Epicurus and the harm of death
Australasian Journal of Philosophy 77 (3):358 – 364 (1999)
Abstract
Epicurus notoriously argued that death at no time is a harm because before death there is no harm and after death there is no victim. The denial that death can be a harm to the one who dies has been challenged by various claims including (1) death is eternally bad for the victim (Feldman), (2) it is before death that it is bad for the victim (Feinberg and Pitcher), (3) death is bad for the victim but at no particular time (Nagel), and (4) it is at the time of death that death is bad for the victim (Lamont). Nagel's account is more plausible and is consistent with the view that the temporal location of the harm of untimely death is best understood as the time when the decedent might otherwise have lived. (edited)DOI
10.1080/00048409912349121
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Citations of this work
Dissolving Death’s Time-of-Harm Problem.Travis Timmerman - 2022 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 100 (2):405-418.
Desire satisfaction, death, and time.Duncan Purves - 2017 - Canadian Journal of Philosophy 47 (6):799-819.