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How A-theoretic Deprivationists Should Respond to Lucretius

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 September 2015

NATALJA DENG
NATALJA DENG*
Affiliation:
UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGEnmdeng@gmail.com
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Abstract:

What, if anything, makes death bad for the deceased themselves? Deprivationists hold that death is bad for the deceased iff it deprives them of intrinsic goods they would have enjoyed had they lived longer. This view faces the problem that birth too seems to deprive one of goods one would have enjoyed had one been born earlier, so that it too should be bad for one. There are two main approaches to the problem. In this paper, I explore the second approach, by Anthony Brueckner and John Martin Fischer, and suggest that it can be developed so as to meet deprivationists’ needs. On the resulting view, metaphysical differences between the future and the past give rise to a corresponding axiological difference in the intrinsic value of future and past experiences. As experiences move into the past, they lose their intrinsic value for the person.

Keywords

A-theoriesdeathdeprivationismsymmetry problem
Type
Articles
Information
Journal of the American Philosophical Association , Volume 1 , Issue 3 , Fall 2015 , pp. 417 - 432
Copyright
Copyright © American Philosophical Association 2015 

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