Epicurean Philosophy on Fearing Death

Hey everyone, I hope you are all well! Apologies for the late upload, I was up really late last night helping my sister to pack for DofE so I wasn't able to write this post last night. I went to a university open day on Saturday and the topic for the taster lecture was 'Epicureans on not fearing death' and I really enjoyed it so I decided to write about it today. Me being me, I was too afraid to put my hand up in a lecture theatre full of students to present my ideas and then later when another girl said the same thing I was thinking, she got told it was actually a really good argument and a complex fault in what the philosophy was so that really inspired me to have a bit of confidence in myself because I can actually have a good idea or two at times. I am not going to go into as much depth as we did when we discussed this because otherwise this may turn into a dissertation but I hope you enjoy!

General Epicurean Views:

- Epicureans are firm believers in physics, they believe that everything is made of atoms and void.

- The ethical views consist of hedonism. This is this idea that things that provide pleasure are good and things that provide pain are bad. The goal in life is the maximise pleasure and minimise pain.

- Theology wise, they believe Gods are blessed but they do not reward, punish or care about humans.

- Lastly, they believe that the soul is corporeal and mortal.

Epicurus, Letter to Menoeceus 

In the book, Letter to Menoeceus, by Epicurus, there is a passage which says:

(i) Accustom yourself to the belief that death is nothing to us. For all good and evil lie in sensation, whereas death is the absence of sensation... (ii) Therefore that most frightful of evils, death, is nothing to us seeing that when we exist, death is not present, and when death is present, we do not exist. Thus it is nothing to either the living or the dead, seeing the former do not have it and the latter no longer have exist.

What I understand from the first premise is that Epicurus says that it is irrational to fear death as it is a lack of sensation. Everything that is painful and pleasurable is a sensation and therefore, all good and evil is a sensation. When we die, we do not feel any sensation and this means we do not need to fear death as we no longer feel any evil. Since one of the aims of Epicureans is to maximise pleasure and minimise pain, death is not anything bad or to fear and we minimise pain to the fullest. 

However, this also raises the problem that a lack of sensation not only means a lack of pain but also a lack of pleasure. It means that we get rid of the evil which leads to fulfilling afterlife but we also get rid of the good. Does a lack of evil overpower a lack of good? 

I think that this depends on people and their individual lives and what situation they're in. For example, one may be living a life with little evil and lots of pleasure. They would fear death as they are losing all the good in their life and the amount of evil is little which means that a lack of sensation would not be an advantage to them. On the other hand, someone could be living a life full of pain and troubles and struggle to see the good, or may not even have much good. These people would not fear death as a lack of good and evil would both be an advantage. They are escaping the pains of living and since they have little to no good in their life, they won't be missing out on much when they die.

When you think about it, this is quite true when applied in the world right now. There are people who not only are indifferent to death but may also crave it. The pain can overpower the pleasure to the point where nothingness is better than sensation.

The second premise just focuses on the idea that we should not fear death because right now, when we are all living, we are not dead. When we are dead, we are not living. We can never have both at the same time and therefore, there is no point fearing one if we do not fear the other as they are both simply states we all pass through. 

I do not think this is very controversial, it is just affirming facts. We are either living or dead. We should not fear death as when we are dead, we have no sense of consciousness or sensation which means we cannot reason or understand what it is like when we are dead. I think it is more just the fear of the unknown. We do not know what death is like and probably won't be able to explain or understand it and that uncertainty is what can cause anxiety or fear to arise.

Lucretius, On the Nature of Things

In the book, On the Nature of Things, by Lucretius, there is a passage which says:

Therefore death is nothing to us, of no concern whatsoever, once it is appreciated that the mind has a mortal nature. Just as in the past we had no sensation of discomfort when the Carthaginians were converging to attack,... so too, when we will no longer exist following the severing of the soul and body, from whose conjunction we are constituted, you can take it that nothing at all will be able to affect us and to stir our sensation - not if the earth collapses into the sea, and sea into sky.

This is known as the 'symmetry' argument. I'm pretty sure the Carthaginians invaded Rome before Lucretius was born and therefore, he is trying to say that when events happened before we were born, we had no fear of it, so why do we fear what happens after we die? There is a symmetry in life, things happen before we were born and will continue to happen after we die. Lucretius is trying to say that once we die, it will be the same 'feeling', or rather lack of feeling, as before we were born.

I think that the reason people still fear death, despite being in the same state as before birth is because of what happens in between birth and death. We experience life, we find pleasure in things, we build relationships and much more. The fear of death is possibly just the fear of the lack of life we have. Maybe even the regret or fear of the loss of what could have been more life? 

I think the symmetry argument has validity and makes perfect sense in theory but humans are too complex to be reduced down to theories like this. We have feelings and emotions which he hasn't taken into account and things like forming attachments to objects or falling in love with people could make us want to stay alive for longer. However, I agree with the idea that we potentially fear the loss of more life than the fear of death itself.

I hope you enjoyed this week's post, it has been nice to slowly get out of my slump and write something intellectually stimulating rather than just rant about my problems (which is still important to do btw). I need to go an write a personal statement draft now which I am not looking forward to but I hope you have a good day and week ahead! See you soon, love you guys <33