Introduction: The Irreversible Interruption of the Life Process

Part 1_DYING

Chapter 1: Being Alive
Life and Living Beings | Humanity, Personhood, and Identity

Chapter 2: Dying
Aging, Termination, Cessation of Life, and the Cessation of Existence | The Standard of Death

Chapter 3: Debates on Death
Symmetry Argument | The Problem of Perspective | The Path to Peace

Chapter 4: Mortal Harm
The Calculative Value of Life | Harmful Thesis

Chapter 5: When is death harmful?
Epicurus' Challenge | Five Times When Death Becomes Bad

Part 2_KILLING

Chapter 6: Killing
Harmful Explanation | Subject Value Explanation | Agreement Explanation | Combination Explanation

Chapter 7: Dying by Oneself and Dying by the Hands of Another
Suicide and Euthanasia | Rationally Chosen Death | Morally Chosen Death | Preventing or Assisting

Chapter 8: The Dilemma of Fetal Murder
Arguments Against Abortion | Arguments for Abortion | The Only Death Difficult to Solve Philosophically

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How do we come into existence and when do we disappear?
Why are we afraid of the 'disappeared self'?
Rational and moral choices about life and death

A social atmosphere has been created in which we can talk about death with greater candor than before.
Many people now express their opinions on euthanasia and assisted death (physician-assisted suicide), which were previously difficult to talk about.
The abortion law has become virtually meaningless.
Perhaps because the concept has become somewhat clearer, we no longer blindly treat death as a taboo.
Still, hearing the word 'death' doesn't give me a very good feeling.
Still, most of us conjure up feelings of anxiety, fear, and loss.
It goes without saying that we all die someday.
We are mortal beings who move towards death from the moment we are born.
This fact sometimes casts a dark shadow over our lives.
But paradoxically, the truth that all living beings are mortal fuels our will to live better.
Death takes away the good things from us, but it also takes away the bad things.
So death can be either bad or good for us.
In other words, for death to be bad, we must live better lives.
The more I philosophize about death, the more I find myself looking back on life.

Epicurus's provocation: Death is nothing.

The philosophical debate about death was sparked by this passage from Epicurus, the ancient Greek philosopher known to us as 'hedonist', in his Letter to Menoeceus (Epistol? Pros Menoikea).
“Death is actually nothing to us.
As long as we ourselves exist, death has nothing to do with us.
When death comes for us, we are already gone.
So, whether we are alive or dead, death has nothing to do with us.
“Because when we are alive there is no death, and when we are dead there is no us.”

Epicurus confronted our fear of death head-on with this simple yet powerful argument.
His argument against the 'harm thesis' that death is harmful to us was this:
For something to harm us, the 'subject' of the harm, the 'content' of the harm, and the 'time' when the harm occurs must be clear.
According to him, there are only two times when death can be said to be harmful: while we are alive and after we die.
However, since dead people no longer exist, it is difficult to address these three points.
Once you die, there is no subject called 'I' who will be harmed, so death cannot be said to be bad. Conversely, while you are alive, there is clearly a subject who will be harmed, but since you have not yet died, there is no way to explain what harm death does to that subject.
This is why Epicurus argued that death is not a bad thing at all.

At first glance, Epicurus' argument seems perfect and even comforting.
That is understandable, as the ultimate goal of Epicurean philosophy was to help us find ataraxia, or peace of mind.
This is also why the argument was made that death is not harmful to us.
The fear of death is Ataraxia's biggest obstacle, so he would have wanted to remove it.
But no matter how hard I try, thinking about death makes me uncomfortable.
This is our intuition.
In fact, what we fear is not 'death' but 'loss of life', but Epicurus cleverly avoided that point.

―Asymmetry of Time: Why is it okay for me to be ‘nonexistent’, but I don’t like the ‘me that will not exist’?

Lucretius, a Roman philosopher who followed Epicurus, went a step further and asked an interesting question.
This is the so-called 'symmetry argument'.
He told us to think about the 'non-existent me' before we were born.
No one would feel anxiety or pain over the non-existence of that past.
So, the logic was that there was no reason to fear the non-existence of the 'non-existent self' after death, which was the opposite of it.
But this 'symmetry argument' immediately ran into strong objections.
This is none other than the 'asymmetry argument' that non-existence before birth and non-existence after death are different.
What this means is that not being born and not existing are essentially different from not existing after death.
Our lives and interests are fundamentally 'future' oriented.
Our plans, our goals, our hopes, our loves all stretch toward the time to come.


We want life to continue into the future rather than extending it into the past and being born earlier.
Moreover, death, crucially, takes away the 'good life' we could have enjoyed had we lived longer, but it never took anything away from our non-existence before birth.
Birth is only the 'beginning' of good things to come, but death is the 'end' of good things we have enjoyed so far and will enjoy in the future.
Nevertheless, the ancient philosophical view that death does not harm us at all sharply reveals not only our attitude toward death, but also the fundamental psychology of human existence, which experiences time and lives with an orientation toward the future.
The more you fear death, the more you perceive death negatively, the more you think about life.
Is our fear of death really just an irrational illusion?

The Harm of Loss and Deprivation: Being 'Dead' Isn't Bad

Professor Steven Rufer explains why Epicurus' provocative arguments and sophisticated logic fail to fully convince us.
Because our fundamental fear of death is not an irrational emotion, but a rational and natural response that stems from our attachment to life.
The more you have to lose, the greater the pain of loss.
The more valuable life is, the more fearful death is.
The real reason death is bad for us is not because being dead is painful.
It is bad because it 'deprives' us of the good things we would have enjoyed if we were alive.
The real harm that death inflicts is that we are forever deprived of the opportunity to enjoy all the valuable things we would have experienced if we had not died: love, friendship, accomplishments, happiness, beautiful scenery, delicious food.
Of course, death doesn't only take away good things.
As the author points out, death takes away both good and bad things.
For someone suffering from irreversible pain, death may actually be a good thing by taking away that pain.

There is a saying that “a good life leaves a bad death.”
The more valuable and rich life is, the more we lose in death.
If you have lived a miserable life, you have little to lose by dying, but if you have lived a full life, death is that much more harmful.
As Professor Ruper puts it, “my future self is like a child that I raise and care for.”
We strive to live better in the present, hoping that the child will become a happy and proud person.
But death destroys the very existence of that ‘future self.’
If the child I've been caring for disappears, all the planning and care I've put in up to this point will become meaningless.
This perspective completely changes our thinking about death.
Because it shifts the issue of death from the mystery of ‘after death’ to the value of ‘while alive.’
This leads to the profound insight that the weight of death is determined by how we cultivate our lives.
So here we come to another question.
If our lives were no longer filled with anything good and were filled only with terrible suffering, what would death mean to us then?

The Two Faces of Death: Death is a Mirror of Life

Death takes away from us both the good life and the bad life.
Like the two sides of a coin, death has two faces.
The other side of the coin is that when life itself becomes unbearable suffering, we must also realize that death can actually be a salvation from harm.
Through this, we learn that the value of life is never absolute.
Life can be quite awful sometimes.
Think of situations like the grief of losing all your loved ones, a disease that leaves you with nothing but endless pain, or dementia that causes you to lose your memory.
In the sense that it frees us from this suffering, death may actually be a 'good thing' for us.

This discussion leads us to the very difficult and sensitive philosophical question of suicide and euthanasia.
If continuing to live is absolutely against our interests—if, in other words, living is nothing but a continuation of suffering—wouldn't a painless death be a rational and moral choice? Professor Rufer also addresses these issues head-on, as they arise at the very edge of life.
So, all the discussions in this book lead us to ask ourselves the most fundamental questions.
“What determines the value of life?”
“What is a life worth living?”
The effort to find the answer to this question will be a process of realizing the true meaning of our lives reflected in the mirror of death.
We do not philosophize about death in order to become immersed in death itself.

―The Weight of Death: The better life is, the heavier death becomes.

The weight of death is proportional to the value of life.
At the end of a trivial life, a light death awaits us, and at the summit of a valuable life, a heavy death awaits us.
This book covers everything about life and death, beginning with Epicurus' provocative claim that death is nothing.
What we have covered here is only a very small part.
It delves deeply into the meaning of 'being alive', 'dying', 'killing', and even 'dying oneself' and 'dying at the hands of others'.
Philosophy often appears at first glance to be a relentless analysis of a question, but a closer look reveals that it is not far removed from our lives.
Although this book, "Philosophy of Death," seems to delve into death solely through the language of reason, it contains a heartwarming love for humanity at its core.
We are mortal beings who will inevitably die someday, so the more we understand death, the more courage we gain to face life.

Ultimately, what we encounter at the end of this philosophical journey is not ‘death’ but ‘life’.
It is an attempt to find answers to the meaning and value of how to fill our limited, one-time life.
Because there is a clear end called death, every moment, every relationship, every experience of life given to us becomes more precious and meaningful.
This is the greatest paradox that death presents to us.
If death is bad because it deprives us of the good things we would have enjoyed while alive, why not, instead of simply fearing such a death, make our lives better by completely establishing death as something worse and more burdensome?