lucretian death

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Lucretian Death: Asymmetries and AgencyAuthor(s): Stephen HetheringtonSource: American Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. 42, No. 3 (Jul., 2005), pp. 211-219Published by: University of Illinois Press on behalf of the North American PhilosophicalPublicationsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20010202 .

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American Philosophical Quarterly Volume 42, Number 3, July 2005

LUCRETIAN DEATH: ASYMMETRIES AND AGENCY

Stephen Hetherington

1.

Oeminally, Lucretius followed Epicurus in arguing that being dead cannot harm one.

The most distinctive element in Lucretius's

reasoning is sometimes called the symmetry

argument.1 And this paper will develop a

strengthened argument for Lucretius's conclu?

sion.2 This will be achieved in part by under?

mining the main contemporary objection to his

argument, and in part by modifying that objec? tion. A description will also be provided of a

fundamental way in which, nonetheless, one's

dying?even painlessly?can harm one.

2.

The core Lucretian reasoning is as follows.

Your being dead will be your posthumous nonexistence. As such, however, it is no more

your nonexistence than was your prenatal

nonexistence?your not coming into existence

until you did (whenever and however that

occurred). But you were not harmed by your

prenatal nonexistence. Similarly, then, you will

not be harmed by your posthumous nonexis?

tence. Just as not-yei-being-alive was not bad

for you, not-sri/Z-being-alive will not be bad for

you.3 That Lucretian symmetry (as it may be

termed) ensures that you cannot be harmed by

being dead, once of course you are dead. (And in this respect you represent each of us.)

3.

Most contemporary philosophers, it seems,

resist that disarming view of death. They claim that it is possible to be harmed by

being dead. But they rarely engage directly with Lucretius's argument. A prominent ex?

ception has been Thomas Nagel,4 who tells

us that Lucretius is mistaken in regarding

prenatal and posthumous nonexistence as

being metaphysically equivalent. Why so?

Nagel highlights a purportedly countervail?

ing metaphysical asymmetry. You could not

be you (according to Nagel) without having come into existence exactly when you did,

whereas you could be you without going out

of existence exactly when you will. The exact

time of your beginning is essential to you; the exact time of your ending is not. Those

details of your prenatal nonexistence cannot

be altered; those details of your posthumous nonexistence can be altered.

And why does that metaphysical asym?

metry matter? Nagel claims that there can

be a harm in the posthumous nonexistence

which that asymmetry prevents from ever

being part of the prenatal nonexistence. The

possible harm in posthumous nonexistence

is one's being deprived of experiences?in

particular, beneficial ones?which one might well have had if not for dying when one does:

because one might have died at a different

211



212 / AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

time, one might have had further beneficial

experiences. Yet (given the supposed asym?

metry described by Nagel) there can be no

such harm in prenatal nonexistence: because

there is no alternative possible time at which

one might have begun to exist, there are no

further beneficial experiences which one

might have had owing to beginning one's

living at some earlier time. By beginning life

when one does, one is not being deprived of

any benefits that one might, alternatively, have received if not for beginning one's life

at that particular time.5

4.

However, Nagel is not clearly correct in de?

scribing that putative asymmetry as he does.

He treats birth as the beginning of life; and

he claims that there is almost no correlative

leeway in the precise time at which one's life

begins.6 Birth is thus to be contrasted with

death (Nagel will say): In general, there is

much greater leeway as to when one's dying can occur (and hence we have to acknowl?

edge ?3's Nagelian asymmetry). But those

claims are misleading. The leeway that there

is in one's precise time of birth might not be

so insignificant, relative to the length of the

preceding pregnancy. In numerical terms, an

extra year of life at a life's end could stand

to the preceding lifespan much as being born

a few days earlier would stand to the time

between your being conceived and your otherwise being born. For example, to die at

81 rather than at 80 is to lengthen one's life

by 1.25 percent; and to be born four days

prematurely is to shorten one's mother's

pregnancy by approximately 1.48 percent. In these relevantly relative terms, therefore,

there is not the fundamental constitutive

asymmetry between prenatal nonexistence

and posthumous nonexistence that Nagel believes there to be.

5.

Still, could Nagel strengthen his argument for that metaphysical asymmetry's obtaining,

by talking of conception rather than of birth?

Presumably, he would then be comparing

posthumous nonexistence with preconceptive nonexistence. And the possible strengthening of the argument might be due to his justifying this shift on independent Kripkean grounds.

As part of his investigation into the nature of

metaphysical modality, Saul Kripke argued that it is essential to each person to have

originated in the particular egg and sperm from which in fact she came.7 Would this

Kripkean thesis?if it is true?show that (as

Nagel claims) you could not have existed any earlier than you did?

Even that Kripkean analysis will not help

Nagel, and adapting ?4's argument explains

why that is so. Presumably, the same egg

might have been fertilized by the same sperm at a slightly different time, such as 1.5-per cent-of-one-second later. And obviously?

when considered in relation to the relevant

range of times within which that particular

egg and that particular sperm might have met

and interacted8?some such leeway in timing could be similar, in percentage terms, to the

possible leeways described in ?4. That is, the

leeway might be of a similar percentage, in

relation to the available period within which

a life could have begun via that specific egg and that specific sperm.

And thus the Lucretian challenge per?

sists?being merely postponed, not evaded,

by the Kripkean suggestion. The timing?not the material involved?remains that which

is pivotal to the Lucretian challenge. Even if

we agree that only the actual sperm and egg that initiated you could have done so (with

any different combination of egg and sperm

generating someone else), this does not es?

tablish the Nagelian?anti-Lucretian?claim



LUCRETIAN DEATH: ASYMMETRIES AND AGENCY / 213

of temporal asymmetry. It does not reveal the

essentiality to you of when your life began

(as opposed to the supposed accidentality of

when it will end).9

6.

Moreover, Nagel's suggestion undermines

Lucretius's argument only if there is inde?

pendent reason to accept Nagel's deprivation

analysis of the harm that, supposedly, there

can be in posthumous nonexistence. But that

deprivation analysis is far from obviously true. Its truth should not be taken for granted, at any rate.10 And if it happens not to be true,

then the asymmetry which Nagel claims to

notice will not provide any reason on its own

for our-being-dead's not being able to harm

us. The Nagelian asymmetry-of-metaphysi cal-constitution as such leaves untouched

the Lucretian symmetry-of-lack-of-harm. Even if we suppose, for argument's sake

(and contrary to ??4, 5), that the details of

one's prenatal nonexistence are essential to

one, while the details of one's posthumous nonexistence are not, this asymmetry will

not entail that although there cannot be harm

within one's prenatal nonexistence there can

be harm within one's posthumous nonexis?

tence. For the fact of whether or not there is

harm within a particular state is independent of whether or not that state is impossible to

avoid. Lucretius was not making the modal

claim that prenatal nonexistence and post? humous nonexistence are equally avoidable.

He was relying only upon the non-modal

view that, within themselves, each of those

two states is as full, or as empty, of harm as

the other. More fully: Given the existence of

each state (along with whatever modal status

of avoidability or unavoidability is, in each

case, the accompanying one), neither state

contains harm to the person any more than

the other does?because each is as much the

person's nonexistence as the other is.

7.

From ?4: Nagel has not uncovered any clear

asymmetry between prenatal and posthumous nonexistence. (From ?5: Nor is there a simple

Kripkean way to repair Nagel's argument in

that respect.) And from ?6: Even if there is

such an asymmetry, it is not obviously the

right kind of asymmetry with which to show

directly?on its own?how there could be

harm in being dead. Moreover, Nagel himself

is aware of a possible failing in his deprivation

analysis (with which he seeks to supplement his supposed description of the asymmetry). He suspects that it omits "something essen?

tial ... from the account of the badness of

death" (p. 8 n.). What is perhaps overlooked is

"something about the future prospect of per? manent nothingness" (pp. 8-9 n.). He believes

that in some respect "[t]he direction of time is

crucial" to this issue (p. 8) And he is right: it

is.11 There is even a correlative asymmetry of

which we should take note.12 Nonetheless, it

is a different one to that which Nagel purports to have described?and its existence will not

support his conclusion that there can be harm

for a person in her being dead. The rest of this

paper, accordingly, will offer an alternative

analysis, incorporating these various claims.

The result will be clearly Lucretian.

8.

That analysis is centered upon the phenom? enon of agency. Here is how someone might

initially attempt to derive the analysis. Whenever we fear death, we are fearing

something that we think of as lying in our

future. Vitally, we do this as part of living as

agents (as people acting, performing tasks)? where we act only into the future. Dying may then be regarded as affecting only our future

as agents. Specifically, it will be (at least) the

losing of agency. Conversely, coming into

existence may be conceived of as (at least) the gaining of agency.13 Thus, our agency as




a whole begins and ends as our living begins and ends. But, qua agents at the present mo?

ment, only the future can still be of concern for

us. As we act into the future, our death (unlike our birth) will somehow be an aspect?quite

possibly an unwelcome one?of our living as agents. So, we may hypothesize: It is ex?

planatorily significant that whenever we fear

dying and the subsequent nonexistence, we do

so either as, or in recognition of our being,

agents.14 We do so, qua agents, as a response to what we realize can still affect us as agents. In particular, we fear, either as agents or in

response to being agents, our ceasing to be

something that, crucially, we are?which is

to say, agents. Fundamentally, we are agents

fearing the ending of that same fundamental

aspect of ourselves?our agency.15

9.

How effective is ?8's proposed thinking? For a start, one could pose the following ques?

tion, in a Lucretian spirit: Would that way of

thinking?that agency analysis, as it could be

termed?give us any rational entitlement to

fear our posthumous nonexistence? Posthu?

mous nonexistence is an absence of agency. And insofar as an agent fears that absence

of agency, should she not also fear prenatal nonexistence's absence of agency? Yet (it

may be assumed) the latter would be an ab?

surd fear. The following modified Lucretian

argument therefore seems to arise:

There was no harm in prenatal nonexistence's

absence of agency. But neither in prenatal nonex?

istence, nor in posthumous nonexistence, is there

any more of an absence of agency than there is

in the other. Hence, there will be no harm in

posthumous nonexistence's absence of agency.

In what follows, it will be explained why,

although this Lucretian argument does further

the case for our not being harmed by being

dead, an application of ?8's form of analysis remains able to explain the respect in which

dying can be harmful.

10.

That respect will concern the phenomenon of agency. How will it do so? In ?11, it will be found to reveal a deep potential harm in

dying. And the existence of that potential harm will be clearer after this section has

attended to the way in which ?8's reflections

on agency do not quite succeed in countering

?9's Lucretian argument.

Thus, it might at first be thought that to

adapt ?8's claims in the following way would

be to undermine that Lucretian argument. An agent can only ever regard herself as be?

ing harmed, qua agent, by what is yet to occur

or obtain?by what awaits her, as she acts into

the future. Admittedly, she can look back with

regret or embarrassment upon past events in

her life, events about which she is now unable

to do anything. (Her birth?its details or even

its very existence?could fall within the scope of that description.) Still, she cannot now

rationally fear those past events, given that

they are unable to play any continuing 'active'

role within her life as an agent either now

or in the future.16 By definition, considered

only insofar as she is currently an agent, she

can rationally fear?and she can be harmed

by?something only insofar as, qua agent, she

can interact with it now or in the future.17 So, we must confront the possibility that a person can somehow be harmed, qua agent, by her

death?insofar as her death is incompatible with the continuation of that agency. On this

way of thinking, the harm is, most simply, the non-continuation of that metaphysical status. (Bear in mind, of course, that any such

metaphysical status is a deep or central aspect of a person.) In contrast, though, a person cannot be harmed, qua agent, by the fact of

being born (let alone by being born at some

particular time)?because this is also the birth

of her agency. With birth, there is not thereby

any loss of non-agency?because the person did not exist along with the non-agency, prior to losing it by gaining the agency. And for a




person to gain agency, as generally occurs

with birth, is not for her to be harmed qua

agent. At any rate, this is so, unless agency is

generally harmful in itself. And no reason has

been provided here for thinking that it is. Con?

sequently (it might be concluded), there is a

significant metaphysical asymmetry between

prenatal and posthumous nonexistence. It is

an asymmetry pertaining most fundamentally to agency, not merely to birth and death as

such, say. Is Lucretius therefore mistaken in

believing that being dead cannot harm one?

Does the asymmetry described here imply that

there is a possible harm in being dead?unlike

in not yet being alive?

No, it does not. The Lucretian may suc?

cessfully reapply ?9's argument?saying that

when one is dead, agency is no more, just as

it never was, when one was yet to be born.

Hence (he will continue), there cannot be any rational fear, even as an agent, of one's being dead. This is because one's being dead?like

one's prenatal nonexistence, and indeed one's

birth?is not something with which, qua

agent, one now has any potential to interact.

In that sense, being dead is as estranged from

one's being an agent now as is one's prenatal nonexistence. It is as an agent now, acting

only into the future, that one can regard the

distant past with equanimity. But, equally, it

is as an agent now, acting into the future, that

one can regard with equanimity the future in?

sofar as it lies beyond the possibility of one's

acting?with that future obviously including the time of one's posthumous nonexistence.

So, once agency is accorded an explanatory

centrality, the Lucretian argument ends up

being affirmed. It is even strengthened some?

what, due to the core Lucretian argument (in

?2) being rendered a little more specific. This

is achieved by articulating the argument in

terms of what is metaphysically estranged from agency at a time. It is thereby shown

that, insofar as agency is central to any ex?

planation of what harm there could ever be in

death, there is no harm in being dead.

11.

Nevertheless, that result does not entail

there being no harm in any aspect of death.

For it does not entail that there is no harm in

dying. And the fact that there can be harm

in dying is able to be explained in terms

of agency. That explanation will continue

attending to an asymmetry, tied to the es?

sential future-directedness of agency.18 But

now the point made at the end of ? 10 by the

Lucretian?that agency is pertinent only for

the living?must be applied. What then fol?

lows? Simply this: The asymmetry in ques? tion pertains only to people qua agents. And, as will now be explained, this still allows our

dying to harm us.

The asymmetry in question can affect

someone only as a living person?because

only such people are agents. The Lucretian

will note?correctly?that neither prenatal nonexistence nor posthumous nonexistence is

in itself any more an absence of agency than

is the other. But that is beside the immediate

point. The asymmetry being described at the

moment concerns only how a living person is

affected. It is not meant to reflect any asym?

metry between the prenatal and the posthu? mous nonexistences as they are intrinsically,

purely qualitatively and purely in themselves.

In effect, the immediate concern is with the

losing, not with the absence, of agency. It is

with the ending of agency, not with agency's

having ended or its being no more. And only a living person (rather than one who is dead

or someone who is yet to exist) can ever

lose agency. Any harm that there is in losing

agency, or in the ending of one's agency, is

a harm that can be incurred only by a living

person?because it can be incurred only by a person qua agent.19

Consequently, even if (as the Lucretian

argues) the state of being dead cannot harm

one, this does not entail that no aspect of

one's death can harm one. Let us reflect in

more detail upon the process of dying. Con




sidered just as an agent, in principle a person can sometimes control or evade details of her

dying?details such as the time, the place, the method. It is to anything lying temporally

beyond those details?such as, notably, her

subsequently being dead?that her agency fails to extend. Hence, she cannot do any?

thing to control aspects of her being dead. It

is true that, while alive, she might be able to

control aspects of her living that will affect, for example, what her dead body will later

look like and how both it and the memory of

her will be treated by other people. But even

this would not be her controlling her being dead as such. For the state of her being dead

is present only after she has died?at which

time, she is no longer controlling anything, and (equally) nothing is still being controlled

by her.20

Thus, in a sense, a person's being dead car?

ries nothing of her?and, more specifically,

nothing of her agency?into or within it. My

being dead is beyond my reach qua agent;

your being dead is beyond you qua agent. Once a given person is dead, there is no more

that-person-agency. This remains so, even if

the dying is itself an act of agency (as occa?

sionally it is, most notoriously in some cases

of suicide).21 Once she is dead, the person qua

agent has been left behind. Correlatively, we

might even regard any instance of being dead

per se as metaphysically of a piece with any other instance of being dead per se. No one's

state of being dead will be at all different from

anyone else's. (In this sense and respect, we

merge metaphysically into each other.) And that signifies a metaphysical difference

between dying and being dead. Particular

instances of dying are personally distinc?

tive; cases of being dead are not. (Distinct instances of dying are distinct due to their

details?of time, place, method.) And in?

stances of dying at least can express or cur?

tail?affect?agency, whereas cases of being dead cannot. Accordingly, granting agency an

explanatory centrality in our attempt to un

derstand this issue allows us to leave open the

possibility that one's dying can harm one (by

harming one qua agent) even if one's being dead cannot.22 Qua agent, it can be rational

to fear losing that agency?to fear ceasing to

be what, most fundamentally in that mode, one is.23 Nevertheless, this does not entail that

it is rational, even qua agent, to fear having lost the agency or to fear having ceased to

be an agent. To have lost the agency is to

have lost the categorial basis?namely, one's

metaphysical status as an agent?upon which

it was rational to fear losing the agency in the

first place. A person can be harmed by losing the agency, by her life ending?even if she is

never harmed by having lost the agency and

by the life having ended. And the pertinence of these distinctions follows from its being the

person qua agent about whom the question of

death's possible harm ever arises.

12.

Lucretius denied only that being dead?not

that dying?could harm one. This paper has

found a way to supplement his reasoning. The supplementation includes (1) a refine?

ment of what Lucretius was noticing, which

is that there is no relevant metaphysical


and posthumous nonexistence, along with (2)

part of what Nagel was seeking to explicate, which is that there is a relevant metaphysical


and posthumous nonexistence.

Is there an insuperable tension in endorsing both (1) and (2)? Can this combination be coherent? This paper has sought to bypass that tension, by qualifying each of (1) and (2),

along the following lines. The asymmetry to

which attention should be paid is not what

Nagel claimed to describe?which concerned

the essentiality or accidentality to a person as such of her prenatal nonexistence and of

her posthumous nonexistence. Rather, the

vital asymmetry is in how those two states

are related to the person qua agent. One of




them?via birth?gives way to the agent; but this gaining of agency as such cannot be

a harm to the agent as such. The agent?via

dying?gives way to the other of those two

states; and this losing of agency as such can

be a harm to the agent as such. Conversely, insofar as we are not agents (either prenatally or posthumously) there is indeed a Lucretian

symmetry?the one he described himself. And

there is a consequent lack of harm to us, too.

We can be harmed by death, therefore, only insofar as it can affect us as agents?which

is to say, by our dying and by our agency

thereby ending. Otherwise, insofar as we are

not agents, death?specifically, our being dead?cannot harm us. A strengthened argu?

ment for Lucretius's core conclusion is thus

derived: Being dead cannot harm one (even if dying can). This paper's agency analysis reveals what kind of harm there can be?and

what kind of harm there cannot be?in one's

death. The harm is the ending of one's ability to perform actions?to do things.24

University of New South Wales

NOTES

The editor and two referees made many very helpful comments on earlier versions of this paper.

1. It is to be found in De rerum natura. See the selections in A. A. Long and D. N. Sedley, The Hel?

lenistic Philosophers, vol. 1 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), at p. 151.

2. For an attempt to defend the most distinctive component in Epicurus's reasoning, see Stephen Heth

erington, "Deathly Harm," American Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 38 (2001), pp. 349-362.

3. And?we might wish to say, extending Lucretius's reasoning?if neither of these was or will be

bad for you when you were not, or will not be, alive, then neither of them is bad for you while you are

alive.

4. "Death," in Mortal Questions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), pp. 1-10, at pp. 7-8. This paper's otherwise unattributed page references will be to Nagel's essay.

5. Frederik Kaufman uses a memory criterion of personal identity in order to support this strategy of

Nagel's: "An Answer to Lucretius' Argument Against the Fear of Death," Journal of Value Inquiry, vol. 29 (1995), pp. 57-64; "Death and Deprivation; Or, Why Lucretius' Symmetry Argument Fails," Australasian Journal of Philosophy, vol. 74 (1996), pp. 305-312. Kaufman's general point in "Death and Deprivation" (pp. 308-309) is that, in thinking about this issue, a psychological rather than merely biological criterion of personal identity is what matters. The suggestion to be developed in this paper is consistent with that recommendation.

6. This use of "almost" accommodates what Nagel calls "the brief margin permitted by premature labor" (p. 8).

7. For Kripke's argument concerning this example, see Naming and Necessity (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1980), pp. 112-113.

8. Here, for simplicity and for the sake of argument, the relevant details of timing that are involved in the actual act of sexual intercourse that brought that sperm into contact with that egg are being held constant. The same is true of the competing presence of those other sperm that that act brought into the vicinity of that egg. Otherwise?without those assumptions?there is even more leeway in when this sperm and this egg might have met and interacted. For example, it should not be forgotten that even with that same egg and same sperm, a method such as in-vitro fertilization will allow the time of

conception to be delayed greatly.



218/ AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

9. This paper will therefore continue to follow Lucretius (and, for that matter, Nagel) in formulating the Lucretian challenge in terms of birth rather than those of conception.

10. Indeed, for an argument against its being true, see Stephen Hetherington, "Deathly Harm," pp. 356-358.

11. Others to have noticed this include Anthony Brueckner and John Martin Fischer, "Why is Death

Bad?" Philosophical Studies, vol. 50 (1986), pp. 213-223.

12. It is a simple asymmetry, too. Part of Nagel's worry about his own time-directed and asymmetry based deprivation analysis is "that it is too sophisticated to explain the simple difference between our

attitudes to prenatal and posthumous nonexistence" (p. 8 n.).

13. Perhaps at first it is not very much agency. Then again (and unfortunately), in many instances the

same is true of a person just before she dies, as her capacities and opportunities wither. Those are ways in which we often speak about agency. And is the concept of agency therefore gradational, so as to

accommodate these ways of speaking? Can a person's agency wax and wane in strength? This paper's

argument will not require that question to be answered.

14. The "or in recognition of our being" covers the possibility that our fear is involuntary?and therefore

not a manifestation of agency as such.

15. We can even fear an aspect of our agency itself, as it impels us towards the end of our agency.

16. Consequences of those past events might do so, as Walter Glannon would observe: "Temporal

Asymmetry, Life, and Death," American Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 31 (1994), pp. 235-244, at pp. 239-241. But in that case it is these new events that are now causally active, not the previous ones.

17. Such interaction need not be initiated by her. One's being an agent can include one's being acted

upon or affected (being a subject)?so long as one has an associated capacity to act in at least one way that somehow (even if unwittingly) reflects that experience. A newly born child will generally possess some such capacity. A coma victim probably lacks it.

18. This future-directedness is metaphysical, not merely attitudinal. An agent need not be thinking

about the future in order to be acting into it. On the supposed asymmetry in people's respective attitudes

towards past, and towards future, suffering, see Derek Parfit's Reasons and Persons (Oxford: Clarendon

Press, 1984), at pp. 165-167. On that supposed agency, as applied to the case of death considered as a

potential future harm, see Brueckner and Fischer, "Why is Death Bad?" For criticism of their respective

arguments, see Glannon, "Temporal Asymmetry, Life, and Death," at pp. 237-238.

19. Epicurus talked of the person fs being no more. This is generally called the problem of the subject?the

conceptual difficulty of locating a continuing subject both to have been alive and, subsequently, to be

harmed by being dead. If this paper is right, Epicurus's challenge might usefully be renamed?so as to

be referred to instead as the problem of the agent.

20. Her agency, while ever it exists, can set in motion various actions which will?after her dying?result in her legal will and her 'dying wishes,' say, being acted upon. But whenever those actions are occur?

ring, she is not thereby controlling them. Her agency, while she is alive, is necessary without being sufficient for such posthumous occurrences.

21. "Doesn't your treating the loss of agency as being tantamount to the loss of life commit you to the

implausible idea that a person who is placed into an irreversible coma?thereby losing all agency?is, in effect, dead? Doesn't this also commit you to the implausible claim that such a person is not harmed

by being in a coma?" It is common to say that there is harm in such a case. But suppose we know with

total certainty that a particular person's coma is irreversible. And suppose that another person?upon

dying?is neither buried nor cremated, instead remaining in a bed, connected to the same sort of equip? ment as is keeping the coma victim both alive and visibly whole (non-decayed). Should we regard




these two people as being in substantially different states? It is not obvious that we should. The person in the coma is in a state of living death (it might be said, and often is, perhaps regrettably reflecting some possible conceptual confusion and at least indecision). There is harm insofar as there is living; yet there is no harm insofar as there is a state of being dead; which, if either, is it to be? Do we know? This paper's argument entails that entering a coma can be harmful, but that being in a coma is harmful

only insofar as the person is still an agent.

22. It is manifest that painful, or unwanted and noticed, dying can harm one. But this paper is talking just about dying that is painless, and unexpected or unannounced?while asking whether that sort of

dying can harm one. For an answer related to the one being advocated here, see Stephen Hetherington, Reality? Knowledge? Philosophy! (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2003), pp. 59-60.

23. That fundamentality is why this paper's analysis focuses upon agency in particular, from among the various other benefits that there can be in living. Qua agent, a person can fear dying. Qua lover-of chocolate-cakes or qua writer-of-philosophy, too, she can fear dying. In general, however, agency is more

explanatorily fundamental to people's attitudes to death than is chocolate-cake-adoration or a desire to

continue writing philosophy. A person will rationally fear dying, because it will end her capacity to do or experience X, only insofar as she is an X-capable agent in the first place. Agency is the underlying categorial feature whose presence allows these more specific features to flourish. (In any case, this paper's agency analysis does not imply that only agency per se, abstracted from its potential exemplifications, reveals to us that dying can?while being dead cannot?harm one. The agency analysis implies that, if

anything more specific reveals this, then agency as such also does so. Whenever it is talking generally of agency, this paper's analysis may also be applied to particular actions or experiences, so long as these are understood to be manifestations of agency per se. Agency as such is just the pertinent explanatory category or determinable.)

24. Can other animals, too, be harmed in that way by dying? Yes, insofar as they have agency. Beyond that observation, though, the agency analysis is leaving this open for now (just as the corresponding question is standardly left open by discussions of the deprivation analysis).



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