EPICURUS AND THE EVIL OF DEATHFred Feldman

EPICURUS (341-270 BC)

founder of Epicureanism

Hedonism: pleasure and pain are the only (intrinsic) goods and bads

“[A]ll good and evil consists in sensation, but death is deprivation of sensation. … So death, the most terrifying of ills, is nothing to us, since so long as we exist death is not with us; but when death comes, then we do not exist.

-Epicurus

EPICURUS’ ARGUMENT, TAKE 1

1. Each person stops existing at the moment of death.

2. If (1), then no one feels any pain while dead.

3. If no one feels any pain while dead, then being dead is not a painful experience.

4. If being dead is not a painful experience, then being dead is not bad.

5. Therefore, being dead is not bad.

intrinsic vs. extrinsic bads

EPICURUS’ ARGUMENT, TAKE 1

1. Each person stops existing at the moment of death.

2. If (1), then no one feels any pain while dead.

3. If no one feels any pain while dead, then being dead is not a painful experience.

4. If being dead is not a painful experience, then being dead is not bad.

5. Therefore, being dead is not bad.

EPICURUS’ ARGUMENT, TAKE 2

1. Each person stops existing at the moment of death.

2. If (1), then no one feels any pain while dead.

3. If no one feels any pain while dead, then death does not cause anything intrinsically bad.

4. If death does not cause anything intrinsically bad, then death is not extrinsically bad.

5. Therefore, death is not extrinsically bad.

EPICURUS’ ARGUMENT, TAKE 2

1. Each person stops existing at the moment of death.

2. If (1), then no one feels any pain while dead.

3. If no one feels any pain while dead, then death does not cause anything intrinsically bad.

4. If death does not cause anything intrinsically bad, then death is not extrinsically bad.

5. Therefore, death is not extrinsically bad.