Death’s Distinctive Harm Stephan Blatti Michala Handy American Philosophical Quarterly Volume 49, Number 4, October 2012

The Harm Thesis (HT) states that death can harm the ones who die.

Deprivation Theory Deprivation Theory states that death harms the person who dies when death is premature and prohibits that individual of certain activities, relationships, happiness, or life they would have encountered if they had not died. Know Justice, 2010

Current philosophers are not convinced with the Epicurean philosophy of freedom of fear, tranquility, absence of pain, and immortality.

The Harm Thesis has been controversial; however, the following authors have defended the timing question of harm: Feldman (1992) – his theory was at all times Luper (2007) – his theory was before death occurs Lamont (1998) – his theory was at the moment death occurs Bradley 2009/Feit 2002 – their theory was after death occurs Nagel (1970)/Silverstein (2000) – their theory was at some indeterminate time

There are three steps to this theory: Priorism Deprivation Harm Restriction Harm

Priorism The priorist claims that death’s harm is brought about not directly, via backward causation, but indirectly, by affecting the truth conditions of propositions concerning the living subjects interests and projects.

The Deprivation Harm The Deprivation view (DV) a widely held theory of individual interests, according to which an event or state of affairs is overall bad for someone when it makes her/his life worse than it otherwise would be, as measured in terms of the goods/evil. -DV adapts this approach to the particular case of mortal harm, claiming that death is overall bad for us when, and to the extent that it prevents us from having certain goods- goods we would have enjoyed had death not occurred.

Restrictive Harm The Restrictive Harm step makes the assumption that autonomy (the ability to make his/her own decision) is harmful. Therefore, with all things considered and depending on whether the victim’s death is outweighed by the death’s benefit to the individual in question maybe death is less painful than extending the future life with pain and suffering.

A fact existing in everyone’s life is the knowledge that “I could cease to exist at any moment, and this might be that movement”.

Debate still exists Our limited life span constitutes a pro tanto (all things considered equal the harm of death versus the harm of life) to us.

Conclusion It should be inferred not that death does not harm all who die but rather that death’s harm is not fully accounted for in terms of the loss of those of lives goods one would have enjoyed had one continued living.

Questions for class:

References Blatti, Stephan. Death's Distinctive Harm. Vol. 49. N.p.: American Philosophical Quarterly, Print. Ser. 4. Pie Chart Photograph. Know Justice, n.p.