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Facing Death: Epicurus and His Critics
The ancient philosophical school of Epicureanism tried to argue that death is "nothing to us." Were they right? James Warren provides a comprehensive study and articulation of the interlocking arguments against the fear of death found not only in the writings of Epicurus himself, but also in Lucretius' poem De rerum natura and in Philodemus' work De morte . These arguments are central to the Epicurean project of providing ataraxia (freedom from anxiety) and therefore central to an understanding of Epicureanism as a whole. They also offer significant resources for modern discussions of the value of death--one which stands at the intersection of metaphysics and ethics. If death is the end of the subject, and the subject can not be benefited nor harmed after death, is it reasonable nevertheless to fear the ceasing-to-be? If the Epicureans are not right to claim that the dead can neither be benefited nor harmed, what alternative models might be offered for understanding the harm done
by death and do these alternatives suffer from any further difficulties? The discussion involves consideration of both ethical and metaphysical topics since it requires analysis not only of the nature of a good life but also the nature of personal identity and time. A number of modern philosophers have offered criticisms or defences of the Epicureans' views. Warren explores and evaluates these in the light of a systematic and detailed study of the precise form and intention of the Epicureans' original arguments.
Warren argues that the Epicureans also were interested in showing that mortality is not to be regretted and that premature death is not to be feared. Their arguments for these conclusions are to be found in their positive conception of the nature of a good and complete life, which divorce the completeness of a life as far as possible from considerations of its duration. Later chapters investigate the nature of a life lived without the fear of death and pose serious problems for the Epicureans being able to allow any concern for the post mortem future and being able to offer a positive reason for prolonging a life which is already complete in their terms.
by death and do these alternatives suffer from any further difficulties? The discussion involves consideration of both ethical and metaphysical topics since it requires analysis not only of the nature of a good life but also the nature of personal identity and time. A number of modern philosophers have offered criticisms or defences of the Epicureans' views. Warren explores and evaluates these in the light of a systematic and detailed study of the precise form and intention of the Epicureans' original arguments.
Warren argues that the Epicureans also were interested in showing that mortality is not to be regretted and that premature death is not to be feared. Their arguments for these conclusions are to be found in their positive conception of the nature of a good and complete life, which divorce the completeness of a life as far as possible from considerations of its duration. Later chapters investigate the nature of a life lived without the fear of death and pose serious problems for the Epicureans being able to allow any concern for the post mortem future and being able to offer a positive reason for prolonging a life which is already complete in their terms.
- GenresPhilosophyNonfiction
250 pages, Hardcover
First published June 17, 2004
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July 23, 2025
A very academic survey of Epicurean arguments concerning death.
Random thoughts
- I find the Epicurean argument that annihilation at death, and therefore lack of perception, means that the state of death itself should not be feared. I also find compelling the broader argument in the book that fearing now, in life, that life will be cut off before it is ‘complete’ in some sense is rational. This supports my instinct that it is rational to aim for longevity so that you can choose when to die (once a ‘completeness’ is reached) vs immortality (only necessary if death in itself is a bad thing)
- I wish Warren had gone more deeply into whether Epicurean arguments are psychologically plausible (even if they’re rational). Can we plausibly rid ourselves of a fear of death, or is that psychologically impossible? He mentions this point in his introduction and conclusion but only points at it and says rational ideas can impact psychology by adjusting underlying value judgments, but does not go any deeper
- The author found, at multiple points, it hard to imagine a person living as an Epicurean requires (e.g., to hold desires that will give a reason to live, but not so tightly that it will cause anxiety about unfulfillment in the case of death). Many of these principles are ones Buddhists live in line with, and it felt like a large gap that he did not have in mind the empirical reality of people living like this. Even I, an amateur Buddhist, have experienced states of acceptance akin to the above. If you can experience it once, it doesn’t seem contradictory to me that you would be able to experience it in an ongoing way with proper practice
- The structure could have been much tighter. Some arguments didn’t feel completely dealt with, and some loose threads were left floating in the wind (which is okay, if clearly acknowledged)
- This made me much more sympathetic to the Epicurean view, even if Warren claims to have found some decent counterarguments. It feels like many could be dealt with by merely (a) developing Epicureanism theory beyond the core texts by integrating new clarifications / ideas (not being dogmatic, but genuinely engaging and resolving through development) or (b) addressing the counterarguments with arguments outside of Epicureanism which still indirectly upheld the Epicurean worldview (or, the possibility of it)
Notes:
You know, it's really very peculiar. To be mortal is the most basic human experience and yet man has never been able to accept it, grasp it, and behave accordingly. Man doesn't know how to be mortal.
Milan Kundera, Immortality
To be immortal is commonplace; except for man, all creatures are immortal for they are ignorant of death; what is divine, terrible, incomprehensible, is to know that one is mortal.
J. L. Borges, 'The immortal'
1. Is being dead bad for the deceased?
2. Is it bad for someone that he or she is going to die?
3. Is it bad for someone if he or she dies sooner rather than later?
4. Is it bad for someone to undergo the process of passing from being alive to being dead?
1*. The fear of being dead.
2*. The fear that one will die, that one's life is going to end.4
3*. The fear of premature death.
4*. The fear of the process of dying.
Epicurus distilled the major theses of his ethical teaching into a simple fourfold remedy, the tetrapharmakos.'
God should not concern to us.
Death is not to be feared.
What is good is easy to obtain.
What is bad is easily avoided.
Our conceptions of the value of life and the nature of death are inseparable. In that case, we learn not to stop focusing on death, but to stop thinking about it in the wrong way. If we think about death correctly, we think about living a good life correctly, and vice versa.
For Epicurus, therefore, the fear of death is 'irrational' only in the sense of that word which is synonymous with 'misguided' or 'incorrect'. The fear of death is a rational fear in the sense that it is founded on, albeit misdirected, reason and opinion. This assumption is certainly questionable, since it might be argued that the fear of death is a basic and ineradicable part of human psychology which is not susceptible to rational inspection or alteration on the basis of rational argument. It might even be argued that it would be wrong even to attempt to remove the fear of death because even granted it may have occasional drawbacks and on occasion lead to the odd sleepless night—we simply could not function properly without it. For example, it is possible to claim that the fear of death is a crucial evolutionary product, 'hard-wired', as it were, into our minds in order to allow us to survive.
From these introductory remarks two important items emerge to be tracked through the more detailed examination of the Epicurean arguments and the criticisms they have provoked. First, there is no single 'fear of death'. Rather, there is a set of related fears about non-existence itself, the fact that we are mortal and therefore will at some time cease to exist, and the uncertainty of when death will come. It will be important to keep these distinct fears in mind and see how effectively Epicurean therapy can deal with any or all of them. Second, the fear of death is intimately connected with the way in which we lead our lives. Importantly, we will need to ask whether it is at all possible to lead a life without fearing death and, if it is, whether a life free from fearing death is a recognizable and attractive human life.
Another immediate difficulty with such comparative or counter-factual accounts of the harm of death is that they threaten to prove too much since they threaten to make nearly everyone's life harmed by death. In their search to find at least one case in which death is a harm, they may have shown that all deaths are harms.
It can nearly always be said that had death occurred later one might have experienced some further goods or that had certain circumstances been different one would have lived a better life [yes… and why not? this argument seems valid to me. Death is a curse for almost all of us]
In sum, all reactions to the Epicurean account which want to assert that there is a possibility of post mortem harm without a post mortem subject must rely on some relational or comparative analysis of the nature of the harm of death in order to give any plausibility to their claims about the timing of the harm of death. For death to be a harm, therefore, given that death is the destruction of the subject, that harm must be relational or comparative [e.g., prevented from living a counterfactual life]
[Two arguments against symmetry argument (that pre-natal non-existence is nothing to us, so neither should post-mortem)]:
A. The time of birth is a necessary condition of personal identity, whereas the time of death is merely contingent (i.e. I could not have been born earlier than I was, but could die later than I will).
B. Within a lifetime our attitudes to past and future experiences are inevitably asymmetrical.
[On A] Nagel is clear: 'The direction of time is crucial in assigning possibilities to people or other individuals. Distinct possible lives of a single person can diverge from a common beginning but they cannot converge to a common conclusion from diverse beginnings.
[An Epicurean complete life does not require elongation - once absence of pain attained then any death is not premature. Contrast with accumulative hedonist approach, incl. intellectual]: But, Philodemus contends, the constant desire to accumulate bits of knowledge, what we might term 'fact-finding', is just as self-defeating since it too can never be completed. There will always be some further set of things to find out about and a life dedicated to this practice can no more be complete than one devoted to the constant acquisition of novel pleasures.'
Philodemus: The one who understands, having grasped that he is capable of achieving everything sufficient for the good life, immediately and for the rest of his life walks about already ready for burial, and enjoys the single day as if it were eternity.
Philodemus, De Morte XXXVIII. 14-19 Kuiper
The wise man is always ready for death. He walks about already prepared for burial' because, presumably, once he has achieved eudaimonia to die at any point would be no better or worse than dying at another. But Philodemus is quick to remind us that this does not mean that this person finds nothing valuable in life.
Each additional day is enjoyed. Nevertheless, such a person's attitude towards time and duration differs significantly from that of those who do not view their mortality correctly. The single day becomes for him eternity, not in the sense that he lives life 'slowly', but, perhaps, because he has recognized that a single day offers him the chance of absolute fulfilment. It is difficult to capture adequately just what it would be like to live with this attitude. Indeed, it is perhaps questionable whether such an attitude is coherent or whether anyone can hold such an attitude sincerely.
Certainly, this kind of day-to-day existence which appears to find in every moment completeness and fulfilment is quite unlike the experience of most people whose lives are characterized by goals whose completion may lie in the nearer or farther future and who tend to view the satisfaction of these goals not only as a project which will last some time, but also as a reason for continuing from day to day.
From what evidence survives, there is little sign that there is any room within the Epicurean ethical framework for the conception that there is necessarily or ideally some kind of narrative shape to a life. Indeed, there is good reason to think that the Epicureans deliberately resisted such a conception and stressed instead that the good life and the means of attaining the good life remain the same no matter what a person's age or stage of life. They would not, therefore, use a conception of a narrative shape of a life to offer a description of the completeness of a life. Instead, Epicureanism offers a more radical picture of an ultimate level of ethical achievement which, once reached, allows little or no further scope for significant personal psychological changes.
Cf. Indelli and Tsouna-McKirahan 1995, 223-4: 'The way in which the Epicurean gets involved in his occupations and attachments differs from the ways of other men. For the Epicurean knows all along that his existence is ephemeral and is ready to give up his hopes and plans at any given moment, whereas "the many" develop psychological commitments which presuppose that one will live forever.'
A similar defence may suggest that it is perfectly possible to desire something without thereby being distressed by the thought that the object of desire may never be obtained. In other words, it is possible to desire something without this desire also implying a concern should the object of desire never be obtained. In this way an Epicurean may continue to desire things, and these desires would form reasons for action by setting various goals and objects of pursuit, but by doing so the Epicurean does not lay himself open to the fear of these goals being unfulfilled or the anxiety caused by feeling that it would be bad should these projects or goals not be attained. The desires are insufficiently strong to bring along with them these accompanying anxieties about the prospects of their fulfilment, yet they are sufficient to provide reasons for action and reasons to continue wanting to live.
Random thoughts
- I find the Epicurean argument that annihilation at death, and therefore lack of perception, means that the state of death itself should not be feared. I also find compelling the broader argument in the book that fearing now, in life, that life will be cut off before it is ‘complete’ in some sense is rational. This supports my instinct that it is rational to aim for longevity so that you can choose when to die (once a ‘completeness’ is reached) vs immortality (only necessary if death in itself is a bad thing)
- I wish Warren had gone more deeply into whether Epicurean arguments are psychologically plausible (even if they’re rational). Can we plausibly rid ourselves of a fear of death, or is that psychologically impossible? He mentions this point in his introduction and conclusion but only points at it and says rational ideas can impact psychology by adjusting underlying value judgments, but does not go any deeper
- The author found, at multiple points, it hard to imagine a person living as an Epicurean requires (e.g., to hold desires that will give a reason to live, but not so tightly that it will cause anxiety about unfulfillment in the case of death). Many of these principles are ones Buddhists live in line with, and it felt like a large gap that he did not have in mind the empirical reality of people living like this. Even I, an amateur Buddhist, have experienced states of acceptance akin to the above. If you can experience it once, it doesn’t seem contradictory to me that you would be able to experience it in an ongoing way with proper practice
- The structure could have been much tighter. Some arguments didn’t feel completely dealt with, and some loose threads were left floating in the wind (which is okay, if clearly acknowledged)
- This made me much more sympathetic to the Epicurean view, even if Warren claims to have found some decent counterarguments. It feels like many could be dealt with by merely (a) developing Epicureanism theory beyond the core texts by integrating new clarifications / ideas (not being dogmatic, but genuinely engaging and resolving through development) or (b) addressing the counterarguments with arguments outside of Epicureanism which still indirectly upheld the Epicurean worldview (or, the possibility of it)
Notes:
You know, it's really very peculiar. To be mortal is the most basic human experience and yet man has never been able to accept it, grasp it, and behave accordingly. Man doesn't know how to be mortal.
Milan Kundera, Immortality
To be immortal is commonplace; except for man, all creatures are immortal for they are ignorant of death; what is divine, terrible, incomprehensible, is to know that one is mortal.
J. L. Borges, 'The immortal'
1. Is being dead bad for the deceased?
2. Is it bad for someone that he or she is going to die?
3. Is it bad for someone if he or she dies sooner rather than later?
4. Is it bad for someone to undergo the process of passing from being alive to being dead?
1*. The fear of being dead.
2*. The fear that one will die, that one's life is going to end.4
3*. The fear of premature death.
4*. The fear of the process of dying.
Epicurus distilled the major theses of his ethical teaching into a simple fourfold remedy, the tetrapharmakos.'
God should not concern to us.
Death is not to be feared.
What is good is easy to obtain.
What is bad is easily avoided.
Our conceptions of the value of life and the nature of death are inseparable. In that case, we learn not to stop focusing on death, but to stop thinking about it in the wrong way. If we think about death correctly, we think about living a good life correctly, and vice versa.
For Epicurus, therefore, the fear of death is 'irrational' only in the sense of that word which is synonymous with 'misguided' or 'incorrect'. The fear of death is a rational fear in the sense that it is founded on, albeit misdirected, reason and opinion. This assumption is certainly questionable, since it might be argued that the fear of death is a basic and ineradicable part of human psychology which is not susceptible to rational inspection or alteration on the basis of rational argument. It might even be argued that it would be wrong even to attempt to remove the fear of death because even granted it may have occasional drawbacks and on occasion lead to the odd sleepless night—we simply could not function properly without it. For example, it is possible to claim that the fear of death is a crucial evolutionary product, 'hard-wired', as it were, into our minds in order to allow us to survive.
From these introductory remarks two important items emerge to be tracked through the more detailed examination of the Epicurean arguments and the criticisms they have provoked. First, there is no single 'fear of death'. Rather, there is a set of related fears about non-existence itself, the fact that we are mortal and therefore will at some time cease to exist, and the uncertainty of when death will come. It will be important to keep these distinct fears in mind and see how effectively Epicurean therapy can deal with any or all of them. Second, the fear of death is intimately connected with the way in which we lead our lives. Importantly, we will need to ask whether it is at all possible to lead a life without fearing death and, if it is, whether a life free from fearing death is a recognizable and attractive human life.
Another immediate difficulty with such comparative or counter-factual accounts of the harm of death is that they threaten to prove too much since they threaten to make nearly everyone's life harmed by death. In their search to find at least one case in which death is a harm, they may have shown that all deaths are harms.
It can nearly always be said that had death occurred later one might have experienced some further goods or that had certain circumstances been different one would have lived a better life [yes… and why not? this argument seems valid to me. Death is a curse for almost all of us]
In sum, all reactions to the Epicurean account which want to assert that there is a possibility of post mortem harm without a post mortem subject must rely on some relational or comparative analysis of the nature of the harm of death in order to give any plausibility to their claims about the timing of the harm of death. For death to be a harm, therefore, given that death is the destruction of the subject, that harm must be relational or comparative [e.g., prevented from living a counterfactual life]
[Two arguments against symmetry argument (that pre-natal non-existence is nothing to us, so neither should post-mortem)]:
A. The time of birth is a necessary condition of personal identity, whereas the time of death is merely contingent (i.e. I could not have been born earlier than I was, but could die later than I will).
B. Within a lifetime our attitudes to past and future experiences are inevitably asymmetrical.
[On A] Nagel is clear: 'The direction of time is crucial in assigning possibilities to people or other individuals. Distinct possible lives of a single person can diverge from a common beginning but they cannot converge to a common conclusion from diverse beginnings.
[An Epicurean complete life does not require elongation - once absence of pain attained then any death is not premature. Contrast with accumulative hedonist approach, incl. intellectual]: But, Philodemus contends, the constant desire to accumulate bits of knowledge, what we might term 'fact-finding', is just as self-defeating since it too can never be completed. There will always be some further set of things to find out about and a life dedicated to this practice can no more be complete than one devoted to the constant acquisition of novel pleasures.'
Philodemus: The one who understands, having grasped that he is capable of achieving everything sufficient for the good life, immediately and for the rest of his life walks about already ready for burial, and enjoys the single day as if it were eternity.
Philodemus, De Morte XXXVIII. 14-19 Kuiper
The wise man is always ready for death. He walks about already prepared for burial' because, presumably, once he has achieved eudaimonia to die at any point would be no better or worse than dying at another. But Philodemus is quick to remind us that this does not mean that this person finds nothing valuable in life.
Each additional day is enjoyed. Nevertheless, such a person's attitude towards time and duration differs significantly from that of those who do not view their mortality correctly. The single day becomes for him eternity, not in the sense that he lives life 'slowly', but, perhaps, because he has recognized that a single day offers him the chance of absolute fulfilment. It is difficult to capture adequately just what it would be like to live with this attitude. Indeed, it is perhaps questionable whether such an attitude is coherent or whether anyone can hold such an attitude sincerely.
Certainly, this kind of day-to-day existence which appears to find in every moment completeness and fulfilment is quite unlike the experience of most people whose lives are characterized by goals whose completion may lie in the nearer or farther future and who tend to view the satisfaction of these goals not only as a project which will last some time, but also as a reason for continuing from day to day.
From what evidence survives, there is little sign that there is any room within the Epicurean ethical framework for the conception that there is necessarily or ideally some kind of narrative shape to a life. Indeed, there is good reason to think that the Epicureans deliberately resisted such a conception and stressed instead that the good life and the means of attaining the good life remain the same no matter what a person's age or stage of life. They would not, therefore, use a conception of a narrative shape of a life to offer a description of the completeness of a life. Instead, Epicureanism offers a more radical picture of an ultimate level of ethical achievement which, once reached, allows little or no further scope for significant personal psychological changes.
Cf. Indelli and Tsouna-McKirahan 1995, 223-4: 'The way in which the Epicurean gets involved in his occupations and attachments differs from the ways of other men. For the Epicurean knows all along that his existence is ephemeral and is ready to give up his hopes and plans at any given moment, whereas "the many" develop psychological commitments which presuppose that one will live forever.'
A similar defence may suggest that it is perfectly possible to desire something without thereby being distressed by the thought that the object of desire may never be obtained. In other words, it is possible to desire something without this desire also implying a concern should the object of desire never be obtained. In this way an Epicurean may continue to desire things, and these desires would form reasons for action by setting various goals and objects of pursuit, but by doing so the Epicurean does not lay himself open to the fear of these goals being unfulfilled or the anxiety caused by feeling that it would be bad should these projects or goals not be attained. The desires are insufficiently strong to bring along with them these accompanying anxieties about the prospects of their fulfilment, yet they are sufficient to provide reasons for action and reasons to continue wanting to live.
March 13, 2024
This book gets into very interesting philosophical territory, exploring issues of whether we should fear death and if the Epicurean philosophy handled this anxiety.
In doing so, broader issues are explored, for instance what "the good" is. The text, being academic, can be a bit dry and difficult sometimes. Still, it's possible for a reader to follow if they aren't an academic. If they find this topic interesting it would definitely be worth the read.
In doing so, broader issues are explored, for instance what "the good" is. The text, being academic, can be a bit dry and difficult sometimes. Still, it's possible for a reader to follow if they aren't an academic. If they find this topic interesting it would definitely be worth the read.
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