{"id":4826,"date":"2018-01-27T15:40:25","date_gmt":"2018-01-27T15:40:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2018\/01\/27\/benatar-on-annihilation-and-the-existence-requirement\/"},"modified":"2018-01-27T15:40:25","modified_gmt":"2018-01-27T15:40:25","slug":"benatar-on-annihilation-and-the-existence-requirement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2018\/01\/27\/benatar-on-annihilation-and-the-existence-requirement\/","title":{"rendered":"Benatar on Annihilation and the Existence Requirement"},"content":{"rendered":"

Herewith, the eighth installment  in a series<\/a> on David Benatar's The Human Predicament <\/em>(Oxford UP, 2017). We are still in the  juicy and technically rich Chapter 5 entitled "Death."  This entry covers pp. 102-118. People who dismiss this book unread are missing out on a lot of good philosophy. You are no philosopher if you refuse to examine arguments the conclusions of which adversely affect your doxastic complacency.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Epicurus-quotes-2\"<\/a>Epicurus, you will recall, is the presiding shade. His core idea, presented very simply, is that death can be nothing to us since when we are, it is not, and when it is, we are not. How then can death be bad for the person who dies? But for Benatar, being dead is bad, objectively bad, and for all. So our man faces an Epicurean challenge. I concluded a few entries back that he met the challenge in its Hedonist Variant.<\/span><\/p>\n

If the only intrinsic goods and bads are conscious or experiential states, then being dead can't be bad since the dead don't experience anything.  But there are intrinsic goods and bads that are not experiential. If so, then being dead can be bad in virtue of depriving the decedent of goods that would otherwise have accrued to him.  A good or a bad can accrue to one even if it cannot be experienced by the one to whom it accrues.* That, roughly, is the Deprivation Response to the Epicurean challenge.<\/span><\/p>\n

Benatar supplements it with the Annihilation Response: death is bad for the person who dies because it annihilates or obliterates him, whether or not it deprives him of future goods that he would otherwise have had. (102-103) One has an interest not only in future goods, but also an "independent interest" in continued existence.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Existence Requirement<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

One fairly intuitive objection to the Deprivation Response, even when supplemented by the Annihilation Response, runs as follows. How can a person be deprived of anything, whether positive feelings or non-experiential goods, if he does not exist at the time the deprivation occurs?  The Existence Requirement, then, is this:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

ER. In order for something to be bad or good for somebody, that being must actually exist at the time at which the bad occurs. (111, 115)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

It is not enough for the person to exist; the person must exist at the time at which the bad occurs. But when a person is dead, he is no more, so when is the badness of death upon him? Not when he is dead, given the truth of (ER). Recoiling from "Subsequentism," some have adopted "Priorism," the view that death is bad before the person dies. But how can being dead be bad for me if I am alive and kicking? Benatar goes on to consider three other unlikely views.  But brevity is the soul of blog, and so I will ignore this discussion and jump to what I consider the heart of the matter.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Aporetics of Being Dead<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

I lay it down that a philosophical problem is in canonical form when it is expressed as an aporetic polyad. When the problem before us is poured into the mold of an inconsistent triad, it fairly jumps out at us:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

1) Mortalism: Death ends a person's existence.<\/span><\/p>\n

2) Existence Requirement: For something to be bad for somebody, he must exist at the time it is bad for him.<\/span><\/p>\n

3) Badness of Death: Being dead is bad for the one who dies.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The limbs of the triad are collectively inconsistent: they cannot (logically) all be true. Any two of the above propositions, taken together, entail the negation of the remaining one.  For example, the conjunction of (1) and (2) entails the negation of (3). And yet each of the propositions makes a strong claim on our acceptance.<\/span><\/p>\n

How do we solve this bad boy?  Given that logically inconsistent propositions cannot all be true. we need to reject one of the propositions. Which one?<\/span><\/p>\n

The Epicurean denies (3) and accepts (1) and (2). Benatar denies (2) and accepts (1) and (3). Benatar<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

. . . see[s] no reason why we should treat the existence requirement as<\/em> a requirement. To insist that the badness of death must be analyzed in exactly the same way as other bad things that do not have the distinctive feature of death is to be insensitive to a complexity in the way the world is. (115)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Now is there any way to decide rationally between the two positions? I don't see a way. <\/span><\/p>\n

I was initially inclined to hold that the Existence Requirement holds across the board, even for the 'state' of being dead. To put it rhetorically, how can it be bad for me to be dead when there is no 'me' at the times I am dead? It seems self-evident! Epicurus vindicatus est<\/em>. But what is the source of the self-evidence? <\/span><\/p>\n

The source seems to be the assumption that the 'state' of being dead and the state of having a broken leg are states in exactly the same sense of the term.  If they are, then (ER) follows. But Benatar has brought me to see that it is not obvious that being dead is a state like any other.<\/span><\/p>\n

The bad of a broken leg is had by me only at times at which I exist. This makes it natural to think that the bad of being dead, if a bad it is, is had by me only when I exist, which implies that being dead is not bad. But death is very different from other bad things. (115) Perhaps we can say that the bad of death is sui generis.<\/em> If so, then we ought not expect it to satisfy the Existence Requirement.<\/span><\/p>\n

We seem to be at an impasse. On the one hand we have the strong intuition that death is bad for the one who dies in that it (a) deprives the person of the goods he would otherwise have enjoyed or had non-experientially, and (b) annihilates the person.  This is part of the explanation why Epicurean reasoning smacks of sophistry to so many.  On he other hand, The Existence Requirement obtrudes itself upon the mind with no little force and vivacity.  Our Czech colleague Vlastimil V finds it self-evident.<\/span><\/p>\n

Benatar, however, thinks it merely "clever" to adopt the Existence Requirement, but "wise" to recognize that death is different from other bad things. (115-116)  The wise course is to "respond to difference with difference and to complexity with nuance." (116)<\/span><\/p>\n

Given my aporetic bent, I am inclined to say that the triad is rationally insoluble. I see no compelling reason to take either the side of Benatar or that of Epicurus. <\/span><\/p>\n

What say you, Vlastimil?<\/span><\/p>\n

________________<\/span><\/p>\n

*The following example, mine, not Benatar's, might show this to be the case. A philosopher is holed up, totally incommunicado, in a hermitage at a remote monastery in the high desert of New Mexico.  While there, the Schopenhauer Gesellschaft awards him its coveted Pessimist of the Year Award which brings with it a subtantial emolument. Unfortunately, our philosopher dies at the very instant the award is made. Not only does he not become aware of the award; he cannot become aware of it. And yet something good happened to him. Therefore, not everything good that happens to one need be something of which one is aware or even can be aware. And the same goes for the the bad.<\/span> <\/p>\n

\nRelated articles<\/span><\/legend>\n
\n
<\/a>David Benatar on Death and the Challenge of the Epicurean Argument in its Hedonist Form<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n
<\/a>A Defense of David Benatar Against a Scurrilous <i>New Criterion<\/i> Attack<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n
<\/a>Benatar, Death, and Deprivation<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n
<\/a>Maverick Philosopher: David Benatar on the Quality of Human Life, Part II<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n
<\/a>The Riddle of Evil and the Pyrrhonian 'Don't Care'<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/fieldset>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Herewith, the eighth installment  in a series on David Benatar's The Human Predicament (Oxford UP, 2017). We are still in the  juicy and technically rich Chapter 5 entitled "Death."  This entry covers pp. 102-118. People who dismiss this book unread are missing out on a lot of good philosophy. You are no philosopher if you refuse to examine arguments the … Continue reading “Benatar on Annihilation and the Existence Requirement”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,282,184,397,142],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4826","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aporetics","category-benatar-david","category-death-and-immortality","category-epicureanism","category-existence"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4826","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4826"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4826\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4826"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4826"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4826"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}