Post on 24-Dec-2015
SELENA THÉMR. KYLE BURCHETT
PHI 380 001 DEATH, DYING, AND THE QUALITY OF LIFE
MONDAY JANUARY 27 , 2014
Death’s Distinctive HarmWritten By Stephan Blatti
Agenda
Introduction
Stephan Blatti Biography
Article Overview
Article Excerpts
Relatable Topics
Questions
Stephan Blatti Biography
Attended Ohio State University and the University of Oxford
Previously taught at the University of North Carolina and Duke University
Currently at the University of Memphis Department of Philosophy
Metaphysics Animalist theory of personal
identity, material constitution, and deathhttp://memphis.edu/philosophy/bios/blatti.php
Article Overview- The Harm Thesis
The Harm Thesis- death can harm the one who dies.
Two Challenges 1. Timing issue- If HT is
true, when is death’s harm exposed to oneself?
2. Harm issue- If HT is true, what is the nature of the harm brought about by death?
(Blatti, 317)http://www.bubblews.com/news/51610-death
The Harm Thesis The Epicurean
“Death can harm the one who dies.”
“The most awful of evils,” as Epicurus notoriously put it in his Letter to Menoeceus, “is nothing to us, seeing that, when we are, death is not come, and, when death is come, we are not.”
(Blatti, 317)
Article Excerpts- The Harm Thesis vs. The Epicurean
Article Overview- The Timing Issue
The Timing Issue Eternalism Priorism Concurrentism Subsequentism Indefinitism
(Blatti, 317)
http://abhinarfatah.wordpress.com/lukisan/salvador-dali/
Article Overview- The Harm Issue
The Harm Issue “When bad, death’s
badness consists in depriving us of life’s goods.”
The Deprivation View
(Blatti, 317)https://life.babson.edu/organization/netimpact/calendar/details/
124177
Article Excerpt- The Deprivation View
“The discussion unfolds in three steps. In section 1 we consider the priorist answer to
the timing question, see how it works with DV, and entertain a couple of misgivings. Section 2 presents DV in greater detail, highlighting its advantages and drawing out the respects in
which it is incomplete. Section 3 offers a proposal for how to understand the aspect of
mortal harm (Restriction Harm) that DV overlooks. This account accords with priorism and avoids the objections raised in section 1.”
(Blatti, 318)
Article Overview- Priorism
The victim of deaths harm are not the dead, but the living.
One’s future death
may constitute an injury to one’s present self. Yankees vs. the Red
Sox Ferdinand Magellan
(Blatti, 318-319)
http://www.antarcticguide.com/about-antarctica/antarctic-history/early-explorers/3ferdinand-magellan/
Article Excerpt- Priorism
“S’s death at t2 constitutes a harm to S at t1 by depriving S at t1 of goods that S would have
enjoyed had she continued living. Put differently, if S’s death at t2 will render her
efforts at t1 ineffectual (by precluding completion of a significant project, for
instance), then S’s death at t2 harms S at t1 by making S at t1 comparatively worse off than
she would have been had she not attempted to complete her project in the first place.”
(Blatti, 319)
Article Overview- Deprivation Harm
Deprivation Harm- death deprives a person of possible goods that would come from a longer life
Deprivationist approach- some deaths are worse than others and death might not be overall bad for some of those who die Suicide Euthanasia Ceteris paribus
(Blatti, 321)
http://www.upi.com/Entertainment_News/Movies/2013/12/16/Paul-
Walker-buried-after-private-funeral/UPI-85071387203974/
Article Excerpt- Deprivation Harm
“We can and should agree that there are circumstances in which suicide may be rational and euthanasia justified. But from the fact that some lives are not worth continuing, it does not
follow that the subjects of these lives go unharmed by their deaths—even when those
deaths are elective.”
(Blatti, 323)
Article Overview- Restriction Harm
Every exercise of a subject’s autonomy is possibly thwarted by her death.
The Termination Thesis
“An autonomous human being is necessarily restriction-harmed by her future death so long as she remains autonomous.”
(Blatti, 323-324)http://www.environmentalgraffiti.com/featured/most-mindblowing-
base-jumps/10917
Article Overview- Conclusion
“Death’s harm is not homogenous, but multifaceted; not entirely contingent, but partly necessary.”
“Each and every autonomous, living subject who dies is harmed because her every exercise of autonomy is possibly undermined by death.”
“Not only can death in fact harm the one who dies, it always does so—whether or not
the death is overall good for that individual.”
(Blatti, 326)
Relatable Topics
SlaverySuicideEuthanasia
Active Passive Physician Assisted
Ceteris ParibusDNRs
http://theromanticvineyard.com/2011/08/04/water-into-wine-proverbs-13/
Works Cited
"The 5 Most Mindblowing BASE Jumps In History." The 5 Most Mindblowing BASE Jumps In History. Web. 26 Jan. 2014.
Babson Net Impact. Web. 26 Jan. 2014. Blatti, Stephan. "Death's Distinctive Harm." American Philosophical
Quarterly 49.4 (2012): 317-30. Print. "Calvin & Hobbes | Stephen Coley." Stephen Coley. Web. 26 Jan.
2014. "Death." News. Web. 26 Jan. 2014. "Ferdinand Magellan." Antarctic Guide 03 Ferdinand Magellan
Comments. Web. 26 Jan. 2014. "JENDELA HISTORIOGRAFI.” Web. 26 Jan. 2014. "Paul Walker." UPI. Web. 26 Jan. 2014. "Philosophy Stephan Blatti University of Memphis." Stephan Blatti.
University of Memphis, Web. 26 Jan. 2014. "RIP Glory: Calvin and Hobbes on the Topic of Death."
Doobybrain.com. Web. 26 Jan. 2014. "Water Into Wine – Proverbs 13 | The Romantic Vineyard." The
Romantic Vineyard. Web. 26 Jan. 2014.