Confrontations with the Reaper A Philosophical Study of the Nature and Value of Death

by Feldman, Fred

• ISBN13: 9780195089288
• ISBN10: 0195089286
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1994-01-13
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

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, Feldmanshows 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 turnsto 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 ifthey 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.

Author Biography

Author of Introductory Ethics (1978), A Cartesian Introduction to Philosophy (1986), and Doing the Best We Can: An Essay in Informal Deontic Logic (1986), Fred Feldman is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Confronting the Reaper	p. 3
The Reaper--Mysterious and Evil	p. 3
The Structure of the Book	p. 5
The Nature of Death
The Search for Death Itself	p. 11
The Problems of Death	p. 11
Conceptual Analysis	p. 12
Analysis of Death or Criterion for Death?	p. 14
The Biological Concept of Death	p. 19
Life as a Part of Death	p. 20
Life-Functional Theories of Life	p. 22
Life Itself	p. 22
Some Preliminary Objections	p. 25
Aristotle's Life-Functional Analysis of Life	p. 26
Some Modern Life-Functional Analyses of Life	p. 31
The Matthews Approach	p. 35
Conclusion	p. 38
Vitalist Theories of Life	p. 39
Vitalism	p. 39
The Empirical Problem	p. 42
The Jonah Problem	p. 43
The Failure of Analyticity	p. 45
DNA-ism	p. 46
Genetic Informationism	p. 51
Problems for Genetic Informationism	p. 54
The Enigma of Death	p. 56
The Gift of Life	p. 56
The Biological Concept of Death	p. 56
Perrett's Analysis	p. 58
The Standard Analysis	p. 60
Puzzles About Suspended Animation	p. 60
Problems Concerning Fission and Fusion	p. 66
The Mystery of Death	p. 71
On Dying as a Process	p. 72
Two Senses of 'Dying,'	p. 72
Some Preliminary Proposals	p. 73
Smart's Analysis of Dying2	p. 77
Problems for Smart's Analysis	p. 78
A New Proposal	p. 80
More Mysteries of Dying2	p. 85
On Death and Dying2	p. 87
The Survival of Death	p. 89
The Termination Thesis	p. 89
Some Philosophers Who Have Accepted the Termination Thesis	p. 91
Doubts About the Termination Thesis	p. 93
The Argument from Definition	p. 96
The Argument from Dualism	p. 97
Corpses and People	p. 100
Death and Nonexistence As	p. 104
A Materialist Conception of Death	p. 106
A New Approach to Death	p. 106
The Lifeline	p. 107
Death Itself, "a Death," and Being Dead	p. 108
Death and Life	p. 110
Death and Existence	p. 113
Deaths, Lives, and Histories	p. 115
Death and Humanity	p. 117
Death and Personality	p. 118
A Materialist Way of Death	p. 123
The Value of Death
Epicurus and the Evil of Death	p. 127
Epicurus's Argument Against the Evil of Death	p. 128
Difficulties for the First Version of the Argument	p. 133
A New Version of the Argument	p. 135
The Fallacy in the New Version	p. 137
How Death Can Be Bad for the One Who Dies	p. 138
More Puzzles About the Evil of Death	p. 143
The Puzzles	p. 143
Axiological Preliminaries	p. 146
Things That Are Bad for People	p. 148
The Evil of Death	p. 150
Some Proposed Answers	p. 152
Conclusions	p. 156
Utilitarianism, Victimism, and the Morality of Killing	p. 157
"Thou Shalt Not Kill,"	p. 157
Hedonic Act Utilitarianism and the Morality of Killing	p. 163
Why HAU Fails to Explain the Wrongness of Killing	p. 166
Theories Based on Harm to the Victim	p. 167
And Why They Fail, Too	p. 170
Why Killing Is Wrong	p. 173
Ideal Act Utilitarianism	p. 173
Vitalistic Act Utilitarianism	p. 174
Hedono-vitalistic Act Utilitarianism	p. 177
Problems for HVAU	p. 181
Justicism	p. 182
Justicized Act Utilitarianism	p. 185
Abortion and the Failure to Conceive	p. 191
Three Examples	p. 193
Justicism, Murder, and the Failure to Conceive	p. 198
Justicized Act Utilitarianism and the Problem of Abortion	p. 200
The "Right to Life,"	p. 205
Advantages of This View	p. 207
The Morality and Rationality of Suicide	p. 210
Welcoming the Reaper	p. 210
Three Arguments for the Immorality of Suicide	p. 211
An Argument for the Irrationality of Suicide	p. 215
An Epistemic Argument Against the Rationality of Suicide	p. 217
"Calculative Rationality" and Suicide	p. 219
Euthanasia	p. 223
Epilogue	p. 225
Notes	p. 229
Bibliography	p. 239
Index	p. 243
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