Fede o scienza?

[Troll]

Certo, ma io rispondevo alla tua affermazione sul fatto che l'analisi dei fatti storici indurrebbe l'analista a concludere che "fare il bene non paga" e da qui conseguirebbe che allora farà il male. Vi sono innumerevoli esempi di chi ha fatto il male e ne ha pagato amarissime conseguenze in terra e anche di chi ha compiuto tanto bene e ne è stato ripagato.

Con la differenza tra il secolare e il teista, che quest'ultimo potrebbe nutrire comunque la speranza del perdono post-mortem, mentre il primo ha la consapevolezza di essersi giocato l'unico asso che aveva.

sì, ma la mancanza di un nesso di retribuzione karmica e l'esposizione alla contingenza amorale di un universo indifferente fa sì che scattino dinamiche dove - per citare l'esempio più eclatante - i popoli devono provvedere alla propria sicurezza da sé anche sporcandosi le mani rispetto alla morale comunemente ammessa, dato che non c'è una giustizia mondiale che intervenga a soccorrere il debole ("se chiami il 911 non risponde nessuno" come dice un teorico della realist school of international relations)

oppure sul piano interno i secolaristi si troveranno nella posizione di scegliere se abbandonare la società aperta o soccombere all'intrusione musulmana (per adesso forse sono ancora in tempo di minimizzare "tanto alla fine diventeranno come noi")

[Troll]

oppure sul piano interno i secolaristi si troveranno nella posizione di scegliere se abbandonare la società aperta o soccombere all'intrusione musulmana (per adesso forse sono ancora in tempo di minimizzare "tanto alla fine diventeranno come noi")

ecco a questo riguardo fu assolutamente memorabile lo scontro fra un topquark (forse all'epoca pseudovector) turbato dalle stragi islamiste e indotto a rivedere l'accoglienza e un lowenz garrulo minimizzatore che predicava una sorta di taoismo per cui i problemi "si risolvono da soli basta non alimentare i conflitti" (adesso è un furibondo antirusso che cerca l'escalation con Putin, amareggiatissimo dall'inerzia di Biden)

[Troll]

non sono sicuro che Benatar abbia mai prescritto di sterilizzare in maniera coatta chi intendesse riprodursi, la mia era una supposizione nel caso in cui il dovere morale di impedire la perpetuazione della sofferenza fosse ritenuta così vincolante e imperativa da sopravanzare la libertà altrui di procreare; ma uno che avvertisse come doveroso non mettere al mondo esseri condannati alla sofferenza e alla morte percepirà il proprio istinto riproduttivo oscurato da quell'altro istinto morale di cui sto parlando (tutto il mio punto è che sono istinti contro istinti e quello che ti ossessiona - la conservazione della specie - non è una sorta di super-istinto definitivo funzionante come causa finale aristotelica a cui tutto tende e sopravanzante tutto il resto)

adesso vado a cercare cosa dice Benatar a chi gli suggerisce "se la pensi così ammazzati", ma da come mi ricordo la morte è precisamente una delle tante cose sgradevoli che ogni vivente è costretto a temere una volta condannato a essere gettato nel mondo, e che si tratterebbe di evitare alla radice non facendo nascere più persone

DEATH AND SUICIDE

Many people believe that it is an implication of the view that coming into existence is always a harm that it would be preferable to die than to continue living. Some people go so far as to say that the view that coming into existence is a harm implies the desirability not simply of death but of suicide.



There is nothing incoherent about the view that coming into existence is a harm and that if one does come into existence ceasing to exist is better than continuing to exist. This is the view expressed in the following quotation from Sophocles:

Never to have been born is best But if we must see the light, the next best Is quickly returning whence we came. When youth departs, with all its follies, Who does not stagger under evils? Who escapes them?10


And it is implicit in, or at least compatible with, Montesquieu's claim that 'Men should be bewailed at their birth and not at their death'.''


Nevertheless, the view that coming into existence is always a harm does not imply that death is better than continuing to exist, and a fortiori that suicide is (always) desirable.12 Life may be sufficiently bad that it is better not to come into existence, but not so bad that it is better to cease existing. It will be recalled, from Chapter 2, that it is possible to have different evaluations of future-life and present-life cases. I explained in that chapter that there is good reason for setting the quality threshold for a life worth starting higher than the quality threshold for a life worth continuing. This is because the existent can have interests in continuing to exist, and thus harms that make life not worth continuing must be sufficiently severe to defeat those interests. By contrast, the non-existent have no interest in coming into existence. Therefore, the avoidance of even lesser harms-or, on my view, any harm will be decisive.



Thus, it is because we (usually) have an interest in continuing to exist that death may be thought of as a harm, even though coming into existence is also a harm. Indeed, the harm of death may partially explain why coming into existence is a harm. Coming into existence is bad in part because it invariably leads to the harm of ceasing to exist. That may be behind George Santayana's claim that the `fact of having been born is a very bad augury for immortality'.'' That we are born destined to die is, on this view, a great harm.

The view that one has an interest in continuing to live (so long as the quality of one's life has not fallen beneath the lower threshold of a life worth continuing) is a common one. However, it has been subjected to ancient and resilient objections. Epicurus famously argued that death is not bad for the one who dies because so long as one exists, one is not dead, and once death arrives one no longer exists. Thus, my being dead (in contrast to my dying) is not something that I can experience. Nor is it a condition in which I can be. Instead it is a condition in which I am not. Accordingly my death is not something that can be bad for me. Lucretius, a disciple of Epicurus' and thus also an Epicurean, advanced a further argument against death's being a harm. He argued that since we do not regret the period of non-existence before we came into being, we should not regret the non-existence that follows our lives.



The Epicurean arguments assume that death is the irreversible cessation of existence. Those who think that there is life after death reject this assumption. Whether or not death is bad on this alternative view depends on how good the post-mortem life is. Although this is a topic about which there is much speculation, nothing vaguely testable can be said about it. In considering whether my argument entails that death is preferable to continued life, I shall join the Epicureans in assuming that death is the irreversible cessation of existence.

The view that death is not bad for the one who died is at odds with a number of deeply held views. Among these is the view that murder harms the victim. It is also incompatible with the view that a longer life is, all things being equal, better than a shorter one. And it is in conflict with the view that we ought to respect the wishes of those who are now dead (quite independently of the effect that not doing so would have on the still living). This is because if death is not a harm, then nothing that happens after death can be a harm.

Counter-intuitiveness, by itself, is not enough to show that a view is mistaken, as I have argued. However, there are some important differences between the counter-intuitiveness of the Epicurean arguments and the counter-intuitiveness of my anti-natalist arguments. First, the Epicurean conclusion is more radically counter-intuitive than my conclusion. I suspect that more people think, and feel more strongly, that murder harms the victim than who think that coming into existence is not a harm. Indeed there are very many people who believe that coming into existence is often a harm and there are still more people who believe that it is never a benefit even if they think that it is not also a harm. Yet there are very few people who truly believe that murder does not harm the victim. Even where the victim's life was of a poor quality, it is widely thought that killing that person without his consent (where consent could have been obtained) is to wrong him. Secondly, a precautionary principle applies asymmetrically to the two views. If the Epicurean is wrong, then people's acting on the Epicurean argument (by killing others or themselves) would seriously harm those who were killed. By contrast, if my view is mistaken, people's acting on my view (by having failed to procreate) would not harm those who were not brought into existence. These differences in the counter-intuitiveness of the Epicurean and anti-natal views are not sufficient, however, to dismiss the Epicurean arguments out of hand. Therefore, I turn now to consider, albeit only briefly, responses to both Epicurean arguments.



I start with Lucretius' argument. The best way to respond to this argument is to deny that there is symmetry between prevital and post-mortem non-existence.14 Whereas any one of us could live longer, none of us could have come into existence much earlier. This argument becomes very powerful when we recognize the kind of existence that we value. It is not some `metaphysical essence', but rather a thicker, richer conception of the self,' 5 that embodies one's particular memories, beliefs, commitments, desires, aspirations, and so on. One's identity, in this thicker sense, is constructed from one's particular history. But even if one's metaphysical essence could have come into existence earlier, the history of that being would have been so different that it would not be the same person as one is. Yet, things are quite different at the other end of life. Personal histories-biographies-can be lengthened by not dying sooner. Once one is, one can continue to be for longer. But an earlier coming into existence would have been the coming into existence of a different person-one with whom one might have very little in common.

The most common response to Epicurus' argument is to say that death is bad for the person who dies because it deprives that person of future life and the positive features thereof. The deprivation account of death's badness does not entail that death is always bad for the one who dies. Indeed, where the further life of which somebody is deprived is of a sufficiently poor quality, death is not bad for that person. Instead it is good. The Epicurean argument, however, is that death is never bad for the person who dies. The deprivation account is a response to this, and claims that death can sometimes be bad for the person who dies. On the deprivation account, even though a person no longer exists after his death, it is still true that his death deprives him, the 'ante-mortem' 16 person, of the further life he could have enjoyed.



Defenders of Epicurus take issue with the deprivation account. One objection is that advocates of the deprivation account cannot say when the harm of death occurs-that is, they cannot date the time of the harm. The time of the harm cannot be when death occurs because by that time the person who non-Epicureans say is harmed by the death no longer exists. And if it is the ante-mortem person who is harmed, one cannot say that the time at which that person is harmed is the time of his death, because that would involve backward causation-a later event causing an earlier harm. One response to this challenge is to say that the time at which death harms is `always' or `eternally'." George Pitcher offers a helpful analogy. He says that if `the world should be blasted to smithereens during the next presidency. . .this would make it true (be responsible for the fact) that even now, during ...[the current president's] term, he is the penultimate president of the United States'.1I Similarly, one's later death makes it true that even now one is doomed not to live longer than one will. Just as there is no backward causation in the case of the penultimate president, so there is no backward causation in a death that harms one all along.



There is a more fundamental (but not clearly more powerful) objection to the deprivation account. Defenders of Epicurus simply deny that those who have ceased to exist can be deprived of anything. David Suits, for example, argues that although the antemortem person may indeed be worse off than he would otherwise have been had he lived longer, being worse off in this `purely relational' way is not thought to be sufficient to show that he is harmed.19 He argues further that even if it were, there cannot be real deprivation if there is nobody left to be deprived. One can only be deprived if one exists.

But here we seem to have an impasse. Defenders of the deprivation account seem to think that death is different and that it is the one kind of case in which somebody can be deprived without existing. Epicureans, by contrast, insist that death cannot be different and we must treat deprivation in the same way here as we do in all other cases. In no other cases can a person be deprived without existing, so a person cannot be deprived by death, given that death brings the end of his existence.

Perhaps there is a way to get past this impasse, but I shall not seek it now. I have shown that the view that coming into existence is a harm does not entail the view that ceasing to exist is better than continuing to exist. One can maintain that both are harms. Epicureans deny that ceasing to exist can be a harm. They may also be committed to saying that death can never be good for the one who dies, no matter how bad that person's life has become. Following the Epicurean reasoning, death can never benefit a person because so long as he is, death is not, and when death arrives he no longer is. Death cannot spare anybody from anything any more than it can deprive anybody of anything.



Those who reject the Epicurean view can hold one of a number of positions:

a) Death is always a harm.

b) Death is always a benefit.

c) Death is sometimes a harm and sometimes a benefit.

The first option is implausible. Life can be so bad that it is better to die. Those who deny that coming into existence is always a harm, obviously reject the second option. On this view, coming into existence is not bad and may even be good, and continuing to exist is good so long as the quality of one's life is of a sufficiently high standard. Thus death cannot always be a benefit. I said earlier that those who adopt the view that coming into existence is always a harm can also reject the second option. They can argue that whereas we have no interest in coming into existence, once we do exist, we have an interest in continuing to exist. On the assumption that this interest is not always defeated by the poor quality of life, death is not always a benefit. But is this assumption reasonable, given how serious a harm I have said it is to come into existence? I think that it is, but saying that it is a reasonable assumption is not to make a very strong claim. It is to say only that the quality of life is not always so poor that ceasing to exist is a benefit. It leaves wide open the question of how often it is not so poor.

This is not a question I need to answer. By a principle of autonomy we parcel out the authority to make decisions about the quality ofindividual lives to those whose lives they are. Unlike autonomous decisions to procreate, autonomous decisions to continue living or to die are made by those whose lives are in question. It is true that if people's lives are worse than they think (as I argued in Chapter 3) their assessments about whether their lives are worth continuing may be mistaken. Nevertheless, that is the sort of mistake we should allow people to make. It is a mistake, the consequences of which they must bear-unlike the mistake of thinking that the lives of one's potential offspring will be better than one thinks. Similarly, the desire to continue living may or may not be irrational, but even if it is, this is the kind of irrationality, unlike a preference for having come into existence, that should be decisive (at least in practice if not in theory).



Matters are a little different when the decision to end a life is not made by an autonomous being for himself, but is instead made on behalf of a being that lacks the ability to make the judgement for itself (and has left neither an advance directive nor a durable power of attorney). These are the hardest cases. Unlike deciding whether to create a new life, where one can err on the side of caution by not creating a new life, there is no clear side of caution on which to err when it comes to ending a life.

Thus I share a version of the third option listed above-that death is sometimes a harm and sometimes a benefit. This third option is the common sense view, but my version will deviate from the usual interpretation of it. That is to say, it is likely that my version allows for death to be a benefit more often than the usual view. For example, my view would be more tolerant of rational suicide than would the common view. Indeed, I would claim more suicides to be rational than would the common view. In many cultures (including most western cultures), there is immense prejudice against suicide. It is often viewed as cowardly20 where it is not dismissed as a consequence of mental illness. My view allows the possibility that suicide may more often be rational and may even be more rational than continuing to exist. This is because it may be an irrational love for life that keeps many people alive when their lives have actually become so bad that ceasing to exist would be better. This is the view expressed by the old woman in Voltaire's Candide:

A hundred times I wished to kill myself, but my love of life persisted. This ridiculous weakness is perhaps one of the most fatal of our faults. For what could be more stupid than to go on carrying a burden that we always long to lay down? To loathe, and yet cling to, existence? In short, to cherish the serpent that devours us, until it has eaten our hearts?2'




This is not to offer a general recommendation of suicide. Suicide, like death from other causes, makes the lives of those who are bereaved much worse. Rushing into one's own suicide can have profound negative impact on the lives of those close to one. Although an Epicurean may be committed to not caring about what happens after his death, it is still the case that the bereaved suffer a harm even if the deceased does not. That suicide harms those who are thereby bereaved is part of the tragedy of coming into existence. We find ourselves in a kind of trap. We have already come into existence. To end our existence causes immense pain to those we love and for whom we care. Potential procreators would do well to consider this trap they lay when they produce offspring. It is not the case that one can create new people on the assumption that if they are not pleased to have come into existence they can simply kill themselves. Once somebody has come into existence and attachments with that person have been formed, suicide can cause the kind of pain that makes the pain of childlessness mild by comparison. Somebody contemplating suicide knows (or should know) this. This places an important obstacle in the way of suicide. One's life may be bad, but one must consider what affect ending it would have on one's family and friends. There will be times when life has become so bad that it is unreasonable for the interests of the loved ones in having the person alive to outweigh that person's interests in ceasing to exist. When this is true will depend in part on particular features of the person for whom continued life is a burden. Different people are able to bear different magnitudes of burden. It may even be indecent for family members to expect that person to continue living. On other occasions one's life may be bad but not so bad as to warrant killing oneself and thereby making the lives of one's family and friends still much worse than they already are.

(David Benatar, "Better Never to Have Been")

[Giò]

Ed io ti ho più dimostrato che ti sbagli e che quanto tenti di mostrare è un errore logico.

Ma figurati. Devo ripetermi ancora? Va bene: X muta in Y. Da ciò si evince che, in antecedenza, X fosse mutabile in Y, ossia che X avesse la capacità effettiva di mutare in Y, com'è puntualmente accaduto. Cos'ha fatto sì che la capacità di X di mutare in Y si realizzasse? Y stessa è impossibile perché vorrebbe dire che Y esisteva in atto prima ancora di esistere in atto (il che sarebbe contraddittorio) ed il nulla non può fare alcunché proprio perché il nulla "non è".

Lo dice il modello quantistico standard, non io.

Il modello standard della mq dice solo che quei fenomeni non hanno causa in senso classico, cioè deterministico, il che è tutt'altra faccenda.

[Troll]

Ma è ovvio. Questa idea che viviamo in un mondo oscuro e gotico dove i demoni inforcano i derelitti e il male trionfa sovrano è tutta nella testa del nostro amico Troll

Inviato dal mio SM-A536B utilizzando Tapatalk

magari se la Cina avesse usato la polvere da sparo - da lei inventata prima degli europei - per conquistare e depredare i continenti (le navi colossali ce le aveva) invece di fare i fuochi d'artificio forse non avrebbe attraversato un orribile secolo di umiliazioni e prepotenze da parte delle altre potenze ("altre" però presupporrebbe che lei lo fosse e invece non lo era) culminato nello stupro di Nanchino

[Giò]

NO!

Ho detto che un suono può rappresentare la luce così come le onde sonore. Quindi non ho violato proprio niente!

La luce è qualcosa che vedi, non è qualcosa che ascolti. Quindi non si capisce proprio come un suono possa "rappresentare" la luce.

[TheMeroving]

DEATH AND SUICIDE

Many people believe that it is an implication of the view that coming into existence is always a harm that it would be preferable to die than to continue living. Some people go so far as to say that the view that coming into existence is a harm implies the desirability not simply of death but of suicide.



There is nothing incoherent about the view that coming into existence is a harm and that if one does come into existence ceasing to exist is better than continuing to exist. This is the view expressed in the following quotation from Sophocles:

Never to have been born is best But if we must see the light, the next best Is quickly returning whence we came. When youth departs, with all its follies, Who does not stagger under evils? Who escapes them?10


And it is implicit in, or at least compatible with, Montesquieu's claim that 'Men should be bewailed at their birth and not at their death'.''


Nevertheless, the view that coming into existence is always a harm does not imply that death is better than continuing to exist, and a fortiori that suicide is (always) desirable.12 Life may be sufficiently bad that it is better not to come into existence, but not so bad that it is better to cease existing. It will be recalled, from Chapter 2, that it is possible to have different evaluations of future-life and present-life cases. I explained in that chapter that there is good reason for setting the quality threshold for a life worth starting higher than the quality threshold for a life worth continuing. This is because the existent can have interests in continuing to exist, and thus harms that make life not worth continuing must be sufficiently severe to defeat those interests. By contrast, the non-existent have no interest in coming into existence. Therefore, the avoidance of even lesser harms-or, on my view, any harm will be decisive.



Thus, it is because we (usually) have an interest in continuing to exist that death may be thought of as a harm, even though coming into existence is also a harm. Indeed, the harm of death may partially explain why coming into existence is a harm. Coming into existence is bad in part because it invariably leads to the harm of ceasing to exist. That may be behind George Santayana's claim that the `fact of having been born is a very bad augury for immortality'.'' That we are born destined to die is, on this view, a great harm.

The view that one has an interest in continuing to live (so long as the quality of one's life has not fallen beneath the lower threshold of a life worth continuing) is a common one. However, it has been subjected to ancient and resilient objections. Epicurus famously argued that death is not bad for the one who dies because so long as one exists, one is not dead, and once death arrives one no longer exists. Thus, my being dead (in contrast to my dying) is not something that I can experience. Nor is it a condition in which I can be. Instead it is a condition in which I am not. Accordingly my death is not something that can be bad for me. Lucretius, a disciple of Epicurus' and thus also an Epicurean, advanced a further argument against death's being a harm. He argued that since we do not regret the period of non-existence before we came into being, we should not regret the non-existence that follows our lives.



The Epicurean arguments assume that death is the irreversible cessation of existence. Those who think that there is life after death reject this assumption. Whether or not death is bad on this alternative view depends on how good the post-mortem life is. Although this is a topic about which there is much speculation, nothing vaguely testable can be said about it. In considering whether my argument entails that death is preferable to continued life, I shall join the Epicureans in assuming that death is the irreversible cessation of existence.

The view that death is not bad for the one who died is at odds with a number of deeply held views. Among these is the view that murder harms the victim. It is also incompatible with the view that a longer life is, all things being equal, better than a shorter one. And it is in conflict with the view that we ought to respect the wishes of those who are now dead (quite independently of the effect that not doing so would have on the still living). This is because if death is not a harm, then nothing that happens after death can be a harm.

Counter-intuitiveness, by itself, is not enough to show that a view is mistaken, as I have argued. However, there are some important differences between the counter-intuitiveness of the Epicurean arguments and the counter-intuitiveness of my anti-natalist arguments. First, the Epicurean conclusion is more radically counter-intuitive than my conclusion. I suspect that more people think, and feel more strongly, that murder harms the victim than who think that coming into existence is not a harm. Indeed there are very many people who believe that coming into existence is often a harm and there are still more people who believe that it is never a benefit even if they think that it is not also a harm. Yet there are very few people who truly believe that murder does not harm the victim. Even where the victim's life was of a poor quality, it is widely thought that killing that person without his consent (where consent could have been obtained) is to wrong him. Secondly, a precautionary principle applies asymmetrically to the two views. If the Epicurean is wrong, then people's acting on the Epicurean argument (by killing others or themselves) would seriously harm those who were killed. By contrast, if my view is mistaken, people's acting on my view (by having failed to procreate) would not harm those who were not brought into existence. These differences in the counter-intuitiveness of the Epicurean and anti-natal views are not sufficient, however, to dismiss the Epicurean arguments out of hand. Therefore, I turn now to consider, albeit only briefly, responses to both Epicurean arguments.



I start with Lucretius' argument. The best way to respond to this argument is to deny that there is symmetry between prevital and post-mortem non-existence.14 Whereas any one of us could live longer, none of us could have come into existence much earlier. This argument becomes very powerful when we recognize the kind of existence that we value. It is not some `metaphysical essence', but rather a thicker, richer conception of the self,' 5 that embodies one's particular memories, beliefs, commitments, desires, aspirations, and so on. One's identity, in this thicker sense, is constructed from one's particular history. But even if one's metaphysical essence could have come into existence earlier, the history of that being would have been so different that it would not be the same person as one is. Yet, things are quite different at the other end of life. Personal histories-biographies-can be lengthened by not dying sooner. Once one is, one can continue to be for longer. But an earlier coming into existence would have been the coming into existence of a different person-one with whom one might have very little in common.

The most common response to Epicurus' argument is to say that death is bad for the person who dies because it deprives that person of future life and the positive features thereof. The deprivation account of death's badness does not entail that death is always bad for the one who dies. Indeed, where the further life of which somebody is deprived is of a sufficiently poor quality, death is not bad for that person. Instead it is good. The Epicurean argument, however, is that death is never bad for the person who dies. The deprivation account is a response to this, and claims that death can sometimes be bad for the person who dies. On the deprivation account, even though a person no longer exists after his death, it is still true that his death deprives him, the 'ante-mortem' 16 person, of the further life he could have enjoyed.



Defenders of Epicurus take issue with the deprivation account. One objection is that advocates of the deprivation account cannot say when the harm of death occurs-that is, they cannot date the time of the harm. The time of the harm cannot be when death occurs because by that time the person who non-Epicureans say is harmed by the death no longer exists. And if it is the ante-mortem person who is harmed, one cannot say that the time at which that person is harmed is the time of his death, because that would involve backward causation-a later event causing an earlier harm. One response to this challenge is to say that the time at which death harms is `always' or `eternally'." George Pitcher offers a helpful analogy. He says that if `the world should be blasted to smithereens during the next presidency. . .this would make it true (be responsible for the fact) that even now, during ...[the current president's] term, he is the penultimate president of the United States'.1I Similarly, one's later death makes it true that even now one is doomed not to live longer than one will. Just as there is no backward causation in the case of the penultimate president, so there is no backward causation in a death that harms one all along.



There is a more fundamental (but not clearly more powerful) objection to the deprivation account. Defenders of Epicurus simply deny that those who have ceased to exist can be deprived of anything. David Suits, for example, argues that although the antemortem person may indeed be worse off than he would otherwise have been had he lived longer, being worse off in this `purely relational' way is not thought to be sufficient to show that he is harmed.19 He argues further that even if it were, there cannot be real deprivation if there is nobody left to be deprived. One can only be deprived if one exists.

But here we seem to have an impasse. Defenders of the deprivation account seem to think that death is different and that it is the one kind of case in which somebody can be deprived without existing. Epicureans, by contrast, insist that death cannot be different and we must treat deprivation in the same way here as we do in all other cases. In no other cases can a person be deprived without existing, so a person cannot be deprived by death, given that death brings the end of his existence.

Perhaps there is a way to get past this impasse, but I shall not seek it now. I have shown that the view that coming into existence is a harm does not entail the view that ceasing to exist is better than continuing to exist. One can maintain that both are harms. Epicureans deny that ceasing to exist can be a harm. They may also be committed to saying that death can never be good for the one who dies, no matter how bad that person's life has become. Following the Epicurean reasoning, death can never benefit a person because so long as he is, death is not, and when death arrives he no longer is. Death cannot spare anybody from anything any more than it can deprive anybody of anything.



Those who reject the Epicurean view can hold one of a number of positions:

a) Death is always a harm.

b) Death is always a benefit.

c) Death is sometimes a harm and sometimes a benefit.

The first option is implausible. Life can be so bad that it is better to die. Those who deny that coming into existence is always a harm, obviously reject the second option. On this view, coming into existence is not bad and may even be good, and continuing to exist is good so long as the quality of one's life is of a sufficiently high standard. Thus death cannot always be a benefit. I said earlier that those who adopt the view that coming into existence is always a harm can also reject the second option. They can argue that whereas we have no interest in coming into existence, once we do exist, we have an interest in continuing to exist. On the assumption that this interest is not always defeated by the poor quality of life, death is not always a benefit. But is this assumption reasonable, given how serious a harm I have said it is to come into existence? I think that it is, but saying that it is a reasonable assumption is not to make a very strong claim. It is to say only that the quality of life is not always so poor that ceasing to exist is a benefit. It leaves wide open the question of how often it is not so poor.

This is not a question I need to answer. By a principle of autonomy we parcel out the authority to make decisions about the quality ofindividual lives to those whose lives they are. Unlike autonomous decisions to procreate, autonomous decisions to continue living or to die are made by those whose lives are in question. It is true that if people's lives are worse than they think (as I argued in Chapter 3) their assessments about whether their lives are worth continuing may be mistaken. Nevertheless, that is the sort of mistake we should allow people to make. It is a mistake, the consequences of which they must bear-unlike the mistake of thinking that the lives of one's potential offspring will be better than one thinks. Similarly, the desire to continue living may or may not be irrational, but even if it is, this is the kind of irrationality, unlike a preference for having come into existence, that should be decisive (at least in practice if not in theory).



Matters are a little different when the decision to end a life is not made by an autonomous being for himself, but is instead made on behalf of a being that lacks the ability to make the judgement for itself (and has left neither an advance directive nor a durable power of attorney). These are the hardest cases. Unlike deciding whether to create a new life, where one can err on the side of caution by not creating a new life, there is no clear side of caution on which to err when it comes to ending a life.

Thus I share a version of the third option listed above-that death is sometimes a harm and sometimes a benefit. This third option is the common sense view, but my version will deviate from the usual interpretation of it. That is to say, it is likely that my version allows for death to be a benefit more often than the usual view. For example, my view would be more tolerant of rational suicide than would the common view. Indeed, I would claim more suicides to be rational than would the common view. In many cultures (including most western cultures), there is immense prejudice against suicide. It is often viewed as cowardly20 where it is not dismissed as a consequence of mental illness. My view allows the possibility that suicide may more often be rational and may even be more rational than continuing to exist. This is because it may be an irrational love for life that keeps many people alive when their lives have actually become so bad that ceasing to exist would be better. This is the view expressed by the old woman in Voltaire's Candide:

A hundred times I wished to kill myself, but my love of life persisted. This ridiculous weakness is perhaps one of the most fatal of our faults. For what could be more stupid than to go on carrying a burden that we always long to lay down? To loathe, and yet cling to, existence? In short, to cherish the serpent that devours us, until it has eaten our hearts?2'




This is not to offer a general recommendation of suicide. Suicide, like death from other causes, makes the lives of those who are bereaved much worse. Rushing into one's own suicide can have profound negative impact on the lives of those close to one. Although an Epicurean may be committed to not caring about what happens after his death, it is still the case that the bereaved suffer a harm even if the deceased does not. That suicide harms those who are thereby bereaved is part of the tragedy of coming into existence. We find ourselves in a kind of trap. We have already come into existence. To end our existence causes immense pain to those we love and for whom we care. Potential procreators would do well to consider this trap they lay when they produce offspring. It is not the case that one can create new people on the assumption that if they are not pleased to have come into existence they can simply kill themselves. Once somebody has come into existence and attachments with that person have been formed, suicide can cause the kind of pain that makes the pain of childlessness mild by comparison. Somebody contemplating suicide knows (or should know) this. This places an important obstacle in the way of suicide. One's life may be bad, but one must consider what affect ending it would have on one's family and friends. There will be times when life has become so bad that it is unreasonable for the interests of the loved ones in having the person alive to outweigh that person's interests in ceasing to exist. When this is true will depend in part on particular features of the person for whom continued life is a burden. Different people are able to bear different magnitudes of burden. It may even be indecent for family members to expect that person to continue living. On other occasions one's life may be bad but not so bad as to warrant killing oneself and thereby making the lives of one's family and friends still much worse than they already are.

(David Benatar, "Better Never to Have Been")

"A hundred times I wished to kill myself, but my love of life persisted."

Vabbe...stiamo parlando di un evidente psicolabile..

Inviato dal mio SM-A536B utilizzando Tapatalk

[Giò]

io dico "sveglia guarda qual è il mondo là fuori, piagnistei impotenti su lager e torture inaugurati dagli accordi di Minniti per compiacere - contro la mission dichiarata del proprio partito antifascista - un elettorato indifferente alla sorte degli ultimi" e loro "Troll pazzo sadico solitario che si sente diverso dalla tendenza dominante!"

È la disperazione di chi, ponendosi su un piano di mera immanenza, non riesce ad accettare che l'eventuale efferatezza ed ingiustizia dei rapporti di forza nudi e crudi non abbiano alcuna reale e definitiva soluzione in questa vita.

[TheMeroving]

La luce è qualcosa che vedi, non è qualcosa che ascolti. Quindi non si capisce proprio come un suono possa "rappresentare" la luce.

Se connetti la retina alla corteccia uditiva la luce la senti e non la vedi.
Non è colpa mia se il cervello umano funziona in questo modo.

Inviato dal mio SM-A536B utilizzando Tapatalk

[Giò]

Se connetti la retina alla corteccia uditiva la luce la senti e non la vedi.
Non è colpa mia se il cervello umano funziona in questo modo.

Inviato dal mio SM-A536B utilizzando Tapatalk

Merovingio, non scambiare le tue fantasie con la realtà.