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    Carmelics

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    LoyalLoyalJusticeJustice
    Made withinDC&Austin
    Statements
    321,452
    Perspectives
    108,905
    Topics
    42
    Home/Original/inverse
    See Original
    Inverse View

    It is not the case that The strategy of thanatizing (limiting ourselves to desires whose objects cannot be falsified by death) will backfire and fail to protect us from the harm of death.

    ?Set your confidence on the premises below to see your aggregate.

    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
    ?
    • 1.Death can interfere with desire fulfillment not just by falsifying the objects of our desires but also by precluding our having desires.
      ?

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    • 2.Even if we resolve to limit ourselves to desires whose objects cannot be falsified by death, we are still vulnerable to the harm death will do us if it precludes our having and fulfilling desires.
      ?

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    • 3.Thanatizing would therefore force us to avoid having any desires whose fulfillment would have benefitted us.
      ?

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    Reasons Against

    2 perspectives
    Reason against 1 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Epicurus's own framework reveals that desire-limitation strategies presuppose a subject who persists to benefit from tranquility, which death eliminates.
      ?

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    • 2.If tranquility's value requires a continuing experiencer, then thanatizing secures peace only for the living, leaving the deprivation of future goods unaddressed.
      ?

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    • 3.The harm of death on the deprivationist account (Nagel, Feldman) consists precisely in the absence of future goods, which no ante-mortem desire-revision can neutralize.
      ?

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    Reason against 2 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Parfit's notion of future-directed concern shows that our prudential interest in our future self cannot be dissolved merely by restructuring present desires.
      ?

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    • 2.A person who successfully thanatizes still retains a rational stake in their future well-being, since desire-revision does not sever personal identity across time.
      ?

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    • 3.Therefore the underlying vulnerability that makes death harmful—truncation of a biographical life (Nussbaum, MacIntyre)—persists regardless of which desires one currently holds.
      ?

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