Thomas Nagel: Death Suppose That Death Is the Permanent End of Human Existence

question 25

Essay

Thomas Nagel: Death
Suppose that death is the permanent end of human existence. If so, is death bad for the person who dies? Some argue that such a claim is senseless, on the grounds that nothing can be bad for a person who no longer exists. Nagel rejects these arguments, and defends the view that death is bad for us. In Nagel's view, death is not bad because of any of the positive features of death, but because it deprives us of the goods that life contains. Nagel defends his view from three objections.
The first objection is based on the assumption that nothing can be good or bad for someone unless it is experienced as pleasant or unpleasant. Because the dead do not experience anything, it seems that death cannot be bad for us. Nagel responds by denying the assumption behind the objection. We can be harmed by people betraying us behind our backs and without our knowledge, and we can even be harmed by people neglecting our wishes after our deaths.
The second objection is that death cannot be bad for a person, because after death there is simply no subject for which anything can be good or bad. In response, Nagel claims that it would be bad for a person to be reduced to the cognitive level of an infant, even if he remained perfectly content. The badness of such a fate is not undermined by the contention that the original person no longer exists, for the badness is grounded in the contrast between what actually transpired and possible alternatives. Such a fate is bad because it deprives a person of potential goods. Nagel claims that death is similar in this respect.
The third, and final, objection is this: because we were not harmed by our prenatal nonexistence, we cannot be harmed by posthumous nonexistence. Nagel responds that although our nonexistence before our birth did not deprive us of anything, death deprives us of time that we would otherwise be alive. Ultimately, then, Nagel concludes that these three objections fail to undermine the thought that death is bad for us.
-What is Nagel's account of harms like betrayal and being ridiculed behind one's back? What implications does this account have for the issue of death? Do you find his account plausible?

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A laboratory technique used to amplify specific DNA sequences.

Forensic Analysis

The application of scientific methods and techniques in the investigation of crime, primarily related to the collection and analysis of physical evidence.

Bacterial Plasmid

Small, circular, double-stranded DNA molecules found in bacteria, which can replicate independently and often carry genes beneficial to the survival of the bacteria, such as antibiotic resistance genes.

Human DNA

The complete set of nucleic acid sequences for humans, encoding the genetic instructions used in the development and functioning of human organisms.