Analysis Of Lucretius 'The Way Things Are'

"Death is nothing to us, has no relevance to our condition, seeing that the mind is mortal". So claimed Lucretius: Roman poet, philosopher and Epicurean. In prolific verse from The Way Things Are, Lucretius denied that death was an evil and suggested that death should not be feared at all. Lucretius' beliefs put him in the same camp as Epicurus, whom he mentions in his verse, making him known as an Epicurean, which I shall define for the purposes of this paper as someone who believes that death is not something to be feared. The opposing camp to this view comprises, among others, Nagel and Williams, who argue that death should be feared. I will discuss and analyze the conflict between several arguments put forth by both parties and conclude …show more content…
Lucretius proposes that death mirrors pre-birth; we did not exist prior to birth, and likewise, we will not exist after death. We are not bothered by the fact that we did not exist before we were born; therefore, Lucretius concludes, the fact that we will not exist after death should not bother us either. Nagel counters this by asserting that the time after a man's death deprives him of something. It is a time "in which, had he not died then, he would be alive". Nagel is saying that without the death, there would be the continuance of life. Since Nagel believes that life is a good in itself, death therefore deprives a man of that good. However, this deprivation of life by death cannot, in Nagel's view, be paralleled with the period of pre-birth. The period of time before a man is born cannot be significantly shortened; if it were, he would be a different person. In this way, the time prior to a man's birth does not prevent him from living because it does not cause any loss of life in any way. I agree with Nagel on this point. The deprivation of life by death is largely a deprivation because we are unable to continue experiencing what we have been experiencing prior to death. Not so with pre-birth: prior to birth, you are not experiencing anything and never have. The time that you are non-existent does not actually deprive you of something you could be having if you were born. As Nagel says, …show more content…
They make a good argument as to why death may be a welcome thing in terms of ending certain suffering, but they do not discuss why wanting to live would make death undesirable. Williams carefully addresses this issue in The Makropulos Case: Reflections on the Tedium of Immortality. He puts forth the notion of ‘categorical desires': some desire which ‘propels [a man] into the future', something which makes a man want to continue with life. Williams argues from a utilitarian perspective, describing how the non-satisfaction of a person's desires should be counted as a disutility; seeing as how death prevents one from fulfilling all his categorical desires, Williams concludes that death is a disutility because it frustrates the completion of categorical desires and is therefore an evil. Though this is intuitively convincing, upon closer examination it does nothing to refute the Epicureans. Referring back to the Epicurean central argument, things cannot possibly affect you when you are dead. With regard to your categorical desires, your not fulfilling them would only be detrimental if you existed to experience the consequences of not achieving them. Pretend, for example, that you want to write an award winning book. Over your lifetime, you never succeed in this. You are depressed and upset: then you die. It can be said that your dying prevents you absolutely from ever reaching your goal. Yet, after