What is death?

The Philosopher's Zone

Wednesday 6 April  2005 
Presented by Alan Saunders

Stan van Hooft, Associate Professor of Philosophy at Deakin University, devotes a chapter of his recent book on bioethics to the question of what death is. But why do we need to ask? Isn't it enough to know when death has occurred (something that modern medical science has, in many respects made more difficult to resolve)?

But, as Stan van Hooft points out, our view of death can decisively shape our view of life even if we think that death is quite simply the end of life rather than the portal to some different form of existence. Is death the ultimate disaster, to be avoided at all costs, as some philosophers have argued? Can we say that we should not fear being dead because we will not experience it? Or is a constant awareness of death necessary to an authentic existence?

Transcript

Alan Saunders: Hello and welcome to ‘The Philosopher’s Zone’, a weekly look at the world of philosophy and at the world through philosophy. I’m Alan Saunders and I’m joined again today by Stan van Hooft, Associate Professor Philosophy at Deakin University and author of a recent book, Life, Death and Subjectivity: Moral Sources in Bioethics. Stan, welcome back to ‘The Philosopher’s Zone’.

Stan van Hooft:Thanks, Alan.

Alan Saunders: Stan, the title of your book, ‘Life, Death and Subjectivity’ - let’s have a look at the middle of those terms. There’s a chapter in your book entitled ‘What is Death?’ and I suppose many people would ask why is that a question? We might of course ask when death occurs, because that’s not always clear, and with modern medical advances, it often seems to be becoming less clear, but when you ask what it is, what sort of question are you asking?

Stan van Hooft: It’s an attempt really to circumvent a question that seems to have preoccupied bioethics for some years, which is, as you put it, when death occurs, what are the criteria for declaring a person dead? But I don’t think they get down to the philosophical question of what death is. And that question really is a question as to what it means. What kind of event is it in our lives, those of us who are living, and indeed in the life, or at the end of the life of the one who is dying, and the reason why that’s an important question is because most moral theorists seem to be of the view that death is always and everywhere, a total disaster which much be avoided at all costs. And that I think is a view that needs to be if not challenged, then certainly called into question and justified.

Alan Saunders: Well before we come on to that, let’s look at another possibility as to what death might be, and this is the possibility that death is a portal: it’s the entry point to another form of existence. You treat that with respect but a certain amount of moral circumspection in your book.

Stan van Hooft: Yes. It is in fact a good example of the kind of answer that the question, What is death? might get, because it is in fact an attempt to say what it means to us. And if it were the case that death is a portal or a transition from a worldly existence into some other kind of existence in the religious version of this view it will generally be for good people. If we did hold the view that that’s what death is, well then obviously our approach to it would be rather different from those of us who would hold the view that death is simply the end of our meaningful existence as human beings.

Alan Saunders: Although it’s interesting that people who do believe in an afterlife, also very often do still take a rather gloomy view of death. If you look at European funeral images, especially during the Black Death, they’re all about the decay of the body, they’re all about the sovereignty of death and what a grim state of affairs this is. Now of course you can talk about the decay of the body if you believe in the immortality of the soul, and you can say that this just emphasises the desire to separate yourself from this rotten, decaying, smelly body. But nonetheless, people who believe in an afterlife, don’t seem to think that death is necessarily good news.

Stan van Hooft: No, and that’s because the afterlife comes with huge threats involved. I mean, you have to be good in order to deserve a good afterlife, and for most people in the religious traditions, there isn’t a lot of assurance available as to whether one will indeed attain to eternal blessedness, and for that reason it’s feared, and that fear is, I think, expressed in the way that you’ve described, in art and ritual, which speaks of it as being a terrible event.

Alan Saunders: Well let’s look at the possibility of not fearing death. You quote the famous argument of the ancient Greek philosopher, Epicurus, which goes roughly like this: death is non-existence; non-existence cannot in the nature of things be experienced; it is irrational to fear that which one will not experience; therefore, it is irrational to fear death. Now the world seems to be divided into sorts of people who find that an acceptable and indeed obvious argument, and people, and I think I’m one of these people, who think there’s something a bit unconvincing here, even though we have some difficulty in putting our finger on it. What’s your view?

Stan van Hooft: I also find it a little bit unconvincing, because it’s a way of ignoring the question, and I don’t think that’s the best approach either. I do think that it’s irrational to fear death, or at any rate to fear some state after death (because in my view there won’t be one) so in that sense I agree with Epicurus, but I also think that there are all sorts of reasons during life to be at least concerned about death.

It’s quite obvious that we want to avoid it - it’s part of our biological natures to want to avoid death - but for most of us at any rate, given that we have relatively interesting lives, we engage in projects, we have goals, we have people who love us and whom we love, for all of those sorts of reasons death is an unpleasant prospect, because it brings those projects and those loving relationships to an end. So in that sense, the Epicurean argument is I think a little bit, well, bland in a way; it just ignores what should still be an issue. So it’s really a question I think of how we should live our lives, given that we are going to die.

Alan Saunders: The problem with that though, it seems to me, is that death might encroach upon us at any point, that we might suddenly find ourselves dying, which means that my projects will not be ended, or they will not be completed, I’ll die in mid-project. Should I then be living my life, as religious people used to say, live every day as though it were your last; should the possibility of death be a constant white noise at the back of my mind?

Stan van Hooft: That has been argued, perhaps most notably in recent times by Martin Heidegger. He argues that in order to live authentically, we need to keep an eye, as it were, on death and to know that it is coming and that it is going to structure, if you will, the way that we live. To ignore that is to be inauthentic, and that I think is important.

But if it means, as I thought you were perhaps going towards saying, if it means that long-term projects are somehow not meaningful, that the only thing is to live for today, and if that means have only short-term projects because they’re less likely to fail, as it were, as a result of death, then I think that’s not the appropriate response either. After all, it isn’t only for yourself that you are living, you are living for other people as well, the people in your immediate, loving family of course, but the people you’re working with, the people who in some way will be affected by what you do. So things are worth doing even if the chance always exists that you’ll be snuffed out, as it were, in the midst of doing them.

Alan Saunders: These days I’ve noticed, if you believe the papers, nobody ever dies of cancer; they always die ‘after a long struggle with cancer’. There’s always this notion of battle. Now when I read those accounts in obituaries and so on, I think surely there must be some people who received the diagnosis and then just turned their faces to the wall and died. No doubt other people do struggle. There’s a difficult balance here, isn’t there, between an appropriate degree of struggle and an appropriate degree of acceptance?

Stan van Hooft: I think that is indeed right. You sometimes do suspect that this talk of struggle and of battling against the disease and so forth is an attribution to the dying person on the part of others, because that’s the way they want to see them. And I think that’s part of our culture’s inability to accept death. But I think what you’ve described does indeed happen. In fact within my own family, I’m thinking of my mother-in-law who died some years back, and she I think, did accept that she was dying, and went quietly into the night, as the poet has it, and I think that’s a wonderful and admirable thing. And this need that we all seem to have to attribute struggle to people who are dying, is I think, part of the problem that we face. I mean one of the problems that I talk about in the book is this need to try every last medical procedure that’s available, to leave no stone unturned, and to engage in whatever, even futile medical procedures that might be available. That I think is part of this inability to accept death for what it is.

Alan Saunders: On the other hand - and I think actually medical opinion has changed on this, but we used to be told, let’s say - when Stephen Jay Gould, the science writer and evolutionary biologist was diagnosed with abdominal mesothelioma, which is a pretty rapidly fatal thing (actually he lasted a long while with it), but he asked the great winner of the Nobel Prize for Medicine, Sir Peter Medawar, ‘What do I need to conquer cancer?’ And Medawar said something like, ‘A buoyant and optimistic personality’. So there is surely something to be said for, let’s say, realistic struggle, isn’t there?

Stan van Hooft: Oh yes. Again, as with any of the issues we’ve been discussing, it’s very difficult and indeed inappropriate I think, to make generalisations, general rules or norms that should apply to everyone. The stage of one’s life when one is dying, will be different for everyone. In the case of my mother-in-law for example, she had lived a very full life, she’d seen five children to adulthood and they were all successful and happy, whereas in other cases, a person will be younger, their projects will not be concluded, they’ll have great hopes, they’ll be bitterly disappointed at death’s door, and they’ll struggle with that optimistic spirit that you mentioned. They may indeed sustain themselves in life for a considerable period. You can’t stand back from cases like that, and make a general comment about whether that’s a good thing or not.

Alan Saunders: Just finally, one of the things to be said for a belief in an afterlife, is that you can be sustained by the hope that you’ll be reunited with your loved ones in the next world. One of the problems, it seems to me, with the acceptance of death, is that we have this dreadful word these days, ‘closure’. And we want closure. But those who go on living after the death of a loved one, having accepted that the loved one is going to die and has died, do they not nonetheless have to understand that there probably isn’t going to be closure, that this is going to be a raw wound for a very long time, if not for the rest of their lives?

Stan van Hooft: Yes, I think grief is certainly very hard to surmount by any sense of closure or completion in that sense. On the other hand, if there is the opportunity, if a person is gradually dying, then it really is very important to try to resolve issues, say goodbye, make peace if there’s been disharmony or whatever it might be, and in that sense have closure. I know a number of people who deeply regret not being able to say at the death bed of their loved ones, what they felt they needed to have said to them before death. But the hope that you might be able to do this in the afterlife when you are reunited with your loved ones, that I think is a false hope, and so that makes the matter of achieving that kind of closure, more urgent.

Alan Saunders: Well we have now reached closure. I’ve been talking to Stan van Hooft, author of Life, Death and Subjectivity: Moral Sources in Bioethics, which is published by Rodopi. Stan, thank you very much indeed for joining us.

Stan van Hooft: Thank you, Alan.

Guests on this program:

Stan van Hooft
Associate Professor of Philosophy,
Deakin University

Publications:

Life, Death, and Subjectivity: moral Sources in Bioethics
Author: Stan van Hooft
Publisher: Rodopi, Amsterdam & New York, NY