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Editorial

Life and Death

by Rick Lewis

“Think, in this batter’d Caravanserai
Whose Doorways are alternate Night and Day,
How Sultán after Sultán with his Pomp
Abode his Hour or two, and went his way.”
Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

Well, we do try to deal with the big themes here at Philosophy Now, and this issue’s theme is Life and Death. Philosophy arises out of the conditions of life, out of the questions that life throws at us in an unending stream. Yet in Plato’s dialogue Phaedo, Socrates, in prison under sentence of death, says he isn’t worried about his impending execution because practicing philosophy is “practicing for death.” What does he mean, practicing for death? As Socrates saw it, death is the separation of the soul from the body, and this is also the goal of philosophy: to attain the detachment needed to clearly see the Universe and our place within it; to leave the familiar world behind as we strive to reach the eternal unchanging Forms, of which all earthly things are mere shadows. But what if there is no soul, and there are no Forms, and death brings only oblivion, rather than knowledge? Well, in that case there is no reason to fear it. This seems one of those questions where a definitive answer is available, if at all, only to those no longer able to communicate it to us.

Another century, another prison, another philosopher awaiting the chop. While Boethius (480-524 AD) languished in his dungeon, he penned a work called The Consolation of Philosophy, which won him, ironically, a kind of immortality. In Boethius’ book, a female personification of Philosophy visits him in jail and convinces him that true happiness lies in the pursuit of wisdom, which has a divine source, that all earthly goods inevitably are fleeting and that the wicked can never be truly happy. What consolations can philosophy offer us today?

While philosophy definitely doesn’t have all the answers, perhaps it can help to clarify some of the questions. Why does death matter? Why does life matter? Matter to whom? What exactly is ‘mattering’, anyway? If we can see that our lives have added up to something, that we have made a difference to our families, or made the world a slightly better place, shouldn’t we be satisfied with that? Woody Allen once said “I don’t want to live on in the hearts of my countrymen; I want to live on in my apartment.” That’s fair, but living on in the hearts of those close to us seems better than nothing. Furthermore, some of the things, and above all the people, that matter to us will be around long after we have ceased to be. Not everything that is important to us will end when we do.

If we interpret ‘death’ as ‘non-life’, then this issue’s ‘Life and Death’ theme could potentially include everything in the universe. That seems a little too broad to be useful. If we take the word death more narrowly as denoting the cessation of life, then ‘Life and Death’ is still a vast topic. What can we hope to say about it in one section of a single issue of this little magazine? As usual, we can only ask our authors to pick out a few shining threads, which is what they have done.

Deniz Kose writes about antinatalism, the startling claim that humans should voluntarily stop having babies and therefore, over a period of time, deliberately die out. What arguments could have persuaded certain impressive and humane philosophers such as Peter Zapffe and Emil Cioran to adopt this view? And what, if anything, was wrong with those arguments?

Thou shalt not kill, says the Commandment – but what specifically is wrong with it, apart from it being displeasing to the Almighty? American philosopher Don Marquis suggested that all killing is wrong because it robs living beings of the future they could otherwise have had. Jimmy Licon breaks a few eggs while he explains why he find this approach unsatisfactory.

Why is life meaningful? Joshua Clements explores an analogy that life is like a picture frame to be filled with – what? Is your life a work of art that you can, or must, create as you go?

“Who wants to live forever?”, asks Dan Pollen. “Me, me!” is my instinctive reply, but even I can tell that the disadvantages might eventually pile up. Still, at the end of our special section (appropriately enough) Andy Yee imagines immortality out among the stars.

Some have claimed that our mortality alone gives life its savour. Why? Consider oxygen. Most of us take it for granted nearly all of the time. But if it becomes limited – say, you are an astronaut or a diver, and your supply of the good stuff has become dangerously low – then oxygen will be right at the forefront of your mind. Similarly, life itself is valued more because of our awareness of its finitude. If the supply of something valuable is restricted, you tend to use it more carefully.

Knowing that the supply of life is limited can, of course, make people anxious. Cicero had a bracing approach to such fears. He wrote (in Letters, 26) that “It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste much of it”, and “While we are postponing, life speeds by… Let us postpone nothing.” He thinks we’ll then realise that we do all have enough time for the truly important things, and this realisation will free us from worrying about our demise.

We’ve just reached the 35th anniversary of the launch of Philosophy Now, and to celebrate, we have launched a web app. You can download it from app.philosophynow.org directly onto your tablet or smartphone (whether Android or iOS). It contains all of our current issue and all past issues. You still need a web connection to download an issue in the app, but having done so you can then read it even if you are offline. If you have a print or digital subscription to Philosophy Now, then access to our web app is now included as an additional benefit of your subscription at no extra cost, using the same username/password that you have for our website. And if you don’t yet have a subscription to Philosophy Now, why not consider it?