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Lucretian Death: Asymmetries and Agency Author(s): Stephen Hetherington Source: American Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. 42, No. 3 (Jul., 2005), pp. 211-219 Published by: University of Illinois Press on behalf of the North American Philosophical
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American

Philosophical

Quarterly

Volume 42, Number 3, July 2005

LUCRETIAN DEATH: ASYMMETRIES AND AGENCY

Stephen Hetherington

1. Most Oeminally, in arguing The most reasoning argument.1 Lucretius that being distinctive is sometimes And followed element called Epicurus harm one. resist claim

3. it seems, contemporary philosophers, that disarming view of death. They to be harmed by that it is possible dead. But they rarely engage directly

dead cannot

in Lucretius's the symmetry a will develop

being with Lucretius's

this paper

conclu? strengthened argument for Lucretius's in part by under? sion.2 This will be achieved mining contemporary objection that objec? argument, and in part by modifying tion. A description will also be provided of a way inwhich, painlessly?can 2. The core Lucretian Your being nonexistence. your reasoning is as follows. dead will be your posthumous As such, however, it is no more nonetheless, harm one. one's themain to his

ex? argument. A prominent has been Thomas who tells ception Nagel,4 us that Lucretius is mistaken in regarding and posthumous highlights nonexistence as so? being metaphysically equivalent. Why a purportedly countervail? asymmetry. You could not to Nagel) without

prenatal Nagel

fundamental dying?even

having exactly when you did, whereas you could be you without going out of existence exactly when you will. The exact come into existence to you; time of your beginning is essential the exact time of your ending is not. Those cannot details of your prenatal nonexistence be altered; those details of your posthumous can be altered. nonexistence And asym? why does that metaphysical matter? Nagel claims that there can

ing metaphysical be you (according

than was your prenatal not nonexistence?your coming into existence until you did (whenever and however that nonexistence occurred). But you were not harmed by your prenatal nonexistence. Similarly, then, you will not be harmed by your posthumous nonexis? was not bad tence. Just as not-yei-being-alive for you, not-sri/Z-being-alive will not be bad for (as itmay be symmetry you.3 That Lucretian ensures that you cannot be harmed by termed) being dead, once of course you are dead. (And in this respect you represent each of us.) 211

metry be a harm which being

in the posthumous nonexistence that asymmetry from ever prevents of the nonexistence. The part prenatal harm

in posthumous nonexistence of being deprived experiences?in one might particular, beneficial ones?which possible is one's well have had if not for dying when one does: one might have died at a different because

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212 / AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

time, one might have had further beneficial Yet (given the supposed asym? experiences. described there can be no metry by Nagel) such harm in prenatal nonexistence: because there is no alternative possible time at which one might have begun to exist, there are no one further beneficial which experiences to have had one's might owing beginning life living at some earlier time. By beginning when one does, one is not being deprived of that one might, any benefits alternatively, have if not for beginning at that particular time.5 received 4. is not clearly correct in de? However, Nagel as he does. that putative asymmetry scribing He treats birth as the beginning of life; and he claims that there is almost no correlative leeway one's life 5. Still, could Nagel for that metaphysical strengthen his argument

asymmetry's obtaining, of rather than of birth? by talking conception he would then be Presumably, comparing posthumous nonexistence. nonexistence And with preconceptive strengthening the possible

of the argumentmight be due to his justifying

this shift on independent Kripkean grounds. As part of his investigation into the nature of Saul Kripke metaphysical modality, argued to each person to have that it is essential in the particular egg and sperm originated from which in fact thesis?if she came.7 Would it is true?show this that (as Kripkean Nagel claims) you could not have existed any earlier than you did? that Kripkean analysis will not help and adapting ?4's argument explains Nagel, that is so. Presumably, the same egg why same sperm the have been fertilized might by Even at a slightly different time, such as 1.5-per cent-of-one-second later. And obviously? when considered in relation which to the relevant range of times within egg and that particular and interacted8?some could be similar, that particular sperm might have met such leeway in timing

in the precise time at which one's life begins.6 Birth is thus to be contrasted with there is death (Nagel will say): In general, much greater leeway can occur (and hence as to when we have dying to acknowl? one's

But those asymmetry). edge ?3's Nagelian The leeway that there claims are misleading. is in one's precise time of birth might not be to the length of the In numerical terms, an pregnancy. preceding a extra year of life at life's end could stand to the preceding lifespan much as being born relative a few days between earlier would stand to the time and your being to die at otherwise being born. For example, 81 rather than at 80 is to lengthen one's life and to be born four days by 1.25 percent; your prematurely is to shorten one's mother's conceived so insignificant,

in percentage terms, to the in described ?4. That is, the possible leeways a be of similar in percentage, leeway might relation to the available period within which a life could have begun via that specific and that specific sperm. And thus the Lucretian egg

per? challenge not evaded, sists?being merely postponed, by the Kripkean suggestion. The timing?not the material is pivotal we involved?remains that which to the Lucretian challenge. Even if that the actual agree sperm and egg only that initiated you could have done so (with of egg and sperm any different combination not es?

1.48 percent. pregnancy by approximately In these relevantly relative terms, therefore, constitutive there is not the fundamental between asymmetry prenatal nonexistence and posthumous believes there to be. nonexistence that Nagel

someone else), this does generating tablish the Nagelian?anti-Lucretian?claim

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LUCRETIANDEATH:ASYMMETRIESAND AGENCY / 213

of temporal essentiality (as opposed when it will It does not reveal the asymmetry. to you of when your life began to the supposed accidentality of end).9 6. Moreover, Lucretius's pendent undermines suggestion if there is inde? argument only reason to accept Nagel's deprivation Nagel's there that, supposedly, But that nonexistence. 7. ?4: Nagel has not uncovered any clear asymmetry between prenatal and posthumous nonexistence. (From ?5: Nor is there a simple From in argument Kripkean way to repair Nagel's 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

its own?how there could be directly?on 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 He of the asymmetry). description essen? that it omits suspects "something ... tial from the account of the badness of

analysis of the harm can be in posthumous

is far from obviously analysis deprivation true. Its truth should not be taken for granted, at any rate.10 And if it happens not to be true, claims to then the asymmetry which Nagel not provide any reason on its own not being able to harm for our-being-dead's us. The Nagelian asymmetry-of-metaphysi notice will cal-constitution the Lucretian Even if we as such leaves untouched symmetry-of-lack-of-harm.

death" manent

is perhaps overlooked is (p. 8 n.). What about the future of prospect per? "something

for argument's sake suppose, (and contrary to ??4, 5), that the details of are essential to one's prenatal nonexistence the details are not, of one's posthumous will this asymmetry

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.11There is even a correlative should we of asymmetry take note.12 Nonetheless, it one to that which Nagel purports its existence will not

which

is a different

one, while nonexistence not entail within

to have described?and

that although there cannot be harm there can one's prenatal nonexistence

be harm within harm within of whether claim

nonexis? one's posthumous or not there is tence. For the fact of whether a particular state is independent or not that state is impossible to was not making nonexistence the modal and post? avoidable.

that there can be harm support his conclusion for a person in her being dead. The rest of this will offer an alternative paper, accordingly, these various analysis, incorporating The result will be clearly Lucretian. 8. That analysis enon of agency. initially attempt we Whenever is centered Here to derive upon the phenom? is how someone might claims.

avoid. Lucretius

that prenatal humous nonexistence He was view

are equally relying only upon the non-modal each of those that, within themselves, is as full, or as empty, of harm as of fully: Given the existence

two states

the other. More

the analysis. fear death, we are fearing that we think of as lying in our something future. Vitally, we do this as part of living as tasks)? agents (as people acting, performing where we act only into the future. Dying may then be regarded as affecting only our future as agents. Specifically, itwill be (at least) the into losing of agency. Conversely, coming existence may be conceived of as (at least) the gaining of agency.13 Thus, our agency as

status each state (along with whatever modal or unavoidability of avoidability is, in each state neither case, the accompanying one), contains to the person any more than the other does?because each is as much the harm nonexistence as the other is.

person's

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214 / AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

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 a whole us. As we act into the future, our death (unlike our birth) will somehow be an aspect?quite an unwelcome our living one?of possibly as agents. So, we may we fear planatorily significant we do and the subsequent nonexistence, dying so either as, or in recognition of our being, We do so, qua agents, as a response agents.14 realize can still affect us as agents. In particular, we fear, either as agents or in response to being agents, that, crucially, something we are agents to say, agents. Fundamentally, fearing the ending of that same fundamental aspect of ourselves?our 9. is ?8's proposed thinking? a one For could pose the following ques? start, that way of tion, in a Lucretian spirit: Would as it could be agency analysis, thinking?that us any rational entitlement to termed?give nonexistence? Posthu? fear our posthumous mous And is an absence of agency. as an agent fears that absence of agency, should she not also fear prenatal nonexistence's absence of agency? Yet (it nonexistence insofar be an ab? Lucretian How effective agency.15 we our ceasing to be are?which is to what we hypothesize: that whenever It is ex? 10. That respect will to reveal concern the phenomenon

of agency. How will it do so? In ?11, itwill

be found dying. harm will attended And a deep the existence harm in potential of that potential after this section has

be clearer

to the way in which ?8's reflections on agency do not quite succeed in countering ?9's Lucretian argument. at first be thought that to in claims the following way would adapt ?8's be to undermine that Lucretian argument. An agent can only ever regard herself as be? Thus, it might 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 upon past events in regret or embarrassment her life, events about which she is now unable to do anything. details or even (Her birth?its of fall within the scope that description.) Still, she cannot now those past events, given that rationally fear are to unable 'active' they play any continuing role within her life as an agent either now its very existence?could

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 death?insofar with be harmed, qua agent, by her as her death is incompatible the continuation of that agency. On this

the latter would may be assumed) surd fear. The following modified argument
There absence istence, was

therefore
no harm

seems

to arise:
nonexistence's in prenatal nonex? is there

in prenatal neither

of agency. nor

But

in posthumous

nonexistence,

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.

the harm is, most way of thinking, simply, the non-continuation of that metaphysical status. (Bear inmind, of course, that any such status is a deep or central aspect metaphysical In contrast, of a person.) though, a person cannot be harmed, qua agent, by the fact of being born particular of her agency. With (let alone by being born at some this is also the birth time)?because

In what although the case dead, remains dying

it will be explained why, follows, this Lucretian argument does further

for our not being harmed by being an application of ?8's form of analysis able to explain can be harmful. the respect in which

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

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LUCRETIANDEATH:ASYMMETRIESAND AGENCY / 215

occurs person to gain agency, as generally 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 been provided here for thinking sequently (it might significant metaphysical prenatal and posthumous no reason has that it is. Con? there is a 11. that result does not entail Nevertheless, 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 in terms is able to be explained of agency. That explanation will continue to an asymmetry, tied to the es? attending sential future-directedness of agency.18 But now the point made at the end of ? 10 by the Lucretian?that agency is pertinent the living?must be applied. What lows? Simply this: The asymmetry only for then fol?

be concluded),

asymmetry between It is nonexistence.

an asymmetry pertaining most fundamentally to birth and death as to agency, not merely in therefore mistaken say. Is Lucretius that being dead cannot harm one? believing such, 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?

that cessfully reapply ?9's argument?saying when one is dead, agency is no more, just as it never was, when one was yet to be born. Hence there cannot be any continue), even as an rational fear, agent, of one's being dead. This is because one's being dead?like (he will

in ques? tion pertains only to people qua agents. And, as will now be explained, this still allows our us. to harm dying can affect in question asymmetry someone only as a living person?because such only people are agents. The Lucretian The will neither prenatal note?correctly?that nor posthumous nonexistence nonexistence is in itself any more an absence of agency than is the other. But that is beside the immediate at the point. The asymmetry being described concerns only how a living person is moment affected. It is not meant to reflect any asym? the prenatal and the posthu? metry between mous as they are intrinsically, and purely qualitatively purely in themselves. concern is with the In effect, the immediate nonexistences

one's prenatal nonexistence, and indeed one's not something birth?is with which, qua to interact. agent, one now has any potential 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 that future obviously acting?with the time of one's So, once posthumous is accorded of one's including nonexistence.

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 is agency, or in the ending of one's agency, a harm that can be incurred only by a living it can be incurred only by person?because
a person qua agent.19

an explanatory agency the Lucretian ends up argument centrality, even some? affirmed. It is being strengthened core to due the Lucretian what, argument (in ?2) being rendered a little more specific. This in the argument by articulating terms of what is metaphysically estranged from agency at a time. It is thereby shown is central to any ex? that, insofar as agency of what harm there could ever be in planation death, there is no harm in being dead. is achieved

even if (as the Lucretian Consequently, state of being dead cannot harm argues) the one, this does not entail that no aspect of one's more death can harm one. Let us reflect of dying. Con in detail upon the process

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216 / AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

just as an agent, in principle a person can sometimes control or evade details of her sidered dying?details the method. beyond such as the time, the place, It is to anything those details?such us to leave open the that one's dying can harm one (by possibility one qua agent) even if one's being harming dead cannot.22 Qua agent, it can be rational derstand this issue allows to fear losing that agency?to to fear ceasing be what, most fundamentally in that mode, one is.23Nevertheless, this does not entail that it is rational, even qua agent, to fear having to lost the agency or to fear having ceased be an agent. To have lost the agency is to lost the categorial basis?namely, one's as an status which agent?upon metaphysical itwas 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 death's possible harm ever arises. 12. Lucretius denied only that being dead?not that dying?could harm one. This paper has to supplement found a way his reasoning. The supplementation includes (1) a refine? ment of what there Lucretius is no was noticing, which metaphysical between asymmetry prenatal nonexistence and posthumous nonexistence, along with (2) was of what part Nagel seeking to explicate, which is that there is a relevant metaphysical between asymmetry prenatal nonexistence and posthumous nonexistence. an Is there insuperable tension coherent? in endorsing is that relevant of have

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 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 this would time, she is no longer controlling and (equally) nothing is still being by her.20 anything, controlled

subsequently being fails to extend. Hence,

lying temporally as, notably, her her agency dead?that she cannot

Thus, in a sense, a person's being dead car? more ries nothing of her?and, specifically, nothing being your Once of her agency?into dead is beyond my or within it.My reach qua agent; you qua agent. there is no more
so, even if

being dead is beyond a given person is dead,

This

that-person-agency.

remains

the dying

she is dead, the person qua we has been left behind. Correlatively, agent even of dead instance being might regard any per se as metaphysically other instance of being of a piece with any dead per se. No one's

sionally of suicide).21 Once

is itself an act of agency (as occa? in some cases it is, most notoriously

state of being dead will be at all different from anyone else's. (In this sense and respect, we into each other.) merge metaphysically And between that signifies ametaphysical dying and being dead. difference Particular

both (1) and (2)? Can this combination be

This paper has sought to bypass that tension, by qualifying each of (1) and (2), to lines. The asymmetry along the following which attention should be paid is not what Nagel claimed the essentiality to describe?which concerned or accidentality to a person as such of her prenatal nonexistence and of nonexistence. is in how those the Rather, two states One of

distinc? of dying are personally tive; cases of being dead are not. (Distinct instances of dying are distinct due to their instances details?of stances time, place, method.) of dying at least can express or cur? cases of being whereas tail?affect?agency, dead cannot. Accordingly, granting agency an explanatory centrality in our attempt to un And in?

her posthumous vital asymmetry are related

to the person

qua agent.

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LUCRETIANDEATH:ASYMMETRIESAND AGENCY / 217

to the agent; way birth?gives as but this gaining of agency such cannot be them?via to the agent as such. The agent?via way to the other of those two dying?gives states; and this losing of agency be a harm to the agent as such. Conversely, insofar as we are not agents (either prenatally or posthumously) there is indeed a Lucretian as such can a harm and by our agency insofar as we are thereby ending. Otherwise, our being not agents, death?specifically, dead?cannot ment derived: harm us. A for Lucretius's argu? strengthened core conclusion is thus is to say, by our dying

Being dead cannot harm one (even if dying can). This paper's agency analysis reveals what kind of harm there can be?and kind of harm there cannot be?in one's ability is the ending of one's actions?to do things.24 South Wales

one he described himself. And symmetry?the 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

what

death. The harm to perform University

of New

NOTES
The editor and two referees made many very helpful comments 1. It is to be found in De lenistic Philosophers, on earlier versions of this paper.

rerum natura. See the selections inA. A. Long and D. N. Sedley, The Hel? 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. neither of these was or will be might wish to say, extending Lucretius's reasoning?if were or not bad for you when you will not, be, alive, then neither of them is bad for you while you are 3. And?we
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 thanmerely 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 labor" (p. 8).

what Nagel

calls "the brief margin see Naming

permitted by premature (Cambridge, Mass.:

7. For Kripke's argument concerning this example, Harvard University Press, 1980), pp. 112-113.

and Necessity

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, amethod such as in-vitro fertilization will allow the time of conception to be delayed greatly.

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218/

AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

in formulating

9. This paper will therefore continue to follow Lucretius (and, for that matter, Nagel) the Lucretian challenge in terms of birth rather than those of conception. 10. Indeed, for an argument 356-358. 11. Others to have noticed against its being true, see Stephen Hetherington, and John Martin

"Deathly Harm," pp. "Why is Death

Bad?" Philosophical

this include Anthony Brueckner Studies, vol. 50 (1986), pp. 213-223.

Fischer,

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.). inmany instances the 13. Perhaps at first it is not very much agency. Then again (and unfortunately), 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 not will argument require that question to be answered. 14. The "or in recognition of our being" covers the possibility
not a manifestation of agency as such.

that our fear is involuntary?and

therefore

15.We

can even fear an aspect of our agency

itself, as it impels us towards the end of our agency.

of those past events might do so, as Walter Glannon would observe: "Temporal at pp. and Death," American Philosophical Life, Quarterly, vol. 31 (1994), pp. 235-244, Asymmetry, 239-241. But in that case it is these new events that are now causally active, not the previous ones. 16. Consequences 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 reflects that experience. A newly born child will generally possess if that somehow (even unwittingly) 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
towards past, and towards future, suffering, see Derek Parfit's Reasons

in people's
and Persons

respective attitudes
(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 isDeath Bad?" For criticism of their respective
arguments, see Glannon, "Temporal Asymmetry, Life, and Death," at pp. 237-238.

fsbeing no more. This is generally called theproblem of the subject?the a continuing subject both to have been alive and, subsequently, to be conceptual difficulty of locating as to harmed by being dead. If this paper is right, Epicurus's challenge might usefully be renamed?so be referred to instead as the problem of the agent. 19. Epicurus talked of theperson her dying?result 20. Her agency, while ever it exists, can set inmotion various actions which will?after 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 losing all agency?is, implausible idea that a person who is placed into an irreversible coma?thereby 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 neither buried nor cremated, instead remaining in a bed, connected to the same sort of equip? dying?is Should we regard ment as is keeping the coma victim both alive and visibly whole (non-decayed).

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LUCRETIANDEATH:ASYMMETRIES AND AGENCY / 219

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. 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, 22. It ismanifest 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

or a desire to attitudes to death than is chocolate-cake-adoration explanatorily continue writing philosophy. A person will rationally fear dying, because itwill 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, one. The agency analysis implies that, if reveals to us that dying can?while being dead cannot?harm more as reveals then such also does so.Whenever it is talking generally this, agency anything specific 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 or determinable.) category fundamental 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).

to people's

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