Death looms for all. Like boaters riding a long rapids flowing inexorably toward a deadly waterfall, we can take pleasure in the passing scene so long as we do not focus on where we are headed. What we cannot do, how ever, is stop the current or change its direction. We are caught in the grip of time.
This picture, which we find compelling, is one Epicurus wishes to deny. In his view, if we focus on death and fear it, then we are led to be unhappy and cannot enjoy our lives.
His counterargument is straightforward. Death should be of no concern to the living or the dead, because those who are living are not dead and those who are dead don’t exist. As he puts it, “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.”
1For Epicurus, therefore, death should not affect the enjoyment of life. Rather, death is simply the cessation of living. And what is dreadful about not being alive?
Perhaps the best-known argument for this conclusion was developed by the Roman poet and philosopher Lucretius, who lived in the first half of the century before the birth of Jesus. Lucretius wrote the epic poem
De rerum natura (On the nature of things), in which he expounds the philosophy of Epicurus. On the subject of death Lucretius argues that just as we are unconcerned whether we had lived at any time before we were born, so we should be equally unconcerned whether we live at any time after we die. As he says, “Look back now and consider how the bygone ages of eternity that elapsed before our birth were nothing to us. Here, then, is a mirror in which nature shows us the time to come after our death. Do you see anything fearful in it? Do you perceive anything grim? Does it not appear more peaceful than the deepest sleep?”
2This puzzle about the asymmetry of our views of life before birth and after death has been much discussed by contemporary philosophers.
3 Thomas Nagel contends that the option of a person’s living earlier than the time of birth isn’t possible, because a person born earlier wouldn’t be the same person. Shelly Kagan replies that Nagel’s claim is mistaken because a situation can be imagined in which a person born earlier would be the same person as the one born later. For example, a fertility clinic could have sperm and eggs available and decide when to bring them together. Once that union is formed, a person is soon born, and Kagan maintains that because the union could have been formed earlier, the resultant person could have been born earlier.
Regardless of how that metaphysical disagreement is resolved, one asymmetry between past and future remains. We know more or less what happened in the past but not what will happen in the future. Thus most of us have less curiosity about events in the past than about events in the future. Hence life after death is of much greater interest than life before birth.
Consider this analogous situation. You and your friend arrive at a baseball game in the third inning. Unfortunately after the sixth inning you have to leave. When you express disappointment at not being able to stay longer, your friend responds, “You’re not much interested now in seeing a tape of innings that occurred before we arrived. Why are you concerned to see innings that will occur after we leave?” The obvious answer is that we want to know the score at a time after we leave; we already know the score at any time before we arrived.
Kagan concludes that “what’s bad about death is that when you’re dead, you’re not experiencing the good things in life.”
4 Epicurus’s reply would be that because “all good and evil consists in sensation” and “death is deprivation of sensation,” then “there is nothing terrible in not living.”
5On this matter we agree with Kagan and Nagel, both of whom view death as an evil, because, in Nagel’s words, “death, no matter how inevitable, is an abrupt cancellation of indefinitely extensive possible goods.”
6 Thus, other things being equal, the longer you live well, the better. Yet even if Epicurus is correct that death is not bad for the person who dies, it may be catastrophic for others, who may be immeasurably worse off, deprived of the presence of someone whose life was of inestimable value.
Here we arrive at an internal difficulty in the thought of Epicurus. As he says, “Of all the things which wisdom acquires to produce the blessedness of the complete life, far the greatest is the possession of friendship.”
7 Yet death can take away a friend, thereby causing despondency. The closer the friendship, the greater the despair. Therefore we do have reason to fear death—perhaps not our own but the death of those we love. When Epicurus concludes that “there is nothing terrible in not living,” he is thinking only of the one who is dead, not of those still alive.
Indeed, the sequence of deaths is a matter of import. For instance, two friends may in one respect be better off dying together, for both are saved the pain of living without the other.
The situation is reminiscent of the Zen story titled “Real Prosperity.”
A rich man asked Sengai to write something for the continued prosperity of his family, so that it might be treasured from generation to generation.
Sengai obtained a large sheet of paper and wrote: “Father dies, son dies, grandson dies.”
The rich man became angry. “I asked you to write something for the happiness of my family. Why do you make such a joke as this?”
“No joke is intended,” explained Sengai. “If before you yourself die your son should die, this would grieve you greatly. If your grandson should pass away before your son, both of you would be brokenhearted. If your family, generation after generation, passes away in the order I have named, it will be the natural course of life. I call this real prosperity.”
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In brief, regardless of whatever my death may mean to me, your death may mean everything.
In concluding our discussion of Epicurus, we should emphasize that he offers numerous practical insights about finding satisfaction in the human condition. In particular, he rightfully reminds us not to be filled with desire for goods others may have while failing to appreciate the goods we ourselves possess: “Nothing satisfies the man who is not satisfied with a little.”
9Nevertheless, we do not share his outlook entirely, particularly his dismissal of death as irrelevant to the concerns of the living. In fact, our viewpoint is better captured by a work with some similar themes written by someone not in the Hellenistic tradition but in the Hebraic tradition, someone whose identity is unknown but whose description of the world and our place in it is profound. The text we refer to is found in the Bible, in the book known in Hebrew as Koheleth and in English as “Ecclesiastes.”
