alexandria/2024/documents/by-course/phil-1/paper-2/main.typ

#import "@preview/unequivocal-ams:0.1.1": ams-article, theorem, proof
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#show: ams-article.with(
  title: [On the Argument Against Fearing Death],
  bibliography: bibliography("refs.bib"),
)

#show: word-count.with(exclude: (
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  <wordcount-exclude>,
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  footnote,
))

#set cite(style: "institute-of-electrical-and-electronics-engineers")
#set text(fractions: true)
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    x: 20%,
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      columns: (1fr, 1fr),
      [
        Perm: A2V4847
      ],
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        Word Count: #total-words
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  ),
)

= Introduction

In _Against Fearing Death_, the author argues you should not fear being dead
because it is not bad for you. In this paper, I reject this thesis by showing
that the argument from hedonism the author relies on forces us to draw the
absurd conclusion that being alive is worse than being dead.

The author states the argument Against Fearing Death as follows on
#cite(<Korman2022-KORLFA>, supplement: [p. 74]):

#indented-argument(
  title: "Against Fearing Death",
  abbreviation: "FD",
  [ You cease to be conscious when you die ],
  [ If you cease to be conscious when you die, then being dead is not bad for you ],
  [ So, being dead is not bad for you ],
  [ If being dead is not bad for you, then you should not fear death ],
  [ So, you should not fear death ],
)

First off, the author does not argue that you should not fear the _process_ of
dying. A painful death is something to be rationally feared. The author only
argues that _being dead_ itself is not bad. That is, you may fear the way by
which you die, but you should not fear the state of being dead itself.
Furthermore, if there was a high likelihood you may die painlessly, perhaps
under anesthesia during a risky surgery, you should not fear that either, as
you will painlessly transition from being alive to being dead, and there is
nothing to fear about being dead.

The author justifies FD1 on #cite(<Korman2022-KORLFA>, supplement: [pp. 79-82])
by denying the only possibility of rejecting it, which is the notion that your
consciousness continues after the death of your physical body (perhaps in an
afterlife). He rejects this idea by arguing that you, the consciousness reading
this, and your physical human body, are one and the same (i.e. they are
_numerically equivalent_). So, if your physical human body ceases to be
conscious after death (which it does), then you (the conscious being reading
this) also cease to be conscious when you die.

Premise FD3 is the direct conclusion of FD1 and FD2, so it depends on the
validity of those premises. We've already shown why FD1 should be accepted. Let
us first examine FD4 before taking a closer look at FD2.

FD4 makes a lot of intuitive sense, and upon closer inspection, there are
indeed no issues which arise. It is irrational to fear something if it is not
bad for you (this does not imply everything bad for you should necessarily be
feared). Sure, you _could_ fear things that are not bad for you, but as the
author states on #cite(<Korman2022-KORLFA>, supplement: [pp. 82-83]), these
fears are _irrational_, and you should try to resist them. The only things you
should fear are things that are actually bad for you, such as burning your hand
on a hot stove, or stubbing your toe.

Finally, we return to premise FD2. This is arguably the most dubious premise as
it is not immediately clear why being unconscious implies that being dead is
not bad.

We first need a rigorous account of what exactly characterizes something as
"bad." The author defines the following _hedonist principle_ on
#cite(<Korman2022-KORLFA>, supplement: [p. 76]):

#pad(
  left: 16pt,
  [ (HD\*) Something is bad for you if and only if it results in
    more pain than you would otherwise have had ],
)

Then, he constructs the following #smallcaps[Argument from Hedonism] to support
FD2.

#indented-argument(
  title: "The Argument from Hedonism",
  abbreviation: "AH",
  [
    If you cease to be conscious when you die, then being dead doesn't result in more pain than you otherwise would have had
  ],
  [
    Something is bad for you if and only if it results in more pain than you otherwise would have had
  ],
  [
    $<==>$ (FD2) So, if you cease to be conscious when you die, then being dead isn't bad for you
  ],
)
I've slightly modified the author's numberings to emphasize that the conclusion
AH3 is equivalent to the premise FD2. That is, if the #smallcaps[Argument from
Hedonism] holds, then FD2 must also be true.

We've shown that the author's argument for why you should not fear death is
substantiated by what appear to be valid premises. I object in section 2 by
arguing that we should _not_ accept the author's hedonist principle, and
therefore should not accept premise FD2, because it leads us to the conclusion
that we should kill ourselves. In section 3, I address various potential
responses to my objection.

= Don't kill yourself

I advance the argument that we should reject HD\* because its logical
conclusion is not only that being dead is not bad for you, but _being alive_ is
actually bad for you. Accordingly, this implies that you should kill yourself
to stop being alive because it is bad for you. Of course, this is wrong and we
should not accept HD\*. Consider the following argument:

#indented-argument(
  title: "Argument for Killing Yourself",
  abbreviation: "KYS",
  [You are occasionally conscious when you are alive],
  [If you are occasionally conscious, you will experience more pain than you otherwise would have if you were unconscious],
  [$<==>$ (HD\*) Something is bad for you if and only if it results in more pain than you otherwise would have had],
  [So, being alive is bad for you],
  [If you are unconscious when you are dead, then being dead isn't bad for you],
  [If being alive is bad for you, then: if being dead isn't bad for you, you should stop being alive],
  [So, you should stop being alive],
)

In other words, KYS7 states that you should find a way to kill yourself in
order to stop being alive. This is an absurd conclusion we should not accept,
and it indicates a serious error with one of our premise. Let us identify
exactly which one went wrong.

KYS1 is trivial (unless you are unconscious for the rest of your life, which
for our purposes is essentially the same as death).

KYS2 is true because you experience no pain when unconscious, and we certainly
experience pain at some point while conscious. So, we must experience more pain
while conscious than we otherwise would have (while unconscious).

KYS5 is equivalent to our conclusion AH3 in the #smallcaps[Argument from
Hedonism].

KYS6 essentially just says that if being alive is bad and being dead is good,
then you should take action to stop being alive and start being dead. After
all, why continue doing something that is bad for you when the alternative is
not bad for you?

Clearly, our only option is to reject KYS3 (which is just HD\*) as our
principle of hedonism. Without HD\*, the #smallcaps[Argument from Hedonism] no
longer stands, and therefore the argument for FD2 fails.

Note that we do not make a claim as to whether or not death is bad for you. We
simply show the absurdity of an argument that relies on HD\*, which means the
#smallcaps[Argument from Hedonism] fails to justify the premise FD2. Without a
clear justification for why we should accept the dubious claim in FD2, we can
no longer claim that death is definitely not bad and should not be feared.

// #let hdp = [HD$'$]
//
// Let us formulate a new hedonist principle, denoted #hdp.
//
// #pad(
//   left: 16pt,
//   [
//     (#hdp) Something is bad for you if and only if it prevents or hinders the achievement of your goals
//   ],
// )
//
// We need to clarify what is meant by "goals". In this case, goals refers broadly
// to all of the things someone needs to feel fulfilled. Someone may have a few
// _fundamental goals_, such as to be fulfilled or to feel happy.
//
// Anything that works against these goals is bad. If someone seeks to be happy,
// then feeling pain is bad for them because they no longer .
//
// The author's hypothetical case of #smallcaps[Unread Mail] shows that this
// HD\*\* wrongfully characterizes some situations as bad, so we should prefer
// HD\*.
//
// However, in my formulation #hdp, we do correctly identify that the situation in
// #smallcaps[Unread Mail] is not bad. #hdp is essentially equivalent to HD\* is
// most cases, but it successfully identifies that being alive is not bad for you.
// Since being

= Possible objections

One might attempt to object to KYS without rejecting HD\*. The only other
premises to reasonably object against are KYS1 and KYS2. In particular, one
might raise the following concerns

+ An objection to KYS1: someone could be alive without ever being conscious.
+ An objection to KYS2: someone may not ever experience any pain while conscious.

These criticisms are not really substantial enough for us to reject KYS. KYS1
brings up a valid point, but being unconscious for the rest of your life is not
really a better situation than being dead. Regardless, HD\* still implies that
being conscious is bad while being in a _death-like state_ of permanent
unconsciousness is not. The conclusion then becomes that you should either kill
yourself or place yourself into a death-like state (perhaps a coma), which is
just as absurd as before.

One may argue from a hypothetical situation in which a human is somehow
modified to be incapable of feeling pain (of any sort). In this situation, HD\*
does not fail, as it does not imply being alive and conscious is worse than
being dead, since being conscious and being dead both result in absolutely no
pain.

This case fails to present any challenge to our argument. Even though HD\* does
not fail in the hypothetical, it clearly still fails _now_, as it still implies
that being alive is bad for you, the person reading, who almost certainly does
feel pain.

#pagebreak()

#[
  = AI Contribution Statement

  #quote[I did not use AI whatsoever in the writing of this paper.]
]<wordcount-exclude>