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Survival in the memory and honor of the community provides a major consolation only if one is optimistic concerning the persistence and continued memory of the community, as well as the accuracy and justice of their judgments.

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Reason for

This form of 'survival' depends on the community continuing to exist, continuing to remember, and judging accurately and justly.
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Reason against 1 of 2

1.The Stoic and Epicurean traditions hold that consolation's value is determined by its psychological efficacy for the living, not by the metaphysical accuracy of its underlying assumptions.
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2.A belief can provide genuine consolation even when its presuppositions are uncertain, as Kant argued regarding rational faith in postulates of practical reason.
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3.Therefore, the consolation of communal memory does not logically depend on optimism about community persistence, but on the motivational and emotional work the belief performs for the dying.
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Reason against 2 of 2

1.Aristotle's account of eudaimonia allows that a person's flourishing can be genuinely extended posthumously through the fortunes of their community, children, and works, independent of perfect memory.
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2.Partial, imperfect, or even distorted communal memory can still instantiate a meaningful causal relationship between a person's actions and subsequent human goods.
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3.The claim conflates the conditions for perfect survival with the conditions for sufficient consolation, a standard Aristotelian scholarship on posthumous harm, following Pitcher and Feinberg, explicitly rejects.
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Topics

Afterlife & Death

Key Terms

Accuracy(as used in evaluating whether communities remember things truthfully): The quality of being correct, precise, and true to what actually happened.
Consolation(as used in philosophy of meaning and legacy): Comfort or relief from sadness or disappointment, especially in difficult situations.
Justice(Utilitarian account of justice; contrasted with non-utility-based theories): A name for certain classes of moral rules which concern the essentials of human well-being more nearly than other rules for the guidance of life, carrying more absolute obligation.
Optimism(Distinguished from hope on the grounds that optimism retains anticipation of a specific positive outcome.): An attitude that imagines and anticipates a favorable outcome; operates within the domain of fear and desire rather than genuine hope.
persistence(Weyl's distinction between two kinds of constancy): Constancy maintained because a quantity is isolated and undisturbed, as opposed to actively adjusted

A belief can provide genuine consolation even when its presuppositions are uncer...Aristotle's account of eudaimonia allows that a person's flourishing can be genu...Partial, imperfect, or even distorted communal memory can still instantiate a me...The Stoic and Epicurean traditions hold that consolation's value is determined b...

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The claim conflates the conditions for perfect survival with the conditions for ...

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SEP: afterlife

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In most cultures, there is evidence of a belief in some sort of personal afterlife, in which the same individual that lived and died nevertheless persists and continues to have new experiences. There are alternatives, however. The ancient Greeks are noted for having placed a high premium on “survival” in the memory and honor of the community—a practice reflected in our reference to deceased celebrities as (for example) “the immortal Babe Ruth”. (Strictly speaking, this for the Greeks was not a replacement for a personal afterlife, but rather a supplement to what was conceived as a rather color...

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Type: claim
Perspectives: 3 (1 for, 2 against)
Edits: 1 edit

Survival in the memory and honor of the community provides a major consolation only if one is optimistic concerning the persistence and continued memory of the community, as well as the accuracy and justice of their judgments.

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Reasons Against

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