#import "@preview/unequivocal-ams:0.1.1": ams-article, theorem, proof #import "@preview/wordometer:0.1.3": word-count, total-words #import "prelude.typ": indented-argument #show: ams-article.with( title: [On the Argument Against Fearing Death], bibliography: bibliography("refs.bib"), ) #show: word-count.with(exclude: ( heading, , table, figure, footnote, )) #set cite(style: "institute-of-electrical-and-electronics-engineers") #set text(fractions: true) #set table(inset: 8pt, align: center) #align( center, pad( x: 20%, table( columns: (1fr, 1fr), [ Perm: A2V4847 ], [ Word Count: #total-words ], ), ), ) = 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(, 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(, 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(, 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(, 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.] ]