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Article
Your death might be the worst thing ever to happen to you (but maybe you shouldn’t care)
Canadian Journal of Philosophy (2016)
  • Travis Timmerman, Seton Hall University
Abstract
Deprivationism cannot accommodate the common sense assumption that we should lament our death iff, and to the extent that, it is bad for us. Call this the Nothing Bad, Nothing to Lament Assumption. As such, either this assumption needs to be rejected or deprivationism does. I first argue that the Nothing Bad, Nothing to Lament Assumption is false. I then attempt to figure out which facts our attitudes concerning death should track. I suggest that each person should have two distinct attitudes toward death: one determined by agent’s reasonable expectations about when she will die and one determined by the amount of metaphysically possible good one reasonably believes death precludes.
Keywords
  • badness,
  • deprivationism,
  • harm,
  • fitting attitudes,
  • death
Disciplines
Publication Date
2016
Citation Information
Travis Timmerman. "Your death might be the worst thing ever to happen to you (but maybe you shouldn’t care)" Canadian Journal of Philosophy Vol. 46 Iss. 1 (2016) p. 18 - 37
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/travis-timmerman/6/