Is death a bad thing?

Abstract

Death is a bad thing; so, consolation that minimizes that badness must fail The philosophers whose reasoning this is do not offer any consolation of their own. That death is bad seems so obvious to them that they concentrate on explaining why it is bad and do not explain what needs explaining, how the claim that it is bad is to be understood. The paper begins by suggesting that the insight in the Epicurean argument that death is nothing to us is that the fear of death amounts to the denial of death. Then it argues that this insight does not address certain fears that it should be expected to address. Other critics of the Epicurean argument respond differently by claiming that death is bad. The paper criticizes their attempts at explaining what makes it bad, and it offers a diagnosis of why they have gone wrong. Because these philosophers do not offer consolation, the paper reflects on whether there is a need for it and, if so, how the Epicurean approach could provide it. The paper concludes by anticipating and responding to the objection that the badness of death can be considered independently of the question of consolation.