¶ … believing that death means nothing to us, since every good and every evil lies in sensation; but death is the privation of sensation. Hence a correct comprehension of the fact that death means nothing to us makes the mortal aspect of life pleasurable, not be conferring on us a boundless period of time but by removing the yearning for deathlessness. There is nothing fearful in living for the person who has really laid hold of the fact that there is nothing fearful in not living. So it is silly for a person to say that he dreads death -- not because it will be painful when it arrives but because it pains him now as a future certainty; for that which makes no trouble for us when it arrives is a meaningless pain when we await it. This, the most horrifying of evils, means nothing to us, then, because so long as we are existent death is not present and whenever it is present we are nonexistent. Thus it is of no concern either to the living or to those who have completed their lives. For the former it is nonexistent, and the latter are themselves nonexistent" (LD, p. 49-50)
These remarks encapsulate Epicurus's views on our attitudes towards death. What argument does he provide for why we should not fear death? What is the ethical purpose of this argument for how we should live our lives? Do you agree with Epicurus's views? Why or why not?
To Epicurus, "death should mean nothing to us" since it is a nonexistent entity in that, with cessation of life, our atoms disintegrate into nothing. As Epicurus more succinctly states (p.53: 1-5; 2): "Death means nothing to us because that which has been broken down into atoms has no sensation and that which has no sensation is no concern of ours." We become non-existent, our mortality subsides. Death, in its essence, is the opposite of life. There is no living, there is no fear, and there is no sensation. Since the essence of death is, therefore, a nothingness, we are rid of fear and all sensation and become a 'nothingness' too. And, consequently, argues Epicurean, we have nothing to fear since we will be reduced...
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