Epicurus\'s views on death

Explanation and Critical Assessment

Death represents a subject that is commonly contemplated, often with anxiety. At least, people were anxious when this subject was raised during the era when Epicurus was establishing his personal lifestyle and conveying it to fellow human beings. However, Epicurus held that one ought not to be afraid of dying as, "Death, the most frightening of bad things, is nothing to us; since when we exist death is not yet present, and when death is present, then we do not exist" (Epicurus, 1966). There are a number of reasons that make death a terrifying subject for people: they are afraid of God's wrath; they are unaware of what will come with it, they are worried about not achieving particular life goals, and so forth. According to Epicurus, a person ceases to exist subsequent to death and such a state of non-existence isn't bad. Even if it were bad, one wouldn't experience anything bad simply because one was non-existent. Therefore, death is no event to fear.

Epicurus's most powerful, and perhaps most debatable, argument regarding death arises from his idea that our soul is an impermanent and material thing. The empiricist, Epicurus, used his senses for obtaining the facts he utilized in assessing and judging his surrounding world (Glannon, 1993; Warren, 2001). In his opinion, a person's soul offered physical locomotion, gave rise to facial expressions, etc. But in order to achieve this, it was imperative for the soul to be material. This is a materialism-related argument made simpler, which would correspond to Epicurus's thoughts on the soul: a causal body-soul interaction is only possible if the latter was material. As such a causal interaction, indeed, exists; the soul is material.

The above materialistic outlook of the human soul brought about Epicurus's strongest argument against fearing death, for if our soul is dead along with our body, one need not fear death at all as one will cease to exist and thus won't experience death. Here, again, the philosopher seeks counsel from his senses, which offer him knowledge regarding the world, aiding him in drawing conclusions therefrom with respect to the soul. Upon death, an individual no longer has locomotion; he/she decays and his/her body becomes cold. The soul, which is material in nature, ought to scatter upon death, thus resulting in the body becoming cold. The soul is no longer able to hold the body together (Glannon, 1993; Warren, 2001). The atomist Epicurus would maintain that every atom or element of the human body, even the soul, just disperses back into its surrounding universe. This removes the potential of sense perceptions as one's soul is only able to access sense perceptions inside the body. It can only access sense organs via the body. This also accounts for why disembodied souls are incapable of emotional response. Thus, either way, death isn't painful.

In certain matters, Epicurus's claim may be considered vague. A chief ambiguous element is his very definition of death. Supposing he means the process of life's ending, this gives rise to another interpretive issue: he may intend to establish that death and events after death never impact us. From this follows the idea that such events, and even death, are harmless, if an event is believed to cause harm only if we are impacted by it in some way, at some point of time (possibly well after its occurrence) (Partridge, 1981).

However, no statement made thus far excludes the possibility of death impacting a person at the precise moment of its occurrence. The subject's issue especially doesn't surface as it is an extant, breathing individual who suffers harm at the time of its occurrence. Can we prove that death has no impact on an individual at its time of occurrence? There are, perhaps, a couple of ways (Partridge, 1981). Firstly, one may argue that death happens only after a person ceases to exist. This supposition is linked to the following bizarre consequence: death will only be able to impact one if one gets impacted by post humous events. This leads to the conclusion that death has no impact on us. Secondly, one may argue that death occurs instantaneously and too swiftly to have any impact on us.

A few theoreticians define 'death' (life's ending) using words that indicate that it transpires after one ceases to exist. Levenbook's (1984) definition of death is: "the first moment of the subject's nonexistence." The above description is possibly inspired by the trickiness of ascribing 'death' to some instance when traces of life still exist. But it is just as tricky to ascribe 'death' to some instance following the completion of the process of "dying" and to indicate life's end after a person goes into the state of the dead. It also means conceding disproportionately to Epicurus, who could subsequently claim death is harmless by citing the fact that events occurring after death are harmless.

Rather than attempting to prove death's inability to impact a person, an Epicurean may contend that death doesn't negatively impact humanity. For proving this, they may put forwards some condition for a thing being harmful and claim that death doesn't fulfill that condition.

Epicurus himself put forward the following condition: an occurrence is harmful if it introduces an unpleasant condition in us. To make it simpler, every unpleasant condition may be considered suffering or pain. This condition need not arise at the precise moment as its causative event (Glannon, 1993). A causative event might take place much before it directly affects a person, probably even before a person is born (e.g., a time bomb set to explode after 150 years, taking the life of everybody in its vicinity). Epicurus didn't clarify any comprehensive view of the term 'welfare' nor did he clarify when anything, on the whole, benefits or harms an individual. However, he certainly believed a thing was harmful only when it was accompanied by suffering.

A few theoreticians tend to explain the above condition of Epicurus based on experience, thus: one is harmed only if one experiences it. If a person never experiences death, then death can't cause harm to the dying individual. Rosenbaum (1986) put forward the following variant of the abovementioned experience condition: a person is harmed by only that which he/she is able to experience. Other theoreticians explain Epicurus's condition based on existence, thereby ascribing an existence condition to the philosopher: a thing harms one only when one exists.

According to Epicurus, clearly, both death as a process and a state aren't intrinsically bad or harmful for us as death isn't always painful. An individual may die unconscious, which causes no pain. However, Epicurus didn't just assert that death is not necessarily harmful. In his opinion, death never causes harm and thus, never causes suffering for an individual.

To prove that death doesn't have any salient impact on a person, proponents of Epicurus's theory may contend that death may not be considered responsible for the emergence of any (salient or non-salient) condition within us. It only makes us stop existing in a particular condition. But this theory is obviously false if one considers death's process sense: transitioning from being totally alive to a totally lifeless state may well create a bad condition (e.g., pain) within us (Fischer, 2014). Undoubtedly, Epicureans are drawn to death's 'cessation' sense as the end of the last vestiges of life may happen instantaneously and leave no salient impact on a person.

But if the philosopher intended to only demonstrate that denouement death has no harmful impact, or that death is a harmless state, his endeavor is disappointing considering his personal objective to help one attain complete tranquility (ataraxia). He would not succeed at attaining his objective if he fails at freeing one from one's concerns regarding death or the events which lead up to death. Death and the factors that cause it may be agonizing. There are other things besides death which appear bad for a person. To prepare an individual for ataraxia with regard to such things, Epicurus must deal with them too.

References

Epicurus, (1966). "Letter to Menoeceus," in J. Saunders (ed.), Greek and Roman Philosophy after Aristotle, New York: Free Press.

Fischer, J. M. (ed.), (2014). "Mortal Harm" in S. Luper (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Life and Death, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Glannon, W. (1993). Epicureanism and death. The Monist, 76(2), 222-234.

Levenbook, B. (1984). Harming Someone After His Death. Ethics, 94 (3): 407 -- 419.

Partridge, E. (1981). Posthumous Interest and Posthumous Respect. Ethics, 91, no. 2.

Rosenbaum, S. (1986). How to Be Dead and Not Care: A Defense of Epicurus. American Philosophical Quarterly, 23 (2): 217 -- 25

Warren, J. (2001). Lucretius, Symmetry arguments, and fearing death. Phronesis, 46(4), 466-491.