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PHILOSOPHICAL SUICIDE
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 December 2011
Extract
We often judge that death is bad for the person who dies – that my death, for instance, will be bad for me when it occurs. It is not easy, however, to explain, justify, or defend this judgment. As Epicurus argued more than 2000 years ago, death is ‘nothing to us’ because ‘when we exist death is not present, and when death is present we do not exist.’ (Letter to Menoeceus, 124–125)
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- Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy 2011
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