Question Is it irrational to fear one’s own death?

Accepted:
March 14, 2006

Comments

There's a funny old remark that goes something like this: "I don't fear my own death, because it's not something that will happen in my lifetime." The Epicureans held something of this view. Death isn't something that happens to us, the argument goes, because when dead we no longer exist. As he was dying, David Hume is recorded as having remarked along these lines when someone asked him whether he feared death: no more so than I regret not having been born earlier. The time before we were born was nothing to us; the time after we die will be nothing, too. It's irrational to fear nothing.

But, of course, it's not irrational to fear dying. The process that results in death is certainly something, and it's hardly irrational to fear the sorts of torments that afflict many in the course of that process. Then again, some hold that there's some sort of afterlife during which we might be subjected to indescibable horrors. If when dead we don't cease to exist, then maybe there is something to fear in it. I don't think anyone knows whether there is an afterlife. It looks doubtful to me. But it's not irrational to fear the possibility that there is one. As silly as religious descriptions of it seem, maybe there's something to them.

Moreover, we are not fixed in time but in a sense always moving in a very definite direction--towards death. philosophers like Søren Kierkegaard, Martin Heidegger, and various existentialists point out that while it might be wrong to speak of "fear" of death (since one can only fear some object), one can be anxious about the finitude of our lives and the nothingness towards which we're hurled. In fact, one might identify as specific sort of anxiety (or angst) that humans endure because of their consciousness of their inescapable future deaths.

Is it "rational" to feel this anxiety? Well, in a sense it's neither rational nor irration. It's part of the condition of mortal, temporal beings who must make their way in the world. But if rational means not irrational, they I would say it's perfectly rational.

Question Is it irrational to fear one’s own death? Accepted:March 14, 2006

Question Is it irrational to fear one’s own death?

Accepted:
March 14, 2006