Fear Of Death In Epicurus's Letters To Menoeceus

This is a piece of free writing on why death should not be feared and how immortality is not a viable solution for those who fear death.

It is not rational to fear death. Before I get into the reasons to why i think this way, it is important to clarify a few things. Dying and being dead are two different things. The fear of dying is rational because dying is often associated with being in pain. Having pain that will lead to your death is a justifiable reason to fear dying, since no one wants to feel pain when they do not have to. Being dead is different, as being dead happens after a person has died. Thus it is irrational to fear death because all the pain from dying is over.

Being dead is unknown to everyone. We are all living so no one

I think these are wise words to live by. We should not worry about death while we are living, because as long as we are living we are not dead. And once we do die, we will not be around to worry. The letter continues to say death will not matter because “death is deprivation of senses”, so by being dead we are no longer experiencing anything, so being in pain is no longer an issue (760). Death most likely makes us feel nothing, so the fear of pain should not be an problem. I am on board for an infinite time of not feeling pain. Some may argue that it is frightening to feel nothing for an eternity and that is another scary aspect about death. I go back to Epicurus’s argument that being dead brings a time in which you feel no sensations, so you would not be able to feel the nothingness. Death removes any pain from our life and because of that is should not be feared. An absence of pain should not be

Proponents for immortality believe an eternal life is a better solution that a finite life. I would argue living forever is more frightening that having an ending point for you life. The whole premise of immortality is that a person could live forever while their body does not age. This may seem like a good alternative to death in theory, but an actual life of immortality would be scary. First off, there is no guarantee all of your loved ones would live eternally as well. If they do not live forever with you, surely you will feel you would not want to live forever without the ones you love the most. Alternatively, your loved ones could be immortal with you. But Patrice in Tomis Kapitan “Dialogue on the Desirability of Immortality” points out one would grow tired of being around loved ones for an infinite amount of time. Patrice points out we would get tired of being around loved ones is they were immortal as well. As some point you might even want to escape human company all together. I understand where this idea comes from. We get annoyed by people, and even our loved ones, every once in awhile. Imagine never being able to get away because you live forever. There will always people you get tired of every once in awhile. Secondly, Mikel Burley’s “A Dialogue on Immortality” brought to my attention is is physically for someone to forever on this Earth. Physics and astronomy tell us the Earth is not meant to last forever.