In this book, Douglas Walton examines the philosophical nature of two issues currently associated with medical ethics. In order to work towards an analysis of the concept of death that could function as a target towards which the medical criteria of death could be directed, he proposes the foundations for a theory free of logical contradictions, paradoxes, and other perplexities. This is the "superlimiting theory" which introduces the notion of a "possible person." The connection of these philosophical ideas (...) with medico-legal concerns like brain death and the Harvard criteria is discussed. Professor Walton then goes on to examine the difference between killing and letting die. Through a close study of the logic of action sentences, he develops a model that is discussed in the light of the ethical and jurisprudential realities of medical ethics to see if the distinction between bringing something about and letting something happen is one that makes a moral difference in the evaluation of actions. Numerous problematic conceptual snags are dealt with, and the author consistently supports the conceptual clarity and respectability of the distinction. Other relevant discriminations of an action-theoretic sort, such as that between "direct" and "indirect" euthanasia, are studied, and the concluding chapter applies the conceptual analysis to a philosophical discussion of attitudes towards death, asking, "Is it rational to fear death?". (shrink)

What is death? The question is of wide-ranging practical importance because we need to be able to distinguish the living from the dead in order to treat both appropriately; specifically, the permissibility of retrieving vital organs for transplantation depends upon the potential donor's ontological status. There is a well-established and influential biological definition of death as irreversible breakdown in the functioning of the organism as a whole, but it continues to elicit disquiet and rejoinders. The central claims of (...) this paper are that the best way to address the question as to what death is, is to attend closely to our ordinary concept of death; doing so reveals that, whilst our ordinary understanding accommodates the biological definition, it also includes the thought that, for someone who has died, there will never again be anything it is like to be that person. Support for these claims is provided, and their academic and practical implications traced. The important practical implication is that we are left in quandary as to whether certain potential organ donors — for example, anencephalic babies and the permanently vegetative — are dead, a quandary that has serious implications for the relevance of the dead donor rule in transplant ethics. (shrink)

The concept of whole‐brain death is under attack again. Scholars are arguing that the concept of brain death per se—regardless of the focus on “higher,” “stem” or “whole”—is fundamentally flawed. These scholars have identified what they believe are serious discrepancies between the definition and criterion of brain death, and have pointed out that medical professionals and lay persons remain confused about its meaning. Yet whole‐brain death remains the standard for determining death in much of the (...) Western world and its defenders believe this concept best maps onto our everyday conception of death. (shrink)

One of Kant’s famous questions about being human asks, “What may I hope?” This question places individual life within an encompassing horizon of human history and speculates on the possibility of perspectives beyond death. In our time mortality is generally repressed, though the development of personal consciousness is closely linked to realization of one’s finitude. This raises especially urgent questions for children, and they are left to deal with them alone. From the time awareness begins, knowledge that (...) class='Hi'>death can occur at any moment is one of the a priori determinants of being alive; that is, life is structured in advance by its future pastness. . According to Max Scheler, death reveals itself as a necessary and manifest constituent of all possible inner experiences in the life process. The cultural and individual interpretations of death’s meaning and consequences derived from this insight opened up an ample space for imagined possibilities of “continued existence,” which affected approaches to life. In our research project “Inochi – The Concept of Life after Death in Children’s Construction of the World. A German-Japanese Comparison,” carried out with German and Japanese research support, we examine concepts developed within the community of inquiry concerning “the individual’s afterlife” as soul, angel, animal, star, etc. In this we want to examine whether a globalized media environment leads to a cultural convergence in children’s ideas, and whether there are differences between views of girls and boys. Relevance of ideas about death is seen in the example of Japanese children who, believing in reincarnation chose “killing oneself” with relative frequency as a problem-solving strategy. Our contribution will present children’s imaginings using the drawings they created within this framework, since these can be interpreted as expressions of “narrative philosophizing,” especially for the Japanese children. Here we follow Mark Johnson who says” Human beings are imaginative synthesizing animals” . These imaginations make up a large part of our understanding, not just our beliefs, but rather our socially constructed way of being in and inhabiting a world. (shrink)

The author introduces and critically analyzes two recent, curious findings and their accompanying explanations regarding how the folk intuits the capabilities of the dead and those in a persistent vegetative state. The dead are intuited to survive death, whereas PVS patients are intuited as more dead than the dead. Current explanations of these curious findings rely on how the folk is said to conceive of death and the dead: either as the annihilation of the person, or that person’s (...) continuation as a disembodied being. The author argues that these two conceptions are incompatible and inconsistent with each other and the evidence. Contrariwise, the author argues that the folk intuition about dead-survivors and the living dead are more easily explained by appealing to cross-culturally established concepts: the folk biological concept of death the existential concept of death, and the concept of social death. (shrink)

One goal of the transplant community is to seek ways to increase the number of people who are willing and able to donate organs. People in states between life and death are often medically excellent candidates for donating organs. Yet public policy surrounding organ procurement is a delicate matter. While there is the utilitarian goal of increasing organ supply, there is also the deontologic concern about respect for persons. Public policy must properly mediate between these two concerns. Currently the (...) dead donor (dd) rule is appealed to as an attempt at such mediation. I argue that given the lack of consensus on a definition of death, the dd rule is no longer successful at mediating utilitarian and deontologic concerns. I suggest instead that focusing on a particular person's history can be successful. (shrink)

From Antiquity to the Postmodern world, the approaches of philosophical and literary thought to death have changed but also remained similar from philosopher to philosopher and from writer to writer. Many of these approaches emphasize the dualities of life/death and soul/body, relying on the argument that everything arises from its opposite through the continuous process of reproduction, just as everything dies. This paper will deal with the concept of death in the work of three authors, Ndre Mjedja, (...) Lasgush Poradeci, and Mitrush Kuteli, who are the main writers and cultural personalities in Albanian literature of the 20th century. The selected authors conceive, create, and promote a plurality of discourses and themes, highlighting the theme of death, through which they reveal the philosophical power of the literary text and the possibilities implicit to literature itself. Their views provide a poetic and cultural background for a theoretical discussion of literary and cultural facets of death. A prelude exploring the concept of death generally will be followed by a discussion of the authors’ works, and finally, a theoretical analysis of these works will round off the investigation of death as a literary and philosophical theme in Albanian letters. (shrink)

Why is there still debate about definitions of death in medicine and bioethics? Is it because of existential uncertainty and philosophical curiosity about when a person has died so the person’s dea...

John P. Lizza has long been a major figure in the scholarly literature on criteria for death. His searching and penetrating critiques of the dominant biological paradigm, and his defense of a theory of death of the person as a psychophysical entity, have both significantly advanced the literature. In this special issue, Lizza reinforces his critiques of a strictly biological approach. In my commentary, I take up Lizza’s challenge regarding a biological concept of death. He is certainly (...) right to point out that science is not value-free; however, this does not imply that there cannot be a characterization of biological death that can be shown to be superior to other concepts. After characterizing and justifying such a theory of biological death, I show that patients who meet the diagnostic criteria for brain death are unequivocally biologically alive. However, with respect to concepts of personhood and related ideas, I urge the acceptance of a pluralism of such concepts for matters of public policy. (shrink)

A combination of emerging life support technologies and entrenched organ donation practices are complicating the physician's task of determining death. On the one hand, technologies that support or replace ventilation and circulation may render the diagnosis of death ambiguous. On the other, transplantation of vital organs requires timely and accurate declaration of death of the donor to keep the organs as healthy as possible. These two factors have led to disagreements among physicians and scholars on the precise (...) moment of death. In this article, I suggest that the debate about exactly when a person dies can benefit from distinguishing the strict biological concept of death from the medical standards for determining human death, and I show how an appreciation of the difference between the permanent and irreversible cessation of circulation is helpful in understanding the reasons for the two approaches to determining when death should be declared. (shrink)

In this book, Douglas Walton examines the philosophical nature of two issues currently associated with medical ethics. In order to work towards an analysis of the concept of death that could function as a target towards which the medical criteria of death could be directed, he proposes the foundations for a theory free of logical contradictions, paradoxes, and other perplexities. This is the "superlimiting theory" which introduces the notion of a "possible person." The connection of these philosophical ideas (...) with medico-legal concerns like brain death and the Harvard criteria is discussed. Professor Walton then goes on to examine the difference between killing and letting die. Through a close study of the logic of action sentences, he develops a model that is discussed in the light of the ethical and jurisprudential realities of medical ethics to see if the distinction between bringing something about and letting something happen is one that makes a moral difference in the evaluation of actions. Numerous problematic conceptual snags are dealt with, and the author consistently supports the conceptual clarity and respectability of the distinction. Other relevant discriminations of an action-theoretic sort, such as that between "direct" and "indirect" euthanasia, are studied, and the concluding chapter applies the conceptual analysis to a philosophical discussion of attitudes towards death, asking, "Is it rational to fear death?". (shrink)

In this short study, I attempt to reconstruct the main conceptual components of Edmund Husserl’s concept of death following the leading clue of his late transcendental phenomenological methodology. First, I summarise his thoughts on death, from the point of view of “the natural attitude”, as an event in the world. Then, I try and explore the manifold senses of the limit phenomenon of death as a multidimensional transcendental phenomenological problem in all of its intersubjective-world constitutive, personal-primordial, (...) and metaphysical-constructive layers of meanings, respectively. By doing so, I also hope that the path we travel can serve the reader as an opportunity for a personal and reflective confrontation with death. (shrink)

Heidegger''s conception of death as an attitude toward life, overlooked in current literature on death and dying, offers potential for deepening our understanding of the care of non-critically ill patients. By breaking away from the notion of death as an event distinct from life and viewing it as an anticipated possibility at every moment of life, Heidegger provides insight into our attempts to evade death through our fundamental attitudes and value commitments, which in turn determine our (...) behavior and actions. When combined with a method of application — the Nietzschean principle of reversal — these insights permit the understanding of diverse types of human mentality confronted with significant situations. Among the most important applications of these conceptions is to persons in need of medical care, and the resultant types, which are sampled as hypothetical cases, carry important implications for the sensitive care and psychosocial management of non-terminally ill patients. (shrink)

This article develops an argument in defense of the claim that Aquinas holds that there are some kinds of activities which can be performed only by persons. In particular, it is argued that Aquinas holds that only persons can engage in the activities proper to a rational nature, e.g., the activities of intellect and will. Next, the article turns to discuss two implications of this thesis concerning Aquinas’s concept of a person. First, the thesis can be used to resolve a (...) prominent scholarly debate concerning Aquinas’s views on the possibility of human persons surviving their bodily deaths. Second, it also points to a problem with a leading interpretation of Aquinas’ account of the Christian doctrine of the Incarnation. Finally, the article concludes by discussing how a correct interpretation of Aquinas’s views on these matters is related to a broader scholarly debate concerning the history of the Western concept of a person. (shrink)

As science focuses exclusively on the physical, it seems to assume that the brain has a key role in the origin if not also the constitution of our consciousness; and thus the destruction of the brain, the nervous system, and the body makes it pointless or even absurd to think of any personal consciousness after death. But one need not be convinced by this. However, any effort to investigate a possible post-mortem life depends on forming a coherent conception (...) of what such a life could be. Can we speak, without incoherence or contradiction, of a person continuing to exist after death in a disembodied state? Our concern in this study lies here. Based on Lund’s view, we will present and defend an argument that one can conceive of a self who is fully embedded in the natural world and deeply embodied in a physical organism, and yet could have a rich variety of experiences in an afterworld encountered after death. In this theory, the close association of the mental and the physical is due to a causal connection - a connection that fails to establish that the physical brings the mental into existence and is compatible with theories that the source of consciousness is not in the brain. (shrink)

Throughout much of human history most people conceived of death as a transitional event. An alternative, secular, conception of death is as the permanent cessation of all life‐sustaining biological functions. The death of the physical organism is the death of the person or human being. However death be conceived, human beings are the only creatures that are aware of their mortality. The death penalty is often thought to be the most severe punishment of all, (...) far worse than life imprisonment. Attitudes towards death vary according to the acceptance or rejection of belief in an afterlife. Death in old age is generally held to be less deplorable than death in one's prime. Premature death, however, is commonly deemed to be tragic, but not because merely being alive is a good of one kind or another, let alone good in itself. Lucretius exaggerated the symmetry between prenatal and post‐ mortem events. (shrink)

For most us, learning which quantum theory correctly describes human bodies will not affect our attitudes towards our loved ones. On the other hand, a child’s discovery of the nature of meat (or an adult’s discovery of the nature of soylent green) can have a great effect. In still other cases, it is hard to say how one would, or should, react to new information about the underlying nature of what we value—think of how mixed our reactions are to evidence (...) of cultural determinism or atheism, or of how mixed our reactions would be to learning that we all live in the Matrix. (Indeed, maybe there is no objective fact about how we should react. Derek Parfit’s (1984, section 95) fear of death diminished when he became convinced of certain theses about the metaphysics of personal identity. Perhaps there is no objective fact of the matter as to whether this was rational; perhaps it was rational for him but would not be for others.) What can metaphysics contribute to the question of the evil of death? It cannot, on its own, settle the question, since there is no simple rule telling us how to adjust value in light of new information about underlying nature. Given a clear view of the nature of death, there will remain the question of its disvalue. However, metaphysics can help us attain this clear view. Moreover, a clear conception of what metaphysical positions do and don’t say, and a clear conception of how metaphysics works in general, can remove impediments to a rational appraisal of the evil of death. (shrink)

The topic of this paper is the general thesis that the death of the human organism is what constitutes the death of a person. All admit that when the death of a human organism occurs, in some form or another, this normally does result in the death of a person. But, some maintain, organismic death is not the same thing as personal death. Why? Because, they maintain, despite the fact that persons are associated (...) with a human organism (‘their organism’), they are not identical with their organism, and so they can, at least in principle and perhaps in actuality, die before or after their organism dies. The thesis described above I shall call ‘the two-deaths thesis’ in virtue of the fact that its proponents believe that there are two kinds of death, viz. organismic death and personal death. The opposing thesis, according to which the death of a human organism does constitute the death of a person, I call the ‘one death thesis’. After giving some background remarks in section 2 of this paper, in section 3 I argue that, if we take linguistic usage seriously, neither the two-deaths thesis nor the one-death thesis is true. I argue, rather, that so far as linguistic usage goes it is indeterminate which of them is true. In section 4 I go further and argue that if one accepts a widely held metaphysical view, viz. that the world itself partially determines reference and the extensions of our concepts, then it is plausible that the one-death thesis is true despite the facts about linguistic usage. (shrink)

This paper discusses how alternative concepts of personhood affect the definition of death. I argue that parties in the debate over the definition of death have employed different concepts of personhood, and thus have been talking past each other by proposing definitions of death for different kinds of things. In particular, I show how critics of the consciousness-related, neurological formation of death have relied on concepts of personhood that would be rejected by proponents of that formulation. (...) These critics rest on treating persons as qualitative specifications of human organisms or as identical to human organisms. Since advocates of the consciousness-related, neurological formulation of death are not committed to either of these views of personhood, these critics commit the fallacy of attacking a straw man. I then clarify the substantive concept of personhood that may be invoked in the consciousness-related, neurological formulation of death, and argue that, on this view and contra Bernat, Culver, and Gert, persons have always been the kind of thing that can literally die. I conclude by suggesting that the discussion of defining death needs to focus on which approach to personhood makes the most sense metaphysically and morally. (shrink)

Drawing upon Lynne Baker's idea of the person derivatively possessing the properties of a constituting organism, I argue that even if persons aren't identical to living organisms, they can each literally die a biological death. Thus we can accept that we're not essentially organisms and can still die without having to admit that there are two concepts and criteria of death as Jeff McMahan and Robert Veatch do. Furthermore, we can accept James Bernat's definition of "death" without (...) having to insist, as he does, that persons are identical to organisms or that persons can only die metaphorical deaths. (shrink)

This paper deals with the moral issues relevant to medical decisions to terminate the life of a human organism. The expression “termination of life” will be used to cover both (1) active intervention to bring about a state of an Organism that will cause its death, and (2) a failure to intervene in causal processes that will otherwise result in the death of an organism. I shall attempt to distinguish the different cases in which the decision to terminate (...) life is morally justified and to isolate the considerations that are morally relevant to such decisions. -/- Decisions to terminate life: some possibly relevant considerations -/- There are a number of considerations that different people think relevant to medical decisions to terminate life and that are taken into account in actual medical practice. The following questions capture, I hope, the main ones: 1. Can the Organism in question be characterized as a person? 2. If the Organism is not a person, is it at least a potential person; that is such as will develop into a person? 3. If the Organism is a person, does he or she desire his or her own death, and if so is that desire a rational one? 4. If the Organism is a potential person, will this potential person express a rational desire to die once it becomes capable of expressing such a desire? 5. What quality of life will this person enjoy 6. What quality of life will this potential person enjoy? 7. What is the cost of maintaining the life of this person? 8. What is the cost of allowing this potential person to become a person, and then of maintaining his or her life? 9. Are we dealing with an unconscious person whom it is technologically impossible to restore to consciousness? 10. Is the termination of life a matter of active intervention or only a matter of refraining from saving the life of the organism? 11. Are we dealing with the case of “direct” killing or only one of “indirect” killing? 12 Does it require “ extraordinary” or only “ordinary” means to keep the person alive? 13. Is the individual suffering from a fatal illness? There are two ways in which each of these considerations might be relevant to a decision to terminate life. First, it might bear upon the question of whether it is morally permissible to terminate life. Secondly, if termination of life is morally permissible it may be relevant to the question of whether there is any positive reason for terminating life. (shrink)

Fifteen years ago, Ruth Macklin shook the medical community with her claim in the BMJ that dignity is a useless concept. Her essay provoked a storm of reactions. What have we learned from the debate? In this article I analyse the responses to her essay and the following debate to investigate whether she was right that “[d]ignity is a useless concept in medical ethics and can be eliminated without any loss of content.” While some of the commentaries misconstrued her claim (...) and argue against strawmen, others forcefully maintained that the concept of dignity has functions beyond “respect for persons and their autonomy.” One important point that came out of the debate is that dignity is a generic concept that covers more ground than “respect for persons or their autonomy.” In particular, dignity seems to have a wide range of protective functions as well as having reciprocal, relational, and social aspects. Dignity appears more attributional and norm‐formative than respect for persons and autonomy. While the claim that dignity is unclear, vague, and can be used sloganistically seems highly relevant, it is argued that this vagueness fulfils important functions in ethics. Moreover, dismissing dignity because of its lack of clarity has implications for “respect for persons” and “autonomy,” which are also used vaguely and sloganistically. No doubt medical ethics should use as a clear concept as the context requires. Nonetheless, dignity still seems to be a widely used generic concept in ethical debates and doing as much ethical work as “respect for persons” or “respect for autonomy.” Therefore, the death of dignity seems to be greatly exaggerated. (shrink)

Two experiments investigated whether moral evaluations of organ transplantation influence judgments of death and causation. Participants’ beliefs about whether an unconscious organ donor was dead and whether organ removal caused death in a hypothetical vignette varied depending on the moral valence of the vignette. Those who were randomly assigned to the good condition were more likely to believe that the donor was dead prior to organ removal and that organ removal did not cause death. Furthermore, attitudes toward (...) euthanasia and organ donation independently predicted judgments of death and causation, regardless of experimental condition. The results are discussed in light of the framework of motivated reasoning, in which motivation influences the selection of cognitive processes and representations applied to a given domain, as well as Knobe’s person-as-moralist model, in which many basic concepts are appropriately imbued with moral features. On either explanatory framework, these data cast doubt on the psychological legitimacy of the mainstream justification for vital organ procurement from heart-beating donors, which holds that neurological criteria for death are scientifically justified, independently of concerns about organ transplantation. These data suggest that, rather than concluding that organ removal is permissible because the donor is dead, people may believe that the donor is dead because they believe organ removal to be permissible. (shrink)

After the death of Prophet Muhammad (p.b.u.h), one of the most significant debated topics of Muslims was the institution of caliphate. This institution caused crucial argumentations through the ages from Abu Bakr to Abd-al-Majid who was the hundreth khalifa. Some prominent issues in that regard as follows: How khalifa comes to power, who becomes khalifa, whether he is descended from Quraysh or not, which kind of traits khalifa should have, and how khalifa should behave in certain circumstances. While these (...) arguments were going on, caliphate was maintained based on the reign under some certain dynasties’ responsibilities after the Rashidun (rightly guided) Caliphs. Umayyads, Abbasids and Ottoman Dynasties were the most well-known ones of these dynasties. Throughout history, even though caliphate passed in one another’s hands among aforementioned dynasties, none of them did attempt to abolish this position. However, Turkish Muslims who became defeated with European occupation of non-western territories decided to abolish caliphate for the sake of modernization activities within the period of transition from imperialism to nation state. This decision brought about a trauma, which was much more critical than former argumentation around the position in Muslim world. Many congresses were organized in Islamic world in order to recover from this trauma. While this kind of quests were continuing, Muhammad Hamīdullah proposed “High Caliphate Council” in relation to rearrangement of caliphate in accordance with the conditions of Islamic countries. This proposal offers an applicable model to today’s modern nation states by establishing unity among them and leaving aside their conflicts and differences. This proposal offers a resolution of much-discussed matters of the position within the limits of principals. It also draws attention by showing a possibility of Islamic union in contemporary Islamic thought. Summary: The matters of who undertakes the management of societies, how rulers come to power and in what manners the rulers maintain the management have been discussed throughout history. It is seen that rulers adopted kingdom as regime before the period of the Prophet Muhammad (p.b.u.h). There was also two-person management. The discussions about this matter were also seen around khalifas who were the rulers of Muslims after the death of Prophet Muhammad (p.b.u.h). Some debated issues in that regards as follows: Who becomes khalifa, how he is elected, which traits he should possess, and so on. Caliphate continued its existence despite the discussions until the first quarter of the 14th Hijra era. Abolition of caliphate was a trauma for Muslims undoubtedly. From Anatolia to Egypt and from India to the Balkans, many attempts were carried out to recover from this trauma. However, this matter was oversimplified in the conditions of that period since it became a topic which was hushed over in just congresses and conventions. One of the people who wrote on this topic, which maintains its vitality even today was Muhammad Hamīdullah. He was an important Islamic scholar, a lawyer and a historian in Indian geography. Hamīdullah did deal caliphate by indicating its history broadly. The distinctive feature of Hamīdullah from others who wrote on this topic is that he also presented a considerable offer to solve the matter. In this sense, Hamīdullah experienced the trauma in his own life as all muslims did it with the abolition of caliphate. Hence he mentioned this matter in his writings in the mood of care and dignity of a scientist and also in feeling of a heartbroken muslim. Hamīdullah made clear that the method of election of the ruler differed throughout history. Indeed, the verses of Holy Qur’ān, the applications of the Prophet Muhammad (p.b.u.h) and the differences of Four Great Chaliphs on coming to power testified this claim. According to Hamīdullah, it is quite normal that the method of regime can vary according to the conditions of societies. He recommended acting based on timeless rules rather than the changes that vary according to conditions and places. He also stated that the regime which Islam approves is a combination of kingdom and democracy in his lines dealing with methods of regime. To him, kingdom is the method of regime of empire. Empire is the regime in which various nationalities live together with all their differences and interact with one another intensely and in which the rulers rule over wide borders. On the other hand, Islamic world lost its edges of empire, changed its regime and divided to nation states after the decline of the Ottoman Empire and Mughal Empire which were established by Muslims. On the contrary, westerners attempted to establish a head empire several times after building nation states in Europe. Some of them are UN, NATO, EU, to name but a few. In our opinion, in the transition process of Muslim rulers from empire to nation state, Hamīdullah made an offer to accomodate Islamic law in state law, Islamic politic and administrative principles in politics and administration practices, Islamic education system in education system, and principles of Islamic economics in economic decisions of government using the Prophet Muhammed’s life as a base. He also explained to Muslims that the method of regime can be changed and the essential matter is to apply Islamic management principles in such a new situation. He played a role in clearing the way for Muslims by indicating that the method of Islamic regime can be changed according to conditions but the principles of Islam are unalterable. To the writer of these lines, Hamīdullah intimates that it is not so true to stick to the form of the process in Muslim territories in which a compulsory transition from the empires or multinational social structures to the nation state structures have been experienced for the last two ages. However, the first matter to dwell on should be whether the ruler of the government behaves in accoradance with the principles of Islam or not. To Hamīdullah, the second matter is that even though Muslim countries had to enter in the process of becoming nation states, Muslims should make an effort to establish supra-state associations as required by Islam. In this respect, Hamīdullah’s proposal is “High Caliphate Council”. This council is a considerable offer presented to Muslim countries in the age when a universal caliphate is not possible and Muslims head towards a unified state form all over the world. Today, this offer recommends countries of which great majority is Muslims and in which Muslims are minority to meet on a common ground rather than conflict because of differences among them. The High Caliphate Council is an institute consists of presidents or hereditary administrators as leading and regular members and so it avoids regional competition. It is established by Muslim presidents who shares the chair alternately. Based on this, all Muslim presidents play a role altogether in this council without need to be Sunni, Shia, or from Quraysh. The High Caliphate Council is a reflection of a dream, which started a century and half a century ago but is required more today. It is also a reflection of the discourse of “Islamic Union” in Contemporary Islamic Thought. The Caliphate Council and International Islamic Legists’ Association, which is the first practical step of the council can be seen as the theory of a new world order based on the unity principle of Islam. Hamīdullah does not consider this order not only in the range of belief but also with the aim of institutionalizing ‘ijmā (consensus of Islamic legists) and qiyās(legal analogy). He stated that International Islamic Legists’ Association, which is a scientific institution could not be established beforetime by Muslims spread on three continents due to lacking of communication among them. However, thanks to today’s possibilities, the establishment of such association is easier today. Hamīdullah found dynamic solutions such these two institutions for the realization of caliphate, which is a religious necessity. He marked an era for Muslims in the period of time when they are on a quest. (shrink)

Singer claims that there are two ways of challenging the fact that brain-dead patients, from whom organs are usually retrieved, are in fact biologically alive. By means of the first, the so called dead donor rule may be abandoned, opening the way to lethal organ donation. In the second, it might be posited that terms such as “life” and “death” do not have any primary biological meaning and are applicable to persons instead of organisms. This second possibility permits one (...) to acknowledge that brain-dead patients are deceased because they are irreversibly unconscious. In the commentary which follows, I will argue that Singer’s second option is preferable since it provides a higher amount of organs available for transplant, and is better suited to the meaning of “death” which occurs in ordinary language. I will also defend such a concept of death against the objections raised by Michael Nair-Collins in the article Can the brain-dead be harmed or wronged? On the moral status of brain death and its implications for organ transplantation. (shrink)

For most us, learning which quantum theory correctly describes human bodies will not affect our attitudes towards our loved ones. On the other hand, a child’s discovery of the nature of meat (or an adult’s discovery of the nature of soylent green) can have a great effect. In still other cases, it is hard to say how one would, or should, react to new information about the underlying nature of what we value—think of how mixed our reactions are to evidence (...) of cultural determinism or atheism, or of how mixed our reactions would be to learning that we all live in the Matrix. (Indeed, maybe there is no objective fact about how we should react. Derek Par t’s ( , section ) fear of death diminished when he became convinced of certain theses about the metaphysics of personal identity. Perhaps there is no objective fact of the matter as to whether this was rational; perhaps it was rational for him but would not be for others.) What can metaphysics contribute to the question of the evil of death? It cannot, on its own, settle the question, since there is no simple rule telling us how to adjust value in light of new information about underlying nature. Given a clear view of the nature of death, there will remain the question of its disvalue. However, metaphysics can help us attain this clear view. Moreover, a clear conception of what metaphysical positions do and don’t say, and a clear conception of how metaphysics works in general, can remove impediments to a rational appraisal of the evil of death. (shrink)

What is death? Do people survive death? What do we mean when we say that someone is "dying"? Presenting a clear and engaging discussion of the classic philosophical questions surrounding death, this book studies the great metaphysical and moral problems of death. In the first part, Feldman shows that a definition of life is necessary before death can be defined. After exploring several of the most plausible accounts of the nature of life and demonstrating their (...) failure, he goes on to propose his own conceptual scheme for death and related concepts. In the second part, Feldman turns to ethical and value-theoretical questions about death. Addressing the ancient Epicurean ethical problem about the evil of death, he argues that death can be a great evil for those who die, even if they do not exist after death, because it may deprive them of the goods they would have enjoyed if they had continued to live. Confrontations with the Reaper concludes with a novel consequentialist theory about the morality of killing, applying it to such thorny practical issues as abortion, suicide, and euthanasia. (shrink)

The present chapter explores conceptual links in folk cognition between death, existence and personal identity. There is some evidence that people’s judgments about death determination differ relatively widely (Dranseika and Neiders 2018, Neiders and Dranseika 2020). If folk judgements about death differ between people, however, can those differences at least in some degree be driven by people’s beliefs about what we are, when we cease to exist and whether ceasing to exist is identical to death (...) (so-called Termination Thesis)? In order to answer these questions, we conducted two studies. The first study looks into how people think about when they begin and cease to exist as well as when they are born and die. The second study replicates the findings of the first study in a different language and country and also extends these results by also looking at what people think about ‘what we are’, and whether their position on the latter issue is associated to their thinking about when they begin and cease to exist as well as when they are born and die. The studies presented in this chapter show that, first, people seem to hold a considerable variety of different views about death, coming into existence, ceasing to exist and what we are. The studies also recovered a number of conceptual links between these concepts. These results potentially bear on a number of issues in bioethics, i.e., not only discussions on death determination, but also on abortion or embryonic research. As for death determination, the results can be taken to provide further support for the so-called pluralist proposal. Second, study results provide little evidence for the claim that people’s beliefs about death are driven by their assumptions about personal identity, i.e., their understanding of ‘what we are’. In particular, there is little evidence that differences among people on death result from differences among people on personal identity. Finally, the studies show that people don’t reason in accordance with the Termination Thesis. The link between folk ascriptions of death and cessation of existence, while present, is weak. (shrink)

This article analyzes articles and interviews published in Sartre on Theater and focuses on five plays ( Bariona , The Flies , No Exit and The Condemned of Altona ) in order to arrive at a coherent conception of Sartre's theater. Sartre views the stage as “belonging to a different imaginary realm“ in which the characters' language, gestures and the props function in a synecdochical relationship in respect to the spectators. It is their task to grasp these “signs“ and bundle (...) them into a coherent and meaningful whole. Because Sartre views the theater as an imaginary realm, he can free himself from the strictures of his philosophy: 1) the irreversibility of time; 2) the fact that life does not give us a second chance; and 3) that death means that our life falls into the public domain. This freedom allows Sartre to deal with temporality in a novel way and to deal with “life after death“ as life simply continued. Conversely, he can scramble temporality for psychological reasons in order to bring out deep rooted personal conflicts, as he does in The Condemned of Altona. (shrink)

BackgroundSocio-cultural perceptions surrounding death have profoundly changed since the 1950s with development of modern intensive care and progress in solid organ transplantation. Despite broad support for organ transplantation, many fundamental concepts and practices including brain death, organ donation after circulatory death, and some antemortem interventions to prepare for transplantation continue to be challenged. Attitudes toward the ethical issues surrounding death and organ donation may influence support for and participation in organ donation but differences between and among (...) diverse populations have not been studied.ObjectivesIn order to clarify attitudes toward brain death, organ donation after circulatory death and antemortem interventions in the context of organ donation, we conducted a scoping review of international English-language quantitative surveys in various populations.Study appraisalA search of literature up to October 2020 was performed, using multiple databases. After screening, 45 studies were found to meet pre-specified inclusion criteria.Results32 studies examined attitudes to brain death, predominantly in healthcare professionals. In most, around 75% of respondents accepted brain death as equivalent to death of the person. Less common perspectives included equating death with irreversible coma and willingness to undertake organ donation even if it caused death. 14 studies examined attitudes to organ donation following circulatory death. Around half of respondents in most studies accepted that death could be confidently diagnosed after only 5 min of cardiorespiratory arrest. The predominant reason was lack of confidence in doctors or diagnostic procedures. Only 6 studies examined attitudes towards antemortem interventions in prospective organ donors. Most respondents supported minimally invasive procedures and only where specific consent was obtained.ConclusionsOur review suggests a considerable proportion of people, including healthcare professionals, have doubts about the medical and ethical validity of modern determinations of death. The prognosis of brain injury was a more common concern in the context of organ donation decision-making than certainty of death. (shrink)

Between 1935 and 1970, tens of thousands of people worldwide underwent brain operations due to psychiatric indication that were intended to positively influence their mental state and behaviour. The majority of these psychosurgical procedures were prefrontal lobotomies. Developed in 1935, the procedure initially met with fierce opposition, but was introduced in numerous countries in the following decade, and was employed up until the late 1960s. This article investigates why psychosurgery was widely accepted after World War II. It examines the effects (...) it was hoped psychosurgical intervention would have, the undesired outcomes in which the method could potentially result, and the significance these outcomes were given. The analysis of scientific articles of the period as well as one case study show that the goal of the operation was, first and foremost, to help the mentally ill adapt to the social order inside and outside the mental institution. After initial criticism, changes in personality, severe physical side-effects and death were accepted in order to reach this goal. Thus, with psychosurgical intervention the social adjustment of patients, also in their own interest, was rated higher than physical and psychic integrity. This widely held view shows that after World War II a post-bourgeoise order of the subject dominated, according to which an individual was to adapt and to function in the interests of the collective. According to the assumption, the triumph of lobotomy was related to the development of a new conception of the self that made possible a broad implementation of the procedure and that was consolidated through psychosurgery. (shrink)

In the case of Japan, we accepted the Chinese philosophy of morality when we received the Chinese character Yi: it means responsibility to Heaven (vertical) and, at the same time, responsibility to community (horizontal). An act having this structure might be our responsibility as human beings: yi means “justice”, keeping balance between Heaven and Earth. The Japanese people had such a balance until the Edo era. In 1868, when the Meiji Restoration occurred, the Japanese government tried to accept Western ideas. (...) Cyoumin Nakae introduced the Western philosophy of law and the constitutional system. He translated Rousseau’s The Social Contract into Japanese and gave a series of lectures on the social contract. The fundament of his thought is concentrated in the “rights of Liberty”. He emphasized transcendental liberty beyond personal, phenomenal liberty and found the same structure in Mencius. His idea of ft suggests the way of justice. Unfortunately, this idea was crushed with the death of his talented disciple in prison. After the book of Bushido, ft was only translated as “duty” for the community (horizontal), and we lost the vertical perspective: transcendental liberty. (shrink)

The dominant conception of brain death as the death of the whole brain constitutes an unstable compromise between the view that a person ceases to exist when she irreversibly loses the capacity for consciousness and the view that a human organism dies only when it ceases to function in an integrated way. I argue that no single criterion of death captures the importance we attribute both to the loss of the capacity for consciousness and to the loss (...) of functioning of the organism as a whole. This is because the person or self is one thing and the human organism is another. We require a separate account of death for each. Only if we systematically distinguish between persons and human organisms will we be able to provide plausible accounts both of the conditions of our ceasing to exist and of when it is that we begin to exist. This paper, in short, argues for a form of mind-body dualism and draws out some of its implications for various practical moral problems. (shrink)

The article discusses the philosophical problems associated with the dualistic conception of the person dominant in traditions influenced by Platonism. The key suggestion made in the article is that opting for an embodied rather than a disembodied posthumous existence for the human person will in no way hinder the theistic philosopher when it comes to arguing that God exists in a disembodied form.

The use of a historical example such as Nero as part of an argument defending or condemning the regicides came automatically to literate Europeans of the seventeenth century who, as part of their classical education, were conditioned to use rhetorical devices, including examples and comparisons, when trying to convince readers to accept their arguments. Nero had, since shortly after his death in AD 68, been a favourite example of a tyrant, and for centuries literate Europeans had shared a traditional (...) perception of Nero's iniquitous character and actions. Salmasius, however, referred to Nero as being not simply a tyrant but as �the worst of tyrants�. One of the major objectives of this essay is to demonstrate that this notion of Nero as worse than other tyrants and indeed, with some writers, than other men was widely shared during the Renaissance. Secondly, I will show that it was mainly the personality of Nero and especially his cruelty that was seen as justifying his exceptional status. Thirdly, I hope to explain how he came to have such a reputation and the influence of rhetoric and a related moralizing approach to writing history on establishing and perpetuating it. In accomplishing these three objectives it will also be necessary to elucidate the meaning that the term 'tyrant' had for Europeans of the Renaissance and earlier centuries. As will be shown, the tyrant was very frequently defined in terms of his vicious personality and especially his extreme cruelty. (shrink)

Dramatic changes in medical technology challenge mankind’s traditional ways of diagnosing death. Death, Brain Death and Ethics examines the concept of death against the background of these changes, as well as ethical and philosophical issues arising from attempts to redefine the boundaries of life. In this book, David Lamb supports the use of brain-related criteria for the diagnosis of death, and proposes a new clinical definition of death based on both medical and philosophical principles. (...) Death, Brain Death and Ethics articulates the case for a brain death standard, while presenting an informed viewpoint on what constitutes the end points of human life. Although the book is written from a philosophical standpoint, it raises fundamental questions regarding the meaning of life and death, and will interest lay-persons, lawyers, and physicians. Death, Brain Death and Ethics is sure to prompt discussion and reflection on some of the philosophical beliefs which underlie clinical practice. (shrink)

In this paper, I defend brain death as a criterion for determining death against objections raised by Don Marquis, Michael Nair-Collins, Doyen Nguyen, and Laura Specker Sullivan. I argue that any definition of death for beings like us relies on some sortal concept by which we are individuated and identified and that the choice of that concept in a practical context is not determined by strictly biological considerations but involves metaphysical, moral, social, and cultural considerations. This view (...) supports acceptance of a more pluralistic legal definition of death as well as acceptance of brain death as death. (shrink)

Because every single one of us will die, most of us would like to know what—if anything—awaits us afterward, not to mention the fate of lost loved ones. Given the nearly universal vested interest we personally have in deciding this question in favor of an afterlife, it is no surprise that the vast majority of books on the topic affirm the reality of life after death without a backward glance. But the evidence of our senses and the ever-gaining strength (...) of scientific evidence strongly suggest otherwise. -/- In The Myth of an Afterlife: The Case against Life after Death, Michael Martin and Keith Augustine collect a series of contributions that redress this imbalance in the literature by providing a strong, comprehensive, and up-to-date casebook of the chief arguments against an afterlife all in one place. Divided into four separate sections, this essay collection opens the volume with a broad overview of the issues, as contributors consider the strongest available evidence as to whether or not we survive death—in particular the biological basis of all mental states and their grounding in brain activity that ceases to function at death. Next contributors consider a host of conceptual and empirical difficulties that confront the various ways of "surviving" death—from bodiless minds to bodily resurrection to any form of posthumous survival. Then essayists turn to internal inconsistencies between traditional theological conceptions of an afterlife—Heaven, Hell, karmic rebirth—and widely held ethical principles central to the belief systems undergirding those notions. In the final section, authors offer critical evaluations of the main types of evidence for an afterlife. -/- Fully interdisciplinary, The Myth of an Afterlife: The Case against Life after Death brings together a variety of fields of research to make that case, including cognitive neuroscience, philosophy of mind, personal identity, philosophy of religion, moral philosophy, psychical research, and anomalistic psychology. As the definitive casebook of arguments against life after death, this collection is required reading for any instructor, researcher, and student in philosophy, religious studies, and theology. It is sure to raise provocative issues new to readers, regardless of background, from those who believe fervently in the reality of an afterlife to those who do not or are undecided on the matter. (shrink)

This paper offers a partial defence of the Epicurean claim that death is not bad for the one who dies. Unlike Epicurus and his present-day advocates, this defence relies not on a hedonistic or empiricist conception of value but on the concept of ‘existential’ value. Existential value is agent-relative value for which it is constitutive that it can be truly self-ascribed in the first person and present tense. From this definition, it follows that death (post-mortem non-existence), while perhaps (...) bad in some respects, cannot be an existential harm for the one who dies. This paper argues that existential goods are central to any explanation of why life appears good to us from a self-interested perspective, which means that death is not bad in the very respect in which life is most saliently good (from that perspective). A corresponding error theory shows why this truth is easily overlooked and explains why we tend to think that death is significantly worse than it really is. (shrink)

Some opponents of abortion claim that fetuses are persons from the moment of conception. Following Berg (2017), let us call these individuals “Personhood-At-Conception” (or PAC), opponents of abortion. Berg argues that if fetuses are persons from the moment of conception, then miscarriage kills far more people than abortion. As such, PAC opponents of abortion face the following dilemma: They must “immediately” and “substantially” shift their attention, resources, etc., toward preventing miscarriage or they must admit that they do not actually believe (...) that fetuses are persons from the moment of conception (or, at least, they must recognize that they are not acting in ways that are consistent with this belief). In this essay, I show that Berg’s argument fails at each step. Specifically, after outlining her argument (in section 1), I consider the central claim of Berg’s style of argument: That “miscarriage…is much deadlier than abortion.” In section 2, I argue that this claim is false (when taken literally) and misleading otherwise. In section 3, I show that Berg’s style of argument is identical in structure to a criticism that is sometimes levied against the recent “Black Lives Matter” movement. In the latter context, the argument has been vehemently rejected. I argue that Berg’s style of argument should be rejected for the same reasons. Finally, in section 4, I show that Berg’s suggestion that opponents of abortion should divert “substantial” amounts of money and attention to miscarriage prevention faces two problems. First, these claims are made without any evidence regarding the actual priorities and spending habits of PAC opponents of abortion. If we are told “not enough is being done,” one wonders: What is being done and how much counts as “enough”? Berg gives no answer to either question. Second, even if it is true that opponents of abortion do not pay substantial attention to miscarriage prevention, Berg fails to notice that this may be for good reason. I conclude that PAC opponents of abortion do not face the dilemma that Berg presents. (shrink)

Past research suggests that death pushes some individuals to strongly promote religious worldviews. The current work explores the role of conceptual metaphor in this process. Past research shows that metaphors can provide meaning and certainty, suggesting that death may therefore cause people to be more attracted to epistemically beneficial metaphoric descriptions of God. In three studies, we test this possibility against competing alternatives suggesting that death concerns may cause more selective metaphor preferences. Using both correlational and experimental (...) methods, we find that death concern is generally associated with embracing metaphors about God. (shrink)

Most contributors to the debate about brain death, including Dr. James Bernat, share certain assumptions. They believe that the concept of death is univocal, that death is a biological phenomenon, that it is necessarily irreversible, that it is paradigmatically something that happens to organisms, that we are human organisms, and therefore that our deaths will be deaths of organisms. These claims are supposed to have moral significance. It is, for example, only when a person dies that it (...) is permissible to extract her organs for transplantation.It is also commonly held that our univocal notion of death is the permanent cessation of integrated functioning in an organism and that the criterion for determining when this has occurred in animals with brains is the death of the brain as a whole – that is, brain death. The reason most commonly given for this is that the brain is the irreplaceable master control of the organism's integration. (shrink)

Psychoanalysis and Christianity hold forth the promise of genuinely radical change, transforming a person so substantially such that ‘nothing remains the same’; even if the objective conditions of one’s existence stay fixed, the very lens with which the ‘born again’ subject views the world would have undergone so traumatic an upheaval that values, priorities and everything previously deemed essential would have been reimagined. It is, quite truly, a new beginning. This paper aims to insinuate a close proximity between Žižekian concepts (...) of the traumatically emergent and new vis-à-vis Biblical ideas of salvation, vocation and agape love. I also wish to demonstrate how even the Christian sacraments of baptism and the eucharist point to death and dying as their constitutive elements, with the result that sacrifice for the world becomes the main political role the Church must play. (shrink)

Dmitri Nikulin's _The Concept of History_ raises important questions about the ways historical beings like humans can be said to face non-being (for example, the non-being of death; or of past events or persons; or of future novelties). Here, I discuss three main topics relevant to the book's framework. First, I ask whether the content of and motivation for historical writing must be of exclusively mortal origin. Beyond Nikulin's theory of ahistorical invariant structures, I consider the possibility of ahistorical (...) sources of content or motivation. Second, I engage with the book's concept of beneficial forgetting and express caution regarding the terminology of "mechanisms" or "arts" of forgetting. Third, I engage with the book's conception of productive imagination and suggest that a radical conception of historical novelty may be integrated into Nikulin's theory. Following Nikulin's lead, I emphasize throughout the essay the way that thinking about history demands attentiveness to the ahistorical. (shrink)

A stunning exploration of the relation between desire and psychopathology, The Death of Desireis a unique synthesis of the work of Laing, Freud, Nietzsche, and Heidegger that renders their often difficult concepts brilliantly accessible to and usable by psychotherapists of all persuasions. In bridging a critical gap between phenomenology and psychoanalysis, M. Guy Thompson, one of the leading existential psychoanalysts of our time, firmly re-situates the unconscious - what Freud called "the lost continent of repressed desires" - in phenomenology. (...) In so doing, he provides us with the richest, most compelling phenomenological treatment of the unconscious to date and also makes Freud's theory of the unconscious newly comprehensible. In this revised and updated second edition to the original published in 1985, M. Guy Thompson takes us inside his soul-searching seven-year apprenticeship with radical psychiatrist R. D. Laing and his cohorts as it unfolded in counterculture London of the 1970s. This rite de passage culminates with a four-year sojourn inside one of Laing's post-Kingsley Hall asylums, where Laing's unorthodox conception of treatment dispenses with conventional boundaries between "doctor" and "patient." In this unprecedented exploration, Thompson reveals the secret to Laing's astonishing alternative to the conventional psychiatric and psychoanalytic treatment schemes. Movingly written and deeply personal, Thompson shows why the very concept of "mental illness" is a misnomer and why sanity and madness should be understood instead as inherently puzzling stratagems that we devise in order to protect ourselves from intolerable mental anguish. The Death of Desireoffers a provocative and challenging reappraisal of depth psychotherapy from an existential perspective that will be of interest to psychoanalysts, psychotherapists, philosophers, social scientists, and students of the human condition. (shrink)

In 1950 Adorno et al .'s The Authoritarian Personality study warned that American society contained a minority of individuals whose characters made them prone to become fascists in certain circumstances and that this was a danger common to contemporary industrial society. After early acclaim critics argued that the main threat came from left-wing authoritarian individuals. But research in several countries failed to establish their existence. We trace and evaluate this debate, largely defending the original research. Subsequent argument suggested that the (...) concept of authoritarianism was becoming outdated in post-industrial society, a view that we strongly challenge. While defending the diagnosis and purpose of the original research, we conclude by endorsing the argument that authoritarianism is better described in terms of attitude rather than personality. This gives a clearer psychological description of political movements of the far right and offers more direct measures for their reduction. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to develop a conception of death with dignity and to examine whether it is vulnerable to the sort of criticisms that have been made of other conceptions. In this conception “death” is taken to apply to the process of dying; “dignity” is taken to be something that attaches to people because of their personal qualities. In particular, someone lives with dignity if they live well (in accordance with reason, as Aristotle (...) would see it). It follows that health care professionals cannot confer on patients either dignity or death with dignity. They can, however, attempt to ensure that the patient dies without indignity. Indignities are affronts to human dignity, and include such things as serious pain and the exclusion of patients from involvement in decisions about their lives and deaths. This fairly modest conception of death with dignity avoids the traps of being overly subjective or of viewing the sick and helpless as “undignified”. (shrink)

In debates about criteria for human death, several camps have emerged, the main two focusing on either loss of the "organism as a whole" (the mainstream view) or loss of consciousness or "personhood." Controversies also rage over the proper definition of "irreversible" in criteria for death. The situation is reminiscent of the proverbial blind men palpating an elephant; each describes the creature according to the part he can touch. Similarly, each camp grasps some aspect of the complex reality (...) of death. The personhood camp, in contrast to the mainstream "organism" camp, recognizes that a human organism can still be a biological living whole even without brain function. The mainstream camp, in contrast to the personhood camp, recognizes that a person can be permanently, even irreversibly unconscious, and still be a living person so long as his/her body is alive. The author proposes that hylomorphic dualism incorporates both these key insights. But to complete the picture of the entire "death elephant," a fundamental paradigm shift is needed to make sense of other seemingly conflicting insights. The author proposes a "semantic bisection" of the concept of death, analogous to the traditional distinction at the beginning of life between "conception" and "birth." To avoid the semantic baggage associated with the term "death," the two new death-related concepts are referred to as "passing away" (or "deceased") and "deanimation," corresponding, respectively, to sociolegal ceasing-to-be (mirror image of birth) and ontological/theological ceasing-to-be of the bodily organism (mirror image of conception). Regarding criteria, the distinguishing feature is whether the cessation of function is permanent (passing away) or irreversible (deanimation). If the "dead donor rule" were renamed the "deceased donor rule" (both acronyms felicitously being "DDR"), the ethics of organ transplantation from non–heart-beating donors could, in principle, be validly governed by the DDR, even though the donors are not yet ontologically "deanimated." Thus, the paradigm shift satisfies both those who insist on maintaining the DDR and those who claim that it has all along been receiving only lip service and should be explicitly loosened to include those who are "as good as dead." Even so, a number of practical caveats remain to be worked out for non–heart-beating protocols. (shrink)

The ancient philosophical school of Epicureanism tried to argue that death is "nothing to us." Were they right? James Warren provides a comprehensive study and articulation of the interlocking arguments against the fear of death found not only in the writings of Epicurus himself, but also in Lucretius' poem De rerum natura and in Philodemus' work De morte. These arguments are central to the Epicurean project of providing ataraxia (freedom from anxiety) and therefore central to an understanding of (...) Epicureanism as a whole. They also offer significant resources for modern discussions of the value of death--one which stands at the intersection of metaphysics and ethics. If death is the end of the subject, and the subject can not be benefited nor harmed after death, is it reasonable nevertheless to fear the ceasing-to-be? If the Epicureans are not right to claim that the dead can neither be benefited nor harmed, what alternative models might be offered for understanding the harm done by death and do these alternatives suffer from any further difficulties? The discussion involves consideration of both ethical and metaphysical topics since it requires analysis not only of the nature of a good life but also the nature of personal identity and time. A number of modern philosophers have offered criticisms or defences of the Epicureans' views. Warren explores and evaluates these in the light of a systematic and detailed study of the precise form and intention of the Epicureans' original arguments. Warren argues that the Epicureans also were interested in showing that mortality is not to be regretted and that premature death is not to be feared. Their arguments for these conclusions are to be found in their positive conception of the nature of a good and complete life, which divorce the completeness of a life as far as possible from considerations of its duration. Later chapters investigate the nature of a life lived without the fear of death and pose serious problems for the Epicureans being able to allow any concern for the post mortem future and being able to offer a positive reason for prolonging a life which is already complete in their terms. (shrink)