenatal period,
to wit, I don’t have life and I’m going to get it. So I don’t yet have something
that’s going to come in the future. Th at’s not true about the postlife period.
Aft er death I’ve lost life. But it’s not true of this postdeath period that I don’t
have life and I’m going to get it in the future. So this period aft er death isn’t
quite like the period before birth: in the period aft er death, I am not in the
state of not yet having something that I am going to get. Th at’s an interesting
diff erence.
As it happens, we don’t have a name for this other kind of state—
where you don’t yet have something that you will get later. It is similar to
loss, in one way, but it’s not quite like loss. Let’s call it “schmoss.” When I
have lost something, then, I don’t have it, but I did have it earlier. And when
I have schmost something, I don’t have it yet, but I will get it later.
So here’s the deal. During the period aft er death, there’s a loss of life,
but no schmoss of life. And during the period before birth, there’s no loss of
life, but there is a schmoss of life. And now, as phi los o phers, we need to ask:
why do we care more about loss of life than schmoss of life? What is it about
the fact that we don’t have something that we used to have, that makes this
worse than not having something that we’re going to have?
It’s easy to overlook the symmetry here, because we’ve got this nice
word “loss,” and we don’t have the word “schmoss.” But that’s not really explaining
anything, it’s just pointing to the thing that needs explaining. Why
do we care more about not having what once upon a time we did, than about
not having what once upon a time we will? Th at’s really quite puzzling.
Various proposals have been made to explain this diff erence in attitude
toward the two periods of nonexistence. One of them comes from Th omas
Nagel, a contemporary phi los o pher.?
Nagel starts by pointing out how easy
it is to imagine the possibility of living longer. Suppose I die at the age of
eighty. Perhaps I will get hit by a car. Imagine, though, that if I didn’t die
then, I would have continued living until I was ninety or even one hundred.
Th at certainly seems possible, even if in fact I am going to die at eighty. Th e
fact that I am going to die at eighty is a contingent fact about me. It is not a
necessary fact about me that I die at eighty. So it is an easy enough matter to
imagine my living longer, by having my death come later. Th at’s why it makes
sense to get upset at the fact of my death coming when it does: I could have
lived longer, by having death come later.
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228 Th e Badness of Death
In contrast, Nagel notes, if I am going to be upset about my nonexistence
before my birth, we have to imagine my being born earlier. We have
to imagine my living longer by having my birth come sooner. Is this possible?
I was born in 1954. Can I be upset about the fact that I was born in 1954
instead of, say, 1944?
Nagel thinks, however, that I shouldn’t be upset about the fact that I
wasn’t born in 1944, because in fact it isn’t possible for me to have an earlier
birth. Th e date of my death is a contingent fact about me. But the date of my
birth is not a contingent fact about me. Well, that’s not quite right. We
could change the time of birth slightly, perhaps by having me delivered prematurely,
or through Caesarean section, or what have you. Strictly speaking,
of course, the crucial moment is the moment at which I come into existence.
Let’s suppose that this is the time when the egg and the sperm join. Nagel’s
thought is that this is not a contingent moment in my life story. Th at’s an
essential moment in my life story.
How could that be? Can’t we easily imagine my parents having had
sex ten years earlier? Sure we can. But remember, if they had had sex ten
years earlier, it would have been a diff erent egg and a diff erent sperm coming
together, so it wouldn’t be me. It would be some sibling of mine that, as
it happens, never got born. Obviously, there could have been some sibling
of mine that came into existence in 1944, but I couldn’t have come into existence
in 1944. Th e person we are imagining with the earlier birth date
wouldn’t be me. What this means, Nagel suggests, is that although we can
say the words “if only I had been born earlier,” this isn’t really pointing to a
genuine metaphysical possibility. So there is no point in being upset at the
nonexistence before you started to exist, because you couldn’t have had a
longer life by coming into existence earlier. (In contrast, as we have seen,
you could have a longer life by going out of existence later.)
I must say, that’s a pretty intriguing suggestion. But I think it can’t be
quite right. Or rather, it cannot be the complete story about how to answer
Lucretius’s puzzle. For in some cases, I think, we can easily imagine the
possibility of having come into existence earlier. Suppose we’ve got a fertility
clinic that has some sperm on hold and has some eggs on hold. Perhaps
they keep them there frozen until they’re ready to use them. And they thaw
a pair out in, say, 2025. Th ey fertilize the egg and eventually the person is
born. Th at person, it seems to me, can correctly say that he could have
come into existence earlier. He could look back and say that if only they had
put the relevant sperm and egg together ten years earlier, he would have
come into existence ten years earlier. It wouldn’t be a sibling; it would have
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Th e Badness of Death 229
been him. Aft er all, it would have been the very same sperm and the very
same egg, resulting in the very same person. So if only they had combined
the sperm and egg ten years earlier, he would have been born ten years earlier.
If that’s right— and it does seem to me to be right— then Nagel is
wrong in saying it’s not possible to imagine being born earlier. In at least
some cases it is. Yet, if we imagine somebody like this, somebody who’s an
off spring of this kind of fertility clinic, and we ask, “Would they be upset
that they weren’t born earlier?” it still seems as though most people would
say, “No, of course not.” So Nagel’s solution to our puzzle doesn’t seem to
me to be an adequate one.
Here’s another possible answer. Th is one comes from Fred Feldman,
another contemporary phi los o pher.?
If I say, “if only I would die later,” what
am I imagining? Suppose I will get hit by a car in 2034, when I am eighty.
We can certainly imagine what would happen if I didn’t get killed at that
point. What do we imagine? Something like this, I suppose: instead of my
living a “mere” eighty years, we imagine that I would live to be eighty- fi ve or
ninety, or more. We imagine a longer life. When we imagine my dying later,
we imagine my having a longer life.
But what do I imagine when I say, “if only I had been born earlier”?
According to Feldman, you don’t actually imagine a longer life, you just shift
the entire life and start it earlier. Aft er all, suppose I ask you to imagine being
born in 1800 instead of the year you were actually born. Nobody thinks,
“Why, if I had been born in 1800, I’d still be alive. I would be more than two
hundred years old!” Rather, you think, “If I had been born in 1800 I would
have died in 1860, or 1870, or some such.”
When we imagine being born earlier, we don’t imagine a longer life,
just an earlier life. And of course there is nothing about having a life that
takes place earlier that makes it particularly better, according to the deprivation
account. So there is no point in bemoaning the fact that you weren’t
born earlier. But in contrast, when we imagine dying later, it’s not as though
we shift the life forward. We don’t imagine being born later, keeping the life
the same length. No, we imagine a longer life. And so, Feldman says, it’s no
wonder that you care about nonexistence aft er death in a way that you don’t
care about nonexistence before birth. When you imagine death coming
later, you imagine a longer life, with more of the goods of life. But when you
imagine birth coming earlier, you don’t imagine more goods in your life,
you just imagine them taking place at a diff erent time.
Th at too is an interesting suggestion, and I imagine it is probably part
of a complete answer to Lucretius. But I don’t think it can be the complete
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230 Th e Badness of Death
story. Because we can in fact imagine cases where the person reasonably
thinks that if only she had been born earlier she would have had a longer
life.
Let’s suppose that next week astronomers discover the horrible fact
that there’s an asteroid that’s about to land on the Earth and wipe out all
life. Suppose that it is going to crash into the Earth on January 1st of next
year. Now imagine someone who is currently only thirty years old. It seems
to me to be perfectly reasonable for such a person to think to herself that
she has only had thirty years of life, and if only she had been born ten years
earlier, she would have had forty years before she died, instead of thirty; if
she had been born twenty years earlier, she would have had fi ft y years, instead
of thirty. Th at all seems perfectly intelligible. So it does seem as
though, if we work at it, we can think of cases where an earlier birth does
result in a longer life and not merely a shift ed life. In cases like this, it seems,
we can imagine making life longer in the “pre- birth” direction rather than
in the “postdeath” direction.
What does that show us? I am not sure. When I think about the asteroid
example, I fi nd myself thinking that maybe symmetry is the right way
to go here aft er all. Maybe in a case like this, the relevant bit of prenatal
nonexistence is just as bad as a corresponding bit of postmortem nonexistence.
Maybe Feldman is right when he says that normally, when thinking
about an earlier birth, we just shift the life, instead of lengthening it. But for
all that, if we are careful to describe a case where an earlier birth would
truly mean a longer life for me, maybe it really is bad that I didn’t get started
sooner. (Feldman would probably agree.)
Here’s one more answer to Lucretius that’s been proposed. Th is is by
yet another contemporary phi los o pher, Derek Parfi t.?
Recall the fact that
even though nonexistence before birth doesn’t involve loss, it does involve
schmoss. So it would be helpful if we had an explanation of why loss is
worse than schmoss. Why should we care more about the former than the
latter? Parfi t’s idea, in eff ect, is that this is not an arbitrary preference on
our part. Rather, it’s part of a quite general pattern we have of caring about
the future in a way that we don’t care about the past. Th is is a very deep fact
about human caring. We are oriented toward the future and concerned
about what will happen in it, in a way that we’re not oriented toward and
concerned about what happened in the past.
Parfi t’s got a very nice example to bring the point home. He asks you
to imagine that you’ve got some medical condition that will kill you unless
you have an operation. So you’re going to have the operation. UnfortuCopyright
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Th e Badness of Death 231
nately, in order to perform the operation, they can’t have you anesthetized.
You have to be awake, perhaps in order to tell the surgeon, “Yes, that’s where
it hurts.” You’ve got to be awake during the operation, and it’s a very painful
operation. Furthermore, we can’t give you painkiller, because then you won’t
be able to tell the surgeon where it hurts. In short, you need to be awake
while you are, in eff ect, being tortured. Of course, it’s still worth it, because
this will cure your condition, and you can go on to have a nice long life. But
during the operation itself, it is going to hurt like hell.
Since we can’t give you painkillers and we can’t put you out, all we can
do is this: aft er the operation is over, we’ll give you this very powerful
medication, which will induce a very localized form of amnesia, destroying
your very recent memories. You won’t remember anything about the operation
itself. And in par tic u lar, then, you won’t ever have to revisit horrible
memories of having been tortured. Any such memory will be completely destroyed.
Indeed, all memories from the preceding twenty- four hours will be
completely wiped out. In sum, you are going to have a horrendously painful
operation, and you are going to be awake during it. But aft er the operation
you will be given medication that will make you completely forget the pain
of the operation, indeed forget everything about the entire day.
So you’re in the hospital and you wake up and you ask yourself, “Have
I had the operation yet or not?” And of course, you don’t know. You certainly
don’t remember having had it. But that doesn’t tell you anything. On
the one hand, if you haven’t had it yet, it is no wonder you have no memories
of having had it. But on the other hand, even if you have had the operation,
you would have been given the medication aft erwards, so would have
no memories of it now. So you ask the nurse, “Have I had the operation yet
or not?” She answers, “I don’t know. We have several patients like you on the
fl oor today, some of whom have already had the procedure, and some of
whom are scheduled to have it later today. I don’t remember which group
you are in. Let me go look at your fi le. I’ll come back in a moment and I’ll
tell you.” So she wanders off . She’s going to come back in a minute or two.
And as you are waiting for her to come back, you ask yourself, what do you
want the answer to be? Do you care which group you’re in? Do you prefer to
be someone who has already had the operation? Someone who hasn’t had it
yet? Or are you indiff erent?
Now, if you’re like Parfi t, and for that matter like me, then you’re
going to say that of course you care. I certainly want it to be the case that I
have already had the operation. I don’t want to be someone who hasn’t had
the operation yet.
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232 Th e Badness of Death
We might ask, how can that make any sense? You are going to have
the operation sooner or later. At some point in your life history, that operation
is going to have occurred. And so there’s going to be the same amount
of pain and torture at some point in your life, regardless of whether you’re
one of the people that had it yesterday or one of the people that are going to
have it later today. But for all that, says Parfi t, the fact of the matter is perfectly
plain: we do care. We want the pain to be in the past. We don’t want
the pain to be in the future. We care more about what’s happening in the
future than about what’s happened in the past.
Th at being the case, however, it is no surprise that we care about our
nonexistence in the future in a way that we don’t care about our nonexistence
in the past. So perhaps that is the answer that we should give to Lucretius:
the future matters in a way that the past does not.
Th at too is an intriguing suggestion. And it may well provide us with
a convincing explanation of our asymmetrical attitudes. But we might still
wonder whether it gives us any kind of justifi cation for them. Th e fact that
we’ve got this deep- seated asymmetrical attitude toward time doesn’t in
any way, as far as I can see, yet tell us whether or not that’s a justifi ed attitude.
Maybe evolution built us to care about the future in a way that we
don’t care about the past, and this expresses itself in all sorts of places, including
Parfi t’s hospital case and our attitude toward loss versus schmoss,
and so forth and so on. But the fact that we’ve got this attitude doesn’t yet
show that it’s a rational attitude.
How could we show that it’s a rational attitude? Perhaps we would
have to start doing some heavy- duty metaphysics (if what we have been
doing so far isn’t yet heavy- duty enough). Maybe we need to talk about the
metaphysical diff erence between the past and the future. Intuitively, aft er
all, the past is fi xed, while the future is open, and time seems to have a direction,
from past to future. Maybe somehow we could bring all these things
in and explain why our attitude toward time is a reasonable one. I’m not going
to go there. All I want to say is, it’s not altogether obvious what the best
answer to Lucretius’s puzzle is.
So when I appeal to the deprivation account, and say that the central
thing that’s bad about death is the fact that you’re deprived of the good
things in life, I don’t mean to suggest that everything is sweetness and light
with regard to the deprivation account. I think that there are some residual
puzzles— questions that have not yet been completely answered— about how
it can be that death is bad.
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Th e Badness of Death 233
But for all that, it seems to me that the deprivation account is the right
way to go. It seems to me that this account does put its fi nger on the central
bad thing about death. Most centrally, what’s bad about death is that when
you’re dead, you’re not experiencing the good things in life. Death is bad for you precisely because you don’t have what life would bring you if only you hadn’t died.
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