The Philosophy of Death

The class discussion that we had about the badness of death and immortality, at first, made me think that immortality would be a bad thing since there is the assumption that life would then lose some of its meaning, and the premise is that what makes life special is its ephemeral nature. However, I now disagree with the assumption that immortality is bad on all basis, and the reason why is because immortality is the opposite of death. Further, I am an atheist, so I assume that death is the end. And because I think death is the complete end of us, I reason that immortality, though it might lose some of its meaning when compared to mortality, immortality is still life and must be better than death.  In objection to this, if immortality were a living hell, then death must be better than immortality because it would end suffering.  But really, there is no scientific proof for immortality yet, and there are other ways to explain phenomena besides science. But science dem...

     Caitlin Doughty's video  Confronting Your Death talks about a specific way that can reduce your fear of death. She mentions that knowing what you want to do with your body after your death will help with fearing it. This was a key reason in why talking about our dead bodies will be important to our fear of death. This helps by getting us to actually talk about our death with the loved ones that'll most likely be around to have to handle it. This is one important way to confront your death; by knowing what you want to do with it.       My objection is that not many will even want to think about this or even want this done to their bodies. Once you die, the consent of your body is taken away from you. It isn't like your no longer alive to make sure your wishes to your body are done. Not many people think of what they want done to their bodies until they're close to death. Knowing what you want done isn't something that comes to someone's ...

"Death is the end of us" "Death isn't a goal, it's just the end" "Death is inevitable and uncertain" "1-3 together makes us worry that life is meaningless." Premises one through three are what May claims makes his argument in four valid and hold. We will unpack his premises and find other arguments against them. May does not address people who have set their mind on death as their peaceful end in his argument. Premise two is one I can't agree with. Some hospitalized patients, see their deaths as their goal. They want to die and have made it their sole goal to end some type of suffering. My question therefore is, to these hospitalized individuals suffering, who have made death their sole goal, does May's argument about the miserability of life still hold? I think not. It therefore stands to reason death can be one's actual goal. I know May might or those who subscribe to his argument might argue that there hospitalized p...

Doughty says that cutting up your fear of death into slices can help tackle the fear altogether. She says that if you do not address the specific fears you have about death, the entire thing will be too overwhelming to handle. She lists different fears one might have about death, and then lists ways one can go about feeling better about the specific fears. Personally, I am most afraid of the grief my friends and family would feel after my death, and the pain that could come along with the process of dying. I do like the Idea of writing letters to loved ones so that I know that the last experience they have with me could be positive, and hopefully help ease any of their regrets they might have had related to me. Her suggestion for the fear of pain was to have conversations with your family and doctors about how while you are in the process of dying, you do not want a ton of medical intervention. This helps moderately because it does guarantee less pain in death, but I do not know how mu...

Caitlin Doughty makes clear that talking about death with your parents is not easy but is the right thing to do. She says that you need to have this conversation in order to know what they want after they die so you aren’t left in the dark and unsure of what to do when the time comes. She also says that having good conversations about death lessens the pain and depression that comes later in life. I agree with most of what Doughty is saying in her video. What I don’t agree with, however, is the amount of pressure it seems she is putting on families to have this tough conversation. I feel that this conversation should happen naturally and shouldn’t be forced upon somebody who doesn’t want to have it. The conversation will not be productive in any way if only one person is interested in having it. It is a great conversation to have, however I feel like it is one of those things in life that will either happen or it won’t. Take the idea of love for example. Some people have it, and some ...

Our death is the most important fact about us because of... The fact that we will die The fact that we are aware that we are going to die Our awareness that our death could happen at any moment Reasons for this? The fact that we are completely aware that we die is kind of unique to the human experience Death negates us, it is the end of every other fact about us! Reference pages 4, 5 Religion is used to explain what we don’t understand We are not just academically curious about death, we are genuinely concerned about death -- that is what draws people to religious traditions I object to this because I think you can leave a legacy, what people remember about you continues to live on past your death and t he lives you touch in your lifetime are more important than the fact that yours ends. It reminds me of Lucretius's argument that if we don't die, new life cannot arise. I also think that our ...

Death anxiety is something we all experience, and has been experienced for generations. It has plagued human beings for years and years, even Roman emperors like Marcus Aurelius, who talked about living in the present not for the present. There are many reasons for fear, perhaps it is a fear of no more experiences, not finishing all the projects we wanted to finish, not finding a purpose or leaving a legacy, and ultimately we have no actual concept of what happens after we die, if we go anywhere. Many people believe that coping with death is subjective, and that there is no good way to overcome the fear of death or fear of dying. I think Marcus Aurelius kind of has a point, that there is a good and wise way to cope with your death anxiety, and on the opposite end of the spectrum, an improper and foolish way which does not lead to coping. I think that living in the present, not for the present with a healthy outlook on the future is a good way to cope with death anxiety.

Todd May claims in his book, Death that Our death is the most important fact about us. He explains this with three premises. He said the above is right because of, The fact that we die, The fact of our awareness of this death, and  Awareness that our death could happen at any moment. May argues his point based on these premises. I, on the other hand, do not concur that death is the most important fact about us. We can look through history on our quest to find answers debunking the claim that death is the most important fact about us. We look at the lives of the great men and women who lived long before us, and we see that their achievements in life are their most important fact. We take Dr. King and the Civil Rights Movement, Lincoln and the Unification of the U.S/ the abolishing of slavery.  Even though their lives ended with both of them being assassinated, it does not stand as their most important fact. They are remembered for the great things they did while alive, a...

       Many people seem to have some type of opinion toward immortality. The controversial topic of whether immortality is a pro or is a con. Although we are not close to being able to be immortal there still the conversation of it.         With the supporting side of immortality stating an example as to why it could be a benefit to life is that you could experience everything your heart desires. That not having enough time in your life is not a constant struggle. With that not every decision you make will affect the path that your life is on because you have the time to change. The endless fear of when you will die or how you will die is lifted off your shoulders. That although the question of when you will die is not always an everyday thought it will still be exempted from the back of your head. Equally important, is that you would be able to see the world change and the society of the people shift. Be that as it may, the pros to immrtal...

Legacy is a way of being remembered based upon what you strive to achieve, contributed your efforts to, and committed yourself to.  Your legacy has significance in your life because you want to be remembered by something, but it is not heavily significant to your life because when time passes your commitments and projects will all be forgotten.  Your legacy is not heavily important to your life because over the course of your life you will focus more heavily on other things than your legacy; if your legacy were your primary focus on life, then you would be considered living selfishly.  Having a legacy is not heavily important to your life because for most phases of your life, it is often considered an afterthought and you do not know when you are going to die.  The likelihood of someone obtaining a legacy is very small because over the course of a lifetime, commitments may change and you also may take hiatuses from certain projects and want to strive for different th...

Legacy is an important topic mentioned when discussing death. Death is inevitably the end for everything we do on planet earth. Throughout the course of our life we carry this burden on our shoulders regarding what we want to be recognized and looked as when we die, this leads us to make death a huge topic and portion of our life. I’m not saying it is not, but we make it bigger than it must be without the need for it to be such a big portion of our life. This idealism of a legacy is important because it is more than just what we want to be remembered as because eventually a legacy will be forgotten. Your legacy most likely won’t be remembered by everyone except a handful of close people or family but this is important for what I am about to say. A legacy is not just about people remembering you for who you are, the most valuable part of a legacy is the values and goals behind someone’s legacy. If you get forgotten but the values behind your legacy lives on, then you have accomplished...

In this post, I will argue that abnormal psychology, because of our schemas--because of our intersubjective majority agreement on philosophical conceptions of humanity--can create issues for philosophical inquiry, both for how philosophical inquirers with psychological disorders are viewed by others, as well as for the fundamental deviations from a norm of methods of inquiry. Due to its commonality and my relatively extensive knowledge on it, I will discuss abnormal psychology primarily through the lens of depression, and because this post is the second part to another which presented the possibility that inherent in Michael Cholbi’s essay was the implication that Mersault is psychopathic or depressed or has comorbidity of the two, and that he is therefore somehow inhuman. https://philofdeath.blogspot.com/2019/04/cholbi-on-mersault-humanity-of-mersault.html This apparent implication in Cholbi’s essay is a testament to how people (how philosophical inquirers) with p...

In this post I shall criticize Cholbi in much the same way as Weirob attacked a claim on grounds of the conclusions leading to absurdity, but I would mostly like to use this as an avenue for discussing how mental illness affects one’s ability to engage in philosophical discourse, or their ideas in that discourse. I will continue this line of reasoning with the argument in this post as premises in another post, where I will argue that abnormal psychology, because of our schemas--because of our intersubjective majority agreement on philosophical conceptions of humanity--can create issues for philosophical inquiry, both for how people with psychological disorders are viewed by others, as well as for the fundamental deviations from a norm of methods of inquiry. I have a concern with Cholbi’s conclusions about grief in relation to Mersault. The way Cholbi describes Mersault is very similar to how one would describe someone with anti-social personality disorder--psychopathy/sociopathy...

Todd May is extrinsic with her death ideology; He essentially mentions how we go through life ignoring the fact we are mortal therefore leaving us to act carelessly or reckless at points. I will use texting and driving as an example to explain what he means; when you witness a car crash you think to yourself “that won’t happen to me, not like that” while having a phone in your hand. This is proof that we believe consciously that we can’t and won’t die. That is not entirely true because we have a subconscious thought that keeps us safe for the very reason to extend our life span. It may sometimes appear as an obvious thought when we find something dangerous or scary because we realize our life could be in danger for example; riding roller coasters, bungee-jumping or sky diving, even swimming can lead us to realize we could be in danger and bring fear to us. But in small instances in which you subconsciously act in a way that will get you out of harms way such as stepping over a pothol...

Immortality is ability to live forever. People who are immoral will never have to experience death because they have an eternal life. Thinking this, some people might think that is something they want because we will have an unlimited amount of time. We won't have to worry about death because it will never come. However, being immortal isn't as good as we make it out to be.  When making decisions, there are consequences in the decisions we make because we are picking one path and letting go of the other. You won’t get to experience the other path because you chose not to follow it and it messes with the one you did. With immortality, Immortals won’t have to make difficult decisions in their life because they are aware that they have an unlimited amount of time. People who are immortal can pick to do one thing and have the time to also achieve the other because they will live forever. The problem with this is that there is no significance people who are immortal have the abil...

     Todd May talks about a few ways to respond to our death. Since death is inevitable and uncertain, what should one do when it comes to death? Should we fear it, talk about it, or simply ignore it? It all comes down to personal preference. Not everyone wants the same thing regarding the process of death. Death can be scary for some people, while it may be "normal" or even no big deal for others. Since we're all made to be our own person, deciding on how to deal with death can be a process.      Ways of Responding to Death          1. Don't think about it          2. Think about it all the time          3. Believe in an afterlife          4. You could die at just the "right time" (maybe when all projects are completed)          5. Leave a legacy      The point that makes the most sense, is to leave a legacy. It...

     Caitlin Doughty's video, Confronting your Death, talks about the three best ways to tell someone what you would like done to your body. Some reasons she offers, is to have an above ground burial, which ours bodies would get embalmed. Then there's a cremation, which is burning your body to ash. Lastly, there is a natural underground burial where you just decompose with the Earth. By figuring out what we want done with our bodies, we then tell someone. It is then up to that person(s) we tell to go through with our plan. This will then not leave the person responsible for the funeral to question what you wanted done with your body. By them knowing what you want and telling someone, you're confronting your death.      An objection I have to confronting your death, is what if I don't want any of those three options. Although they may be the most popular, I may want you to pick for me, or I could want something crazy. No one ever wants the same thing done. ...

In Todd May “Death”, the philosopher discusses how imminent  death affect our life decisions and the project we embarked on. He also argues that immortality is a worse fate than death due  to boredom and rendering our virtue useless. One of the main point in the book is that death is not a goal but just a finisher of cf our projects like graduation, relationships. Death comes without looking at our schedules unlike in  sitcoms when someone death moves the plot or has a meaning. So if death is inevitable and unpredictable how do we human grapple with our mortality and furthermore our useful are these methods. Todd May notice that all religions tackles the issue of death and what is going happen to us after we die irrespective of border. If religion is used to explain the unknown and bring comfort to the masses it not surprising that death is addressed. Another method is not think about death which means avoid funerals, hospitals and anything revolving the subject; which ...

In the second video Doughty talks about how we can talk to our parents about death.  She starts off talking about how we have to believe that talking to our parents is the right thing to do and then she said once we believe we have to act and not wait.  If you wait until your parents are old or have gotten a terminal illness then it makes it a lot harder to talk about it and you will not accomplish much.  Next she says we cannot be afraid to talk to them about death and not to be afraid to be rejected.  If they do not want to talk then let them be and maybe try again a week or two later.  She gives a few other points like knowing what questions to ask them and having facts ready to present when you go to talk to them.  To me I think it all depends on the parents you have.  I'm sure there are some people that are afraid to talk about death but I also think that it might be a bit more complicated than Doughty makes it seem if they really are afraid of de...

It is not strange topic to think that our soul is intertwined with our mental state. Also that our body is a helper for our mind. It can be strange, though, to think that we can change our physical and mental states. Can this correlate to changing our soul? Our physical state is our shape, height, weight, and much more. I can point out, as well, that both our mental and physical state hold properties we can not change, and vise versa. For our physical state, we can not control our height, eye color, smile, and physical appearance. We can change, though, our weight, hair color, and how we present ourselves to the world. With our mental state, we can not change what we find humorous, our personalities, and our genuine true self. We can change though the way we deal with emotions, handle situations, and our maturity. My question is, can these changes change our soul? My personal answer is no. Our soul is engraved in our body and is true to our own selves. Our soul is who we are as a ...

Doughty created a video about common fears of death and how to find comfort in them. The way to get over death is to pinpoint the fear. One of the common fears of death relates to the fear of regretting experiences or not experiencing certain events. This fear is why I’m scared to die at a young age. Being able to look back on life and remembering experiences I have gone through and thinking about how full my life was is the goal. As silly as it sounds, I want to be able to tell stories of silly times I spent with friends or the moments of impulsivity that creates a story. Knowing that I have roughly 60 years of life to go and that I’ve lived ¼ of my life already, adds to the fear of dying young. In those years to come I know I will experience some great and horrible things but I still want to experience them. Dying young would end the cycle of being able to experience new moments and having stories to tell. It sounds selfish but I look at every moment has if it could be a story t...

Doughty’s main conclusion about confronting your death is to “think about what you want done with your dead body”. Some reasoning behind the conclusion includes that thinking about the different ways that your dead body can be handled can be oddly comforting to some people. Either that is being buried in a coffin, cremated, an above ground crypt, or with a natural burial. These ideas have been used in many cultures for thousands of years to comfort the mind about death. Figuring out what will happen to your body is one less thing for us to worry about. Some arguments for this conclusion are that in some cultures, they only bury a body a certain way. If the culture has all bodies cremated then that can send a certain wave of comfort to a person, knowing what will be done with their body, but at the same time may discomfort them. The person might not be comfortable having their body cremated but their culture says they should. That can bring discomfort about death. Another example ...

When discussing death with a parent or family member, but more importantly with a parent. It is essential to have everything planned out with the questions you wish to ask and what you want to find out, it should be a informative session and not something to just "Get over with." although I do agree it is to be done, the time in which we tackle this conversation can be debated. Undoubtedly it will be hard but it is worth going through a tough discussion so we can assure our parents get what they wish and deserve, it could even bring closure within your family and strengthen your bond by keeping open and honest conversations and in the end entrusting each other with your final wishes. This may also remind you of what truly is important and allow you not to take things for granted because everything can change in a instant. I assume that when someone finds out they are going to die it is a terrifying experience and can lead them to fix every thing in their life and try to figur...

On Friday, March 29th, we talked about how three facts about death from Todd May make us ponder the meaning of life and if life is meaningless. These facts were the following: Death is the end of us Death is not a goal, just the end Death is inevitable and uncertain I think that out of all three of these positions, the one that I believe would make one ponder the meaning of life most is that death is simply the end of us. I think that when we hold the view that there is no afterlife and that as soon as we die we are just that, dead, that that fact can make us ponder if what we are doing is worth it, if we are invested in the things that bring us satisfaction, whether that satisfaction is joy or we feel like we have done good things in the world, etc. The fact that death is inevitable and uncertain only fuels that wondering even more intense. If we all died 5 minutes from now, is what we have done with our lives worth it? Did we make an impact? Did we make people feel loved or a...

Todd May believes that our death is the single most important fact about us.  He bases this claim on the fact the all of us will die, the fact that we're all aware that we're going to die, and the fact that our death could happen at any given moment.  While all these facts about us and our inevitable deaths are true, I don't believe that they necessarily defend the claim that death is the most important thing about us.  Rather than being the most important thing about us, maybe it would be better to say that death is what defines the way in which we live our lives. Each individual person's life is defined by the opportunity costs they choose to pay when deciding how they are going to lead their life.  Whether they want to devote their life to cancer research or have a steady job that allows them to raise a family, our life choices are what define us as people, not our death.  Our death wraps up our life and its experiences sure, but it's not the fact that we'r...

In  Doughty’s  video Talking About Death, she talks about how a lot of people, specifically parents are in denial about death and a lot of people have a hard time talking to their parents about it. In the video Doughty gives a step by step guide on how to influence your parents to not believe death is so bad. One step she brings up is to make your parents believe that talking about death is the right thing to do. If you don’t face your death and create conversation about it with the people you care about, then the conversation will never happen. The second step is to start early with the conversation about death. Doughty states that waiting last minute is too late and she shows this by bringing up an example comparing it to athletes in the Olympics. Athletes do not wait until a few weeks before the Olympics. They train months or even years before, so that is what we need to do when speaking about death. Another step she talks about is to be organized and have specific facts on...

In  Caitlin  Doughty’s  video Ask a Mortician- Confronting Your Death , she argues  that as humans, we think death is scary because we don’t know what is going to happen after we die. When we die ,  our time on Earth ends. Because of this, there is no evidence of what happens after we die so we have no image on what will happen to us. This is one of the main reasons why we are so fearful of death, having that fear of the unknown. Doughty claims that by accepting we are going to die it will result in our death not  being seen as  an awful thing. She brings up Mark Twain  to support this by quoting   him saying that we  didn’t care about our nonexistence before we were born therefore, we shouldn’t care about it after.  I do not agree with Twain’s claim or think that it is correct because we didn’t experience life before we were born. Therefore, how can we miss something that we have never experienced? Also, when we are ...