Chapter 45 Chapter Summary

Leaving aside the question of possible immortality or life after death, Nagel considers whether the unequivocal and permanent end of our existence should be regarded as an evil. Those who see it as an evil must confront a number of conceptual challenges centering on the uncertain identity of the subject of death: How can there be a misfortune if there is not someone there to experience it as such? Death is simply the end of our existence, not a state of being or an objectionable condition. Nagel agrees that death is not a positive evil but the deprivation of the good that life is; he goes on to argue that it is not reasonable to restrict the misfortunes that can befall us to our experiential states at any given time. Moreover, he attempts to refute those who maintain (after Lucretius) that our nonexistence after death should trouble us no more than our nonexistence prior to our birth. For Nagel, the latter is not disturbing because it does not entail any loss. Death, in contrast, deprives a person of time that, barring death, would otherwise have been hers to enjoy.