Pham 1

Peter Pham

Professor Yang

Cultures & Ideas I: Death, Meaning, & Afterlife

November 25, 2017

Word Count: 1500

Death: The Worse Type of Deprivation

The popular feeling towards death is one of dislike, discomfort, and fear, which suggests

that death is actually bad. Nagel tries to rationally justify these feelings of dislike towards death

by arguing that death is inherently bad with his deprivation argument. He contends that death is

bad for any subject, because death deprives the subject from goods, including experiences and

activities, that the subject could of experienced if the subject had not died (Nagel).

In this paper, I will expand Nagels deprivation argument to discuss how death deprives

people of the goodness of life, the roles that people play and could have played, dignity, and the

possibility of good deeds being acted. I will start by measuring the value of a life in order to

draw a distinction between prenatal nonexistence and death, and to show how death deprives

people of an extremely valuable and desirable good: life. Using these two points, I will provide a

measurement of deaths badness. Then, I will discuss how death deprives people of the

opportunities to play their individual roles, to restore and maintain their dignity, and to do good

deeds. For the sake of understanding how death is bad to a particular subject, I will limit my

argument to claim that death is bad for humans, because humans are capable of activities and

abilities that other living things are not (e.g. reasoning). Also, death will refer to the state of

complete and irreversible nonexistence of whatever a subject is inherently: soul, physical body,

mental states, and memories.

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Starting with the value of life, it is not possible for life to have any quantitative value,

because it is too valuable to measure. To prove this, I challenge all readers to try to put a

quantitative value (e.g. monetary) on their own life to see if any human can do this comfortably;

unless anyone can put a specific quantitative value on himself/herself, it would be impossible to

do the same for others. With this, life can be considered an extremely valuableif not, the most

valuablegood to have.

In light of this, it seems that prenatal nonexistence can never equate to post-life

nonexistence: death. Since life is an extremely valuable and unquantifiable good, it creates the

clear distinction between prenatal nonexistence and post-life nonexistence where life is given in

prenatal nonexistence, while life is taken away in post-life nonexistence. In other words, trying

to equate prenatal nonexistence to death is like trying to equate giving to stealing. With death

depriving an individual of an extremely valuable good, this shows how evil death is by stealing a

precious good.

Now looking more specifically at the opportunities in life that death deprives an

individual of, death can also deprive people of the roles that they play and could have played.

People perform involuntary roles that they gain naturally within lifelike how Professor Yang is

a son, a man, and a fatherand voluntary roles that they chooselike how Professor Yang

chooses to be a philosopher and professor. These roles are unique to each individual, and only

they can play these roles for the environment that they are apart of; another person cannot

replace being Professor Yangs parents son or Professor Yangs childrens father with the same

exact qualities. Death deprives people of opportunities to perform their unique roles to their

fullest potential, and thus robs people of their character and the opportunity to flourish as

humans. A hero cannot be a hero without a story, and people cannot flourish in their given and
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chosen roles without life. Stopping any opportunities to perform those roles is like telling a story

without the hero/protagonist. At that point, neither the protagonist nor the story can exist to their

fullest potential. Similarly, neither individuals nor society can exist without each other playing

mutual roles on each other, which should be desired for the fulfilment that it brings to the

individual, society, and the world. If death deprives people of these opportunities to play their

unique roles that contribute towards internal fulfillment and collective harmony, it must be evil.

Anything far from personal fulfillment and harmony is bad; an orchestra should sound in sync,

and a worker should find satisfaction in their job.

Furthermore, death deprives people of the time to restore and maintain their dignity,

which is a persons reputation and sense of value in the world. Once a person dies, it is

impossible for anyone to try to restore or maintain that persons dignity. For example, executed

prisoners can never rewrite the wrongs they commited and show sincere remorse to their victims

after heart-filled reflections; they are unable to prove their capacity to change for the better and

to show their worthiness as humans to others. Death forbids people who have committed evil

acts to repent, which keeps their dignity forever tainted and is like giving up on good that is yet

to happen. The same can be applied to victims. For instance, slaves in the US who died prior to

the Civil War cannot have their trampled dignity restored, because they no longer live to receive

any recognition and celebration of their genuine humanity. This is the same with rape cases

where the rapist dies naturally before any justice is done; the victims are left mentally scarred

with trauma, possibly infected with a terminal STD, emotionally broken, and forever wounded

by the rapist who did not have more time to recognize the victims value as humans and to

repent. In all three cases, death deprives people of time to restore and maintain their dignity, and

lets lives end uncherished, forgotten, and crushed.

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In addition, death deprives people of their free will, and thus, the potentially of good acts.

Free will is an individuals ability to choose how to act. Since free will is an integral part of the

human experience, peoples nonexistence in death also means the nonexistence of peoples free

will. However, free will is key for any action to be good, because an action cannot be good

unless people can genuinely choose. A campus blue alert machine alerting the police is not

considered good in the same way as a bystander choosing to intervene in a perceived injustice,

because a machine cannot perceive injustice and lacks good intention to motivate the action.

Thus, without free will, actions cannot be considered good. Death deprives this possibility of

good actions being committed, because free will is lost; a dead person cannot choose to do good

deeds that are beneficial to society and the individuals moral character. Anything that obstructs

good from happening is evil. Therefore, death is evil for it deprives possible acts of good to be

committed. Even if evil acts are possible in life, life still provides opportunities for repentance,

the restoration of human dignity, and more good deeds to be committed.

Thus, death is bad, because it deprives people of performing their unique roles, restoring

and maintaining human dignity, and doing good deeds. In response to the value of life, critics

may suggest that a persons life insurance and/or the total money he/she uses while living can be

a potential measurement. However, some things cannot have a value, such as the personalities

people share, the ideas they contribute, their dignity, and the joy they instill; after all, money

cannot buy happiness.

Another potential criticism is that prenatal nonexistence and death are both states of

nonexistence, so there is no distinction between the same states. Yet again, life needs to be

considered, because it shows the direction of where peoples lives are going: better or worse. The

difference is like an empty glass of juice before and after juice is present; the clean glass before
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fills with a life-plenishing and thirst-quenching liquid, while the one afterwards becomes empty

and sticky. The before glass goes into a better state, while the after glass becomes worse.

Though prenatal nonexistence and death are both states of nonexistence, they are not the same

because one is open to the lifes goodness while the other is lowered to lifelessness.

Another possible objection is that amends can be made to a wronged and dead individual

via payment or compensation (like priority for historically marginalized groups) to the dead

individuals family/friends acting on behalf of the individual. The problem here is that the dead

persons dignity is unique to that person and cannot be represented by anything other than that

person. Making amends to people who have no part in the original event cannot benefit and heal

the wound and dignity of the dead person. Now, a cynic would object that it then seems

impossible to fully redeem oneself, so it seems pointless to try to do good. However, the problem

is not the act of good itself but the amount of good. Any efforts towards justice is better than

none. Less evil is better, so seeking to remediate any evil is good. Since death obstructs the road

towards achieving justice, which is a desired virtue, death is bad.

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Works Cited

Nagel, Thomas. Death. Philosophy and Death, edited by Samantha Brennan and Robert J

Stainton, Broadview Press, 2010, pp. 177184.