Can metaphysics yield the consolations of philosophy? One possibility, defended by Derek Parfit, is that reflection on the nature of identity and time could diminish both fear of death and grief. In this paper, I assess the prospect of such consolation, focussing especially on attempts to console a grieving third party. A shift to a reductionist view of personal identity might mean that death is less threatening. However, there is some evidence to suggest that such a shift does not necessarily (...) translate into less death anxiety. Moreover, applied to grief at loss of another, such a perspective may be misdirected. A temporally neutral perspective offers a theoretically powerful way of reducing the sense of loss at being separated in time from a loved one. However, it is unclear whether it is psychologically possible to achieve. Even if it were possible, it may not diminish the pain of separation.I identify a serious challenge to philosophical consolation for grief. The greater the consolation that is offered, the greater the risk of losing important attachments and the less it may be psychologically accessible. (shrink)

Epicurus wrote that death cannot be bad for a person who dies, since when someone dies they no longer exist to be the subject of harm. But his conclusion also applies in the converse: Death cannot be good for someone, since after their death they will not exist to be the subject of benefit. This conclusion is troubling when it is brought to bear on the question of physician assisted suicide. If Epicurus is right, as I think he is, then (...) it means that even when someone is dying of a long and painful illness, we cannot say that they would be better off dead. I defend this conclusion by first presenting Epicurus’s argument, and defending it against some of its more important contemporary critics. I then re-examine the conclusion that someone cannot be better off dead by looking at the issue of mercy killing and euthanasia. Drawing on the work of philosophers who examine the ethics of animal euthanasia, I argue that killing someone who is suffering severe agony can be good, but it cannot be good for the person who suffers – it is just good in itself. This, I think, is why we have the intuitions that we do around physician assisted suicide: we are mistaken about the idea that someone can be better off dead, but we can be correct in thinking that sometimes someone’s death is good. (shrink)

In the Insanity Defence Woody Allen claims that when we say humans are mortal we are obviously not complimenting them. It is difficult to contradict great comedy, of course, but if what I argue holds, Allen is wrong on this account. Mortality is a compliment – or at least something for which we should be grateful – since life without it threatens with disaster. To live without death also means living in the universe in its more hostile stages under conditions (...) where there can be no meaningful life. In this way, immortality is worse than death. In addition, I argue that no matter how carefully we qualify the conditions that make up immortality the old problem of death resurface. I therefore conclude, with a nod towards Voltaire, that if death did not exist, it would have been necessary to invent it. (shrink)

Too little attention has been paid by philosophers to the cognitive and epistemic dimensions of emotional disturbances such as depression, grief, and anxiety and to the possibility of justification or warrant for such conditions. The chief aim of the present paper is to help to remedy that deficiency with respect to depression. Taxonomy of depression reveals two distinct forms: depression (1) with intentionality and (2) without intentionality. Depression with intentionality can be justified or unjustified, warranted or unwarranted. I argue that (...) the effort of Aaron Beck to show that depressive reasoning is necessarily illogical and distorted is flawed. I identify an essential characteristic of that depression which is a mental illness. Finally, I describe the potential of depression to provide credal contact with important truths. (shrink)

After briefly drawing attention to two key strains in the history of philosophy's dealings with death, the Platonic and the Epicurean, I describe a more recent philosophical alternative to viewing death in terms of this ancient dichotomy. This is the alternative championed by the likes of Søren Kierkegaard, the father of existentialism, and Martin Heidegger, whose work on death tends to overshadow Kierkegaard's despite the undeniable influence exerted on him by the nineteenth century Dane. By exploring this influence, a deep (...) connection between them on the topic of death becomes apparent. Although both of these thinkers arise from the Platonic/christian tradition, I discuss how they handle Epicurean insights about death in their work, and thereby prescribe a peculiar way of living with death that falls somewhere in between the Platonic and the Epicurean strains. This way of approaching life through death, in which Kierkegaard and Heidegger show signs of reaction to (and in some cases, influence from) both strains, is what I call the ‘existential philosophy of death’. (shrink)

I begin by offering an account of two key strains in the history of philosophical dealings with death. Both strains initially seek to diminish fear of death by appealing to the idea that death is simply the separation of the soul from the body. According to the Platonic strain, death should not be feared since the soul will have a prolonged existence free from the bodily prison after death. With several dramatic modifications, this is the strain that is taken up (...) by much of the mainstream Christian tradition. According to the Epicurean strain, death should not be feared since the tiny pthesiss that make up the soul leave the body and are dispersed at the moment of death, leaving behind no subject to experience any evil that might be associated with death. Although informed by millennia of further scientific discovery, this is the strain picked up on by contemporary atheistic, technologically advanced mankind. My primary goal is to demonstrate that philosophy has an often-overlooked alternative to viewing death in terms of this ancient dichotomy. This is the alternative championed by Søren Kierkegaard and Martin Heidegger. Although both thinkers arise from the Christian tradition, they clearly react to Epicurean insights about death in their work, thereby prescribing a peculiar way of living with death that the Christian tradition seems to have forgotten about. Despite the association of Kierkegaard and Heidegger, there is a fundamental difference between them on the subject of death. In Being and Time Heidegger seems to rely on the phenomenology of death that Kierkegaard provides in texts such as "At a Graveside." It is interesting to notice, however, that this discourse, especially when seen in the light of Kierkegaard's more obviously religious works, might only be compelling to the aspiring Christian. If so, then perhaps there is a tension in both Heidegger's "methodologically atheistic" appropriation of Kierkegaard's ideas about death, and Heidegger's attempt to make these ideas compelling to the aspiring human. My secondary goal is to determine whether Heidegger takes the "existential philosophy of death" too far when he incorporates it into his early ontological project. (shrink)