Placeholder Image

字幕表 動画を再生する

  • Professor Shelly Kagan: Last time we ended with the

  • following puzzle or question. If we say that to be a person

  • is to be a P-functioning body, it seems then as though we

  • have to conclude that when you're not P-functioning,

  • you're dead. That is, you're dead as a

  • person. Previously, we distinguished

  • between the death of my body and my death as a person;

  • let's focus on my death as a person.

  • If I'm not P-functioning,

  • do we have to then say I'm dead?

  • Well, that may seem to be the most natural way to define

  • death, but it's not an acceptable approach.

  • Because it would follow then, that when I'm asleep,

  • I'm dead. Well, not during those times,

  • perhaps, when I'm dreaming while I'm asleep.

  • But think of the various periods during the night in

  • which you are in a deep, deep dreamless sleep.

  • You're not thinking. You're not planning.

  • You're not communicating. Let's just suppose,

  • as seems likely, that none of the

  • P-functioning is occurring, at some point during

  • sleep. Should we say then that you're

  • dead? Well, that's clearly not the

  • right thing to say. So we need to revise our

  • account of what it is on the physicalist picture to say that

  • you're dead. What is it to be dead?

  • It can't just be a matter of not P-functioning.

  • Well, one possibility would be to say, the question is not

  • whether you are P-functioning.

  • It's okay if you're not P-functioning,

  • as long as your not P-functioning is

  • temporary. If you will P-function

  • again, if you have been P-functioning in the past

  • and you will be P-functioning again in

  • the future, P-functioning for person

  • functioning, you will be P-functioning again in

  • the future, then you're not dead.

  • Well, that's at least an improvement, because then we

  • say, look, while you're asleep, even though there's no

  • P-functioning going on, the lack of

  • P-functioning is temporary,

  • so you're still alive. But I think that won't quite do

  • either. Let's suppose that come

  • Judgment Day, God will resurrect the dead.

  • And let's just suppose the correct theory of personal

  • identity is such as to put aside any worries we might have along

  • with van Inwagen, that we discussed previously,

  • as to whether or not on resurrection day that would

  • really be you or not. Suppose it would be you.

  • So God will resurrect the dead. Judgment Day comes.

  • The dead are resurrected. Well, now they're

  • P-functioning. So it turns out that during

  • that period in which they were dead, they were only temporarily

  • not P-functioning. But if death means permanent

  • cessation of P-functioning,

  • then it turns out the dead weren't really dead after all.

  • They were only temporarily not P-functioning,

  • just like we are temporarily not P-functioning when

  • we're asleep. Well, that doesn't seem right

  • either. On Judgment Day,

  • God resurrects the dead. It's not that He simply wakes

  • up those in a deep, deep sleep.

  • So the proposal that death is a matter of permanent cessation of

  • P-functioning versus temporary,

  • that doesn't seem like it's going to do the trick.

  • But what else do we have up our sleeves?

  • Here's a different proposal that I think is probably closer

  • to the right account. We might say,

  • look, while you're asleep, it's true that you're not

  • P-functioning. For example,

  • you're not doing your multiplication tables.

  • But although you are not engaged in P-functioning,

  • it does seem true to say that you still can P-function.

  • You still could do your multiplication tables.

  • Although it's not true that you are speaking French--let's

  • suppose that you know how to speak French--it's still true of

  • you while you're asleep that you can or could speak French.

  • How do we know this? Well, all we have to do is just

  • wake you up. We wake you up and we say,

  • "Hey John, what's three times three?"

  • And after you stop swearing at us, you say, "Well,

  • it's nine." Or we say, "Linda,

  • hey, conjugate such and such a verb in French."

  • And you can conjugate it. Even though you were not

  • engaged in P-functioning while you were asleep,

  • it's still true that while you were asleep, you had the ability

  • to engage in P-functioning.

  • Abilities aren't always actualized.

  • Your P-functioning is actualized now,

  • because you're engaged in thought,

  • but you don't lose the ability to think during those moments

  • when you're not thinking. Suppose we say then that to be

  • alive as a person is to be able to engage in

  • P-functioning. And to be dead then,

  • is to be unable to engage in P-functioning.

  • Why are you unable? Well, presumably because

  • whatever cognitive structures it takes in your brain to

  • underwrite the ability to P-function,

  • those cognitive structures have been broken, so they no longer

  • work. It's--When you're dead,

  • your brain is broken. It's not just that you're not

  • engaged in P-functioning, you're no longer able to

  • engage in P-functioning. That, at least,

  • seems to handle the case of sleep properly.

  • Although you're not engaged in P-functioning,

  • you're able to, so you're still alive.

  • Take the dead who will be resurrected on Judgment Day.

  • Although they will be engaged in P-functioning later

  • on, it's not true right now that they can engage in

  • P-functioning. Their bodies and brains are

  • broken until God fixes them. So they're dead.

  • All right, that seems to give the right answer and,

  • in fact, it gives us some guidance how to think about some

  • other puzzling cases. Take somebody who is in a coma,

  • not engaged in P-functioning.

  • Their body, let's stipulate, is still alive.

  • Their heart's still beating, the lungs are still breathing

  • and so forth. But we wonder,

  • is the person still alive? Does the person still exist?

  • Well, they're not engaged in P-functioning.

  • That's pretty clear. We want to know,

  • can they engage in P-functioning?

  • Now, at this point we'd want to know more about the underlying

  • mechanics about what's gone on in the case of the coma.

  • If the following is the right description, then we perhaps

  • should say they're still alive. Look, when somebody's asleep,

  • we need to do something to, in effect, wake them up,

  • something to turn the functioning back on.

  • The cognitive structures are still there, but the on-off

  • switch is switched to off. Perhaps that's what it's like

  • when somebody's in a coma, or perhaps at least certain

  • types of comas. Of course, to turn the on-off

  • switch on is harder when somebody's in a coma.

  • It's a bit more--to continue with the metaphor of the on-of

  • switch--as though not only is the switch turned to off,

  • there's a lock on the switch. And so we can't turn the switch

  • on in the normal way. Pushing the person in the coma

  • and saying, "Wake up, Jimmy" doesn't do the trick.

  • But for all that, although the on-off switch may

  • be stuck in off, if the underlying cognitive

  • structures of the brain are such as to still make it true that,

  • flip the on switch back to on and the person can still engage

  • in cognitive P-functioning,

  • maybe the right thing to say is the person's still alive.

  • Coma case two. I'm not sure whether this

  • really should be called a coma. I don't know the biological and

  • medical details. But imagine that what's gone on

  • is there's been decay of the brain structures that underwrite

  • the cognitive functioning. So now it's not just that the

  • on-off switch is stuck in off, the brain's no longer capable

  • of engaging in these higher order P-functions.

  • This might be a persistent vegetative state with no

  • possibility of turning it on, even in principle.

  • Of such a person we might say, they're no longer capable of

  • P-functioning. And then perhaps the right

  • thing to say is the person no longer exists,

  • so they no longer exist as a person, even if the body is

  • still alive. So far, so good.

  • Here's a harder case to think about.

  • Suppose we put somebody in a state of suspended animation,

  • cool their body down so that the various metabolic processes

  • come to an end. They stop.

  • As I'm sure you know, we're able, with various lower

  • organisms, to put them in a state of suspended animation and

  • then, the amazing thing is,

  • if you heat them back up again properly, they start functioning

  • again. Now, we can't do that yet with

  • humans. But it doesn't jump out at us,

  • at least, that that should be an impossibility.

  • So suppose we eventually learn how to do this with humans.

  • And now, suppose we take Larry and put him in a state of

  • suspended animation. Is he dead?

  • Well, most of us don't feel comfortable saying that he's

  • dead. Just like we don't feel

  • comfortable saying that the--I suppose we could do this with a

  • fruit fly. I don't know whether we can or

  • can't. Suppose we can.

  • Suppose we do it with a fruit fly.

  • We don't feel comfortable saying the fruit fly's dead.

  • Rather, it's in a state of suspended animation.

  • Well, similarly then, perhaps we wouldn't want to say

  • that Larry is dead. And the "brokenness" account of

  • death allows us to say Larry's not dead.

  • The structures in the brain which would underwrite the

  • ability to engage in P-functioning,

  • they're not destroyed by suspended animation.

  • So perhaps in the relevant sense, the person can still

  • engage in P-functioning, so they're not dead.

  • Good enough. On the other hand,

  • it doesn't seem so plausible, it doesn't seem intuitively

  • right, to say that they're alive.

  • Is Larry alive when he's in a state of suspended animation?

  • No. It seems like he's not alive

  • either. Now that's a bit puzzling,

  • right? It's as though we

  • need--Normally, we think that look,

  • either you're alive or you're dead.

  • The two possibilities exhaust the possibilities.

  • But thinking about suspended animation suggests that we may

  • actually need a third category, suspended--neither alive nor

  • dead. Well, all right,

  • if we do introduce a third possibility--I'm not sure this

  • is the right thing. It's not clear what's the right

  • or best thing to say about suspended animation.

  • But at least that doesn't seem like an unattractive

  • possibility. If there are three

  • possibilities--dead, alive, or suspended--to be

  • dead, we could still say you've got to be broken,

  • incapable of P-functioning.

  • Suspended isn't broken. It's just suspended.

  • But then what do you need to be alive?

  • In addition to not being broken, what do you need to be

  • alive? Well, the initially tempting

  • thing to say is not only aren't you broken, but you're actually

  • engaged in P-functioning. But if we say that,

  • then we're back to saying that somebody who's asleep isn't

  • really alive. That doesn't seem right either.

  • So we need some account to distinguish between suspended

  • animation and out and out being alive.

  • And I'm not quite sure how to draw that line.

  • So I'll leave that to you as a puzzle to work on on your own.

  • That puzzle aside, it seems to me that once we

  • become physicalists, there's nothing especially deep

  • or mysterious about death. The body is able to function in

  • a variety of ways. When some of those lower

  • biological functions are occurring, the body's alive.

  • When all goes well, the body is also capable of

  • engaging in higher order personal P-functioning.

  • And then you've got a person. The body begins to break,

  • you get the loss of P-functioning.

  • At that point, you no longer exist as a

  • person. When the body breaks some more,

  • you get the loss of biological or B-functioning,

  • and then the body dies. There's nothing especially

  • mysterious about death, although there may be a lot of

  • details to work out from a scientific point of view.

  • What are the particular processes that underwrite

  • biological functioning? What are the particular

  • processes that underwrite personality or person

  • functioning? Still, there are a couple of

  • claims about death that get made frequently enough,

  • about death being mysterious in one way or another,

  • that I want--or special or unique--that I want to focus on.

  • In effect, from the physicalist point of view,

  • although death is unique because it comes at the end of

  • this lifetime of various sorts of functions,

  • there's nothing especially puzzling, nothing especially

  • mysterious, nothing especially unusual or hard to grasp about

  • it. But there are a handful of

  • claims that people make about death suggesting that they

  • think, and they think we all think,

  • that death is mysterious or unique or hard to comprehend.

  • I want to examine a couple of these.

  • One of them I'll get to later; if not later today,

  • then next lecture. Sometimes people say that we

  • die alone or everybody dies alone.

  • And this is something--This is supposed to express some deep

  • insight into the nature and uniqueness of death.

  • So although we're able to eat meals together,

  • we're able to go on vacations together and take classes

  • together, death is something we all have

  • to do by ourselves. That's the claim.

  • We all die alone. That's a claim I'll come back

  • to. What I want to look at first is

  • the suggestion that somehow, at some level,

  • nobody really believes they're going to die at all.

  • Now, having distinguished between what we've called the

  • death of the body and the death of the person,

  • the question whether or not you're going to die needs to be

  • distinguished. The question whether or not you

  • believe you're going to die needs to be distinguished.

  • If somebody says, "You know, nobody really

  • believes they're going to die," they could mean one of two

  • things. They could mean nobody really

  • believes they're going to cease to exist as a person,

  • first possibility. Second possible claim,

  • nobody really believes they're going to undergo the death of

  • their bodies. Let's take these in turn.

  • Is there any good reason to believe that we don't believe

  • that we're going to cease to exist as a person?

  • Well, the most common argument for this claim I think takes the

  • following form. People sometimes say,

  • since it's impossible to picture being dead,

  • it's impossible to picture being dead--,

  • That is to say, it's impossible to picture your

  • own being dead. Each one of us has to think

  • about this from the first person perspective or something like

  • that. Think about your dying,

  • your being dead--Since that's impossible to picture,

  • that's impossible to imagine, nobody believes in the

  • possibility that they're going to die,

  • that they're going to cease to exist.

  • The idea seems to be that you can't believe in possibilities

  • that you can't picture or imagine.

  • Now, that hypothesis, that thesis,

  • that assumption, could be challenged.

  • I think probably we shouldn't believe the theory of belief

  • which says that in order to believe in something,

  • you've got to be able to picture it or believe it.

  • But let's grant that assumption for the sake of argument.

  • Let's suppose that in order to believe in something,

  • you've got to be able to picture it.

  • What then? How do we get from there to the

  • conclusion that I can't believe that I'm going to die,

  • I'm going to cease to exist as a person?

  • Well, the thought, of course, is I can't picture

  • or imagine my death. I can't picture or imagine my

  • being dead. It's important here to draw

  • some distinctions. I can certainly picture being

  • ill. There I am on my deathbed dying

  • of cancer, growing weaker and weaker.

  • I can perhaps even picture the moment of my death.

  • I've said goodbye to my family and friends.

  • I've the--Everything's growing greyer and dimmer.

  • It's growing harder and harder to concentrate.

  • And then, well, and then there is no "and

  • more." The claim, however,

  • is not that I can't picture being ill or dying.

  • The claim's got to be, I can't picture being

  • dead. Well, try it.

  • Try to picture being dead. What's it like to be dead?

  • Sometimes people claim it's a mystery.

  • We don't know what it's like to be dead, because every time we

  • try to imagine it, we fail.

  • We don't do a very good job. I'm inclined to think that that

  • way of thinking about the question is really confused.

  • You set yourself the goal of trying to put yourself in the

  • situation imaginatively of what it's like to be dead.

  • So I start by trying to strip off the parts of my conscious

  • life that I know I won't have when I'm dead.

  • I won't hear anything. I won't see anything.

  • I won't think anything. And you try to imagine what

  • it's like to not think or feel or hear or see.

  • And you don't do a very good job of it.

  • So you throw your hands up and you say, "Oh,

  • I guess I don't know what it's like."

  • So it must be a mystery. It's not a mystery at all.

  • Suppose I ask, "What's it like to be this cell

  • phone?" The answer is,

  • "It's not like anything," where that doesn't mean there's

  • something that it's like to be a cell phone,

  • but different from being anything else.

  • So it's not like anything else; it's a special way of

  • feeling or experiencing. No.

  • Cell phones don't have any experience at all.

  • There is nothing that it's like on the inside to be a

  • cell phone. Imagine that I try to ask

  • myself, "What's it like to be my ball point pen?"

  • And I try to imagine, well, first,

  • imagine being really, really stiff,

  • because you're not flexible when you're a ball point pen.

  • You can't move. And imagine being really,

  • really bored, because you don't have any

  • thoughts or interests. No.

  • That's completely the wrong way to go about thinking what it's

  • like to be a ball point pen. There's nothing that

  • it's like to be a ball point pen.

  • There's nothing to describe, nothing to imagine.

  • No mystery about what it's like to be a ball point pen.

  • No mystery about what it's like to be a cell phone.

  • Well, similarly then, I put it to you,

  • there's no mystery about what it's like to be dead.

  • It isn't like anything. What I don't mean,

  • "Oh, it's like something, but different from everything

  • else." I mean, there is nothing there

  • to describe. When you're dead,

  • there's nothing happening on the inside to be imagined.

  • Well, should we conclude therefore, given that we've got

  • the premise, "If you can't picture it or imagine it,

  • then you can't believe in it," since I've just said,

  • look, you can't imagine being dead,

  • but that's not due to any failure of imagination,

  • that's because there's nothing there to imagine or picture.

  • Still, granted the premise, if you can't picture it or

  • imagine it, you can't believe in it--Should we conclude,

  • therefore, that you can't believe you're going to be dead?

  • No. We shouldn't conclude that.

  • After all, not only is it true that you can't picture from the

  • inside what it's like to be dead,

  • you can't picture from the inside what it's like to be in

  • dreamless sleep. There is nothing that it's like

  • to be in dreamless sleep. When you're in dreamless sleep,

  • you're not imagining or experiencing anything.

  • Similarly, it's not possible to picture or imagine what it's

  • like to have fainted and be completely unconscious with

  • nothing happening cognitively.

  • There's nothing to picture or imagine.

  • Well, should we conclude, therefore, so nobody really

  • believes that they're ever in dreamless sleep?

  • Well, that would be silly. Of course you believe that at

  • times you're in dreamless sleep. Should we say of somebody who's

  • fainted or knows that they're subject to fainting spells,

  • they never actually believe that they pass out?

  • That would be silly. Of course, they believe they

  • pass out. From the mere fact that they

  • can't picture it from the inside, it doesn't follow that

  • nobody believes they're ever in dreamless sleep.

  • From the mere fact that they can't picture from the inside

  • what it's like to have fainted and not yet woken up,

  • it doesn't mean that nobody believes that they ever faint.

  • From the mere fact that you can't picture from the inside

  • what it's like to be dead, it doesn't follow that nobody

  • believes they're going to die. But didn't I start off by

  • saying I was going to grant the person who is making this

  • argument that in order to believe something,

  • you've got to be able to picture it?

  • And haven't I just said, "Look, you can't picture being

  • dead"? So aren't I taking it back?

  • Since I say you can believe you're going to die,

  • yet you can't picture it from the inside.

  • Haven't I taken back the assumption that in order to

  • believe it, you've got to be able to picture it?

  • Not quite. Although I am skeptical about

  • that claim, I am going to continue giving it to the person

  • who makes this argument, because I'm not so prepared to

  • admit that you can't picture being dead.

  • You can picture being dead, all right.

  • You just can't picture it from the inside.

  • You can picture it from the outside.

  • I can picture being in dreamless sleep quite easily.

  • I'm doing it right now. I've got a little mental image

  • of my body lying in bed asleep, dreamlessly.

  • I can picture fainting, or having fainted,

  • quite easily. Picture my body lying on the

  • ground unconscious. I can picture my being dead

  • quite easily. It's a little mental picture of

  • my body in a coffin. No functioning occurring in my

  • body. So even if it were true that

  • belief requires picturing, and even if were true that you

  • can't picture being dead from the inside,

  • it wouldn't follow that you can't believe you're going to

  • die. All you have to do is picture

  • it from the outside. We're done.

  • So I conclude, of course you can and do

  • believe you're going to die. But at this point,

  • the person making the argument has a possible response.

  • And it's a quite common response.

  • He says, "Look, I try to picture the

  • world--admittedly from the outside--I try to picture the

  • world in which I don't exist, I'm no longer conscious.

  • I'm no longer a person, no longer experiencing

  • anything. I try to picture that world.

  • I picture, for example, seeing my funeral.

  • And yet, when I try to do that, I'm observing it.

  • I'm watching the funeral. I'm seeing the funeral.

  • Consequently, I'm thinking. So I haven't really imagined

  • the world in which I no longer exist, a world in which I'm

  • dead, a world in which I'm incapable

  • of thought and observation. I've smuggled myself back in as

  • the observer of the funeral." Every time I try to picture

  • myself being dead, I smuggle myself back in,

  • conscious and existing as a person, hence,

  • not dead as a person. Maybe my body--I'm imagining my

  • body dead, but I'm not imagining myself, the person,

  • dead. From which it follows,

  • the argument goes, that I don't really believe

  • I'll ever be dead. Because when I try to imagine a

  • world in which I'm dead, I smuggle myself back in.

  • This argument shows up in various places.

  • Let me mention, let me quote one case of it,

  • Freud. Freud says, this is,

  • I'm quoting from one of the Walter Kaufman essays that

  • you'll be reading, called "Death."

  • He quotes Freud. Freud says,

  • After all, one's own death is beyond

  • imagining, and whenever we try to imagine it we can see that we

  • really survive as spectators. Thus, the dictum could be dared

  • in the psychoanalytic school: at bottom, nobody believes in

  • his own death. Or, and this is the same:

  • in his unconscious, every one of us is convinced of

  • his immortality. All right, there's Freud.

  • Basically, just running the argument I've just sketched for

  • you. When you try to imagine your

  • being dead, you smuggle yourself back in as a spectator.

  • And so, Freud concludes, at some level none of us really

  • believes we're going to die. I want to say,

  • I think that argument's a horrible argument.

  • How many of you believe that there are meetings that take

  • place without you? Suppose you're a member of some

  • club and there's a meeting this afternoon and you won't be

  • there, because you've got to be someplace else.

  • So you ask yourself, "Do I believe that meeting's

  • going to take place without me?" At first glance,

  • it looks like you do, but here's the Freudian

  • argument that shows you don't really.

  • Try to imagine, try to picture that meeting

  • without you. Well, when you do picture it,

  • there's that room in your mind's eye.

  • You've got a little picture of people sitting around the table

  • perhaps, discussing the business of your club.

  • Uh-oh, I've smuggled myself in as a spectator.

  • If, like you--, I think most of us picture

  • these things up from a perspective in a corner of the

  • room, up on the wall,

  • looking down, kind of a fly's perspective.

  • All right, I've smuggled myself in as a spectator.

  • I'm actually in the room after all.

  • So I haven't really pictured the meeting taking place without

  • me. So I guess I don't really

  • believe the meeting's going to take place without me.

  • If Freud's argument for death, that is to say,

  • none of us believe we're going to die,

  • was any good, the argument that none of us

  • believe meetings ever take place without us would have to work as

  • well. But that's silly.

  • It's clear that we all do believe in the possibility,

  • indeed, more than a mere possibility, the actuality of

  • meetings that occur without us. Even though when I imagine that

  • meeting, I'm in some sense, smuggling myself in as an

  • observer. From which I think it follows

  • that the mere fact that I've smuggled myself in as an

  • observer doesn't mean that I don't really believe in the

  • possibility that I'm observing in my mind's eye.

  • I can believe in the existence of a meeting that takes place,

  • even though I smuggle myself in as an observer when I picture

  • that meeting. I can believe in the

  • possibility of a world without me, even though I smuggle myself

  • in as an observer when I picture that world without me.

  • Freud's mistake, and it's--although I'm picking

  • on Freud, it's not only Freud that runs this sort of argument.

  • One comes across it periodically.

  • Within the last year, a member of our law school here

  • put forward this very argument and said he thought it was a

  • good one. So people think the argument's

  • a good one. It strikes me as it's got to be

  • a bad one. The confusion,

  • the mistake I think people are making when they make this

  • argument, the mistake I think they're making is this.

  • It's one thing to ask yourself, what's the content of the

  • picture? It's another thing to ask,

  • when you look at the picture, are you existing?

  • Are you looking at the picture from a certain point of view?

  • Suppose I hold up a photograph of a beach with nobody on it.

  • All right, am I in that beach, as pictured in that photograph?

  • Of course not. But as I look at it,

  • whether in reality or in my mind's eye, I'm looking at it

  • from a perspective. As I think about it,

  • I'm viewing the beach from a point of view which may well be

  • on the beach, if somebody draws a painting of

  • a beach. But for all that,

  • that doesn't mean that within the picture of the beach,

  • I'm in the beach. Looking at a picture doesn't

  • mean you're in the picture.

  • Viewing the meeting from a point of view,

  • doesn't mean you're in the meeting.

  • Viewing the world without you from a point of view,

  • doesn't mean you're in the world.

  • So although of course it's true, when I imagine these

  • various possibilities without me, I'm thinking about them.

  • I'm observing them. And I'm observing them from a

  • particular perspective, from a particular standpoint.

  • For all that, I'm not in the picture

  • that I'm thinking about. So I think the Freudian

  • argument just fails. Now, maybe there's some other

  • reason to believe the claim that nobody believes they will cease

  • to exist. But if there is another

  • argument for that claim, I'm eager to hear it,

  • because this argument, at any rate,

  • seems to me to be unsuccessful. Now, at the start,

  • I distinguished two claims people might have in mind when

  • they say, "Nobody believes they're going to die."

  • The first possibility was the claim was, nobody believes that

  • they'll ever cease to exist as a person.

  • And I've just explained why at least the most familiar argument

  • for that claim, I think, doesn't work.

  • The second possible interpretation was this.

  • Nobody believes their body is going to die.

  • That is, the more familiar humdrum event of death where

  • your body ceases functioning and you end up having a corpse that

  • gets buried and so forth. Sometimes it's suggested that

  • nobody believes that either. Of course, often,

  • I think, people run together these two questions.

  • When they say you don't believe you're going to die,

  • do you mean, you don't believe your body's

  • going to die? or you don't believe you're

  • going to cease to exist as a person?

  • Maybe when people make the claim, it's not clear which of

  • these things they've got in mind.

  • But let's, at least, try to now focus on the second

  • question. Could it be true,

  • is there any good reason to believe it is true,

  • that nobody believes they're going to undergo bodily death?

  • Now, after all, even if you believe that,

  • well, your soul will go to heaven so you won't cease to

  • exist as a person, you might still believe that

  • your body will die. Most of us presumably do

  • believe our bodies will die. At least, that's how it seems

  • to me. So it's a bit odd to suggest,

  • as it nonetheless does get suggested, that no,

  • no, at some level, people don't really believe

  • they're going to die. Let me point out just how odd a

  • claim that is. Because people do all sorts of

  • behaviors which become very, very hard to interpret if they

  • don't really believe their bodies are going to die.

  • People, for example, take out life insurance so

  • that--well, here's what seems to be the explanation.

  • They believe that there's a decent chance that they will die

  • within a certain period of time. And so, if that happens,

  • they want their children and family members to be cared for.

  • If you didn't really believe you were going to die,

  • that is undergo bodily death, why would you take out life

  • insurance? People write wills.

  • "Here's what you should do with my estate after I die."

  • If you didn't really believe that your body was going to die,

  • why would you ever bother writing a will?

  • Since many people write wills, many people take out life

  • insurance, it seems as though the natural thing to suggest is

  • that many, or at least perhaps most,

  • at least many people believe they're going to die.

  • Why would we think otherwise? Well, the reason for thinking

  • otherwise, the reason for not being utterly dismissive of this

  • suggestion, is that when people get ill,

  • terminally ill, it often seems to take them by

  • surprise. So I've been having you read

  • Tolstoy's novella, The Death of Ivan

  • Ilyich. Ivan Ilyich falls,

  • he hurts himself. The injury doesn't get better.

  • He gets worse and worse and eventually it kills him.

  • The astonishing thing is that Ivan Ilyich is shocked to

  • discover that he's mortal. And of course,

  • what Tolstoy is trying to convince us of,

  • what he's trying to argue, by illustrating the claim,

  • I take it, that Tolstoy is making, is that most of us are

  • actually in Ivan Ilyich's boat. We give lip service to the

  • claim that we're going to die, but at some level,

  • we don't really believe it. And notice again,

  • just to emphasize the point, the relevant lack of belief

  • here has to do with the death of the body.

  • That's the thing that Ivan Ilyich is skeptical about.

  • Is his body going to die? Is he mortal in that sense?

  • This is what takes him aback, to discover that he's mortal.

  • For all we know, Ivan Ilyich still believes in

  • souls, believes he's going to go to heaven and so forth.

  • So it's not his death as a person that he's puzzled by.

  • He may not think he's going to die as a person.

  • It's his bodily death that surprises him,

  • his bodily mortality that surprises him.

  • Tolstoy draws a highly realistic and believable

  • portrait of somebody who is surprised to discover that he's

  • mortal. As he puts it,

  • there's a famous syllogism that people learn in their logic

  • classes from Aristotle. All men are mortal.

  • Socrates is a man, so Socrates is mortal.

  • Ivan Ilyich says, "Yes, yes, I knew that.

  • But what did that have to do with me?"

  • Well, it may be a kind of irrationality.

  • It may be a kind of failure to conduct the logic.

  • But we're not asking, is it rational or irrational to

  • not believe that your body's going to die,

  • we're simply asking, noting the fact that,

  • there to seem to be cases where people are surprised to discover

  • that they're mortal. Now, for all that,

  • notice, I presume that Ivan Ilyich had a will.

  • And for all I know, Ivan Ilyich had life insurance.

  • So we're in the peculiar situation where on the one hand,

  • some of Ivan Ilyich's behaviors indicate that he believed he was

  • mortal, that his body was going to die.

  • And yet, the shock and surprise that faces, that overcomes him

  • when he actually has to face his mortality,

  • strongly suggests that he's reporting correctly.

  • He didn't believe he was going to die.

  • How could that be? There's a kind of puzzle there

  • as to--even if, before we move to the question,

  • how widespread are cases like this?

  • there's a puzzle as to how are we even to understand this case?

  • We need to distinguish perhaps between what he consciously

  • believes and what he unconsciously believes.

  • Maybe at the conscious level he believed he was mortal,

  • but at the unconscious level he believed he was immortal.

  • Or maybe we need to distinguish between those things he gives a

  • kind of lip service to, versus those things he truly

  • and fundamentally believes. Maybe he gives lip service to

  • the claim that he was mortal. If you would have asked him

  • "Are you mortal?" he would have said "Oh,

  • of course I am." And he buys life insurance

  • accordingly. But does he thoroughly and

  • truly and fundamentally believe he's mortal?

  • Perhaps not. We need some such distinction

  • if we're going to make sense of Ivan Ilyich.

  • Well, let's suppose we've done it.

  • Still have to ask, not, are there are ever cases

  • of people who don't believe they're going to die?

  • but rather, is there any good reason to think that we're all

  • or most of us are in that situation,

  • are in that state of belief where, although we give lip

  • service to the claim that we're going to die,

  • is there any good reason to believe that fundamentally we

  • don't actually believe it? That's the question we have to

  • turn to next time.

Professor Shelly Kagan: Last time we ended with the

字幕と単語

ワンタップで英和辞典検索 単語をクリックすると、意味が表示されます

A2 初級

15.死の性質(続き);自分が死ぬと信じること (15. The nature of death (cont.); Believing you will die)

  • 115 13
    黃崇竣 に公開 2021 年 01 月 14 日
動画の中の単語