Originally Posted by Acemanhattan

Open Yale Courses has Shelly Kagan teaching a Semester on the philosophy of death, interesting and it wanders into other philosophical areas too. It doesn't have any course material though, no homework. Google some of the other big schools like Stanford or MIT etc and search for their open course offerings and you'll likely find some with course work included.

Originally Posted by Matt Marcinkiewicz

Very overrated, based on the few lectures i watched. Kagan's take on the two-state requirement is hilariously irrational...dismiss it because it doesn't feel agreeable...typical, even in Iv[e]y-level philosophy

Originally Posted by Description of the two-state requirement

So, the very first topic we have to look at is, could it ever be true that you'd be better off dead? And immediately, there's a kind of logical worry that may occur to some of you, certainly has been raised by various philosophers. And that's to say that the very judgment, the very claim, that Jones would be better off dead can't make any sense. On the assumption that, look, in order to make comparisons — better off, worse off; here he is in such and such a situation; he'd be better off in that other situation — you've got to be able to talk about, on the one hand, what condition or state the person is before and what condition or state the person would be in afterwards, if they were to make that choice. Call this the two-state requirement.

Normally, when we make judgments about whether something would leave you better off or worse off, we satisfy the two-state requirement. You're trying to decide whether or not to lose some weight. And you think, well, here's how well off I am now, being overweight. Here's how well off I would be later, if I were to lose that weight. I can compare the two states, say the second state's better than the first state. That's what makes it true that I'd be better off. Trying to decide whether or not to marry the person or break up with the person or pick this career or change careers. You've got the state you're in and you compare it to the state you would be in. You compare the two states. That's what allows us to say, "Yeah, I'd be better off" or "No, I'd be worse off."

But when we're talking about cases of suicide, cases where, well, here I am now, the before state requirement's in place, but if we contrast that with the after state requirement, well, that part's not met, right? When you — On the assumption that death is the end, that you won't exist, nonexistence isn't a state that you will be in. It's not a condition of you, because states and conditions presuppose existence. We can talk about are you happy? Are you sad? Are you bored? Are you excited? All of those things presuppose your existence. Even are you sleeping? is a state or condition you can be in, because you exist. But if I kill myself, I won't exist. There is no second state to compare. So, how could we possibly say, the objection goes, how could we possibly say that I'd be better off dead? That seems to presuppose that there's a second state that we can compare to my actual state. Since there isn't one, the judgment, I'd be better off dead, can't even get off the ground. It's got a logical mistake built right into it. Well, that's the objection. And, as I say, there are a number of philosophers who are drawn to it. Maybe some of you are drawn to it as well.

Originally Posted by Implications of the two-state requirement as applied to death

It seems to me that it's mistaken. Consider what we wanted to say when we talked about the deprivation account, the central account of what's bad about death. For most of us, dying would be bad, because it would deprive us of the good things in life that we would get, if only we didn't die. That seemed like a natural thing to say. It seemed like an appropriate thing to say. Of course, we might ask, if we believe in the two-state requirement, how could we have said that? After all, given the two-state requirement, to say that death is bad for me, I'd be better off staying alive. If we believe in the two-state requirement, we've got to say, Oh, so had I died, I would have been in some state that I could compare to my current state and say that it's worse. But, of course, death isn't a state. So, the two-state requirement's not met.

Well, we might say this should give us some pause. If the two-state requirement — It would be one thing if all that the two-state requirement said was, you know, we can't ever say we'd be better off dead. But it turns out the two-state requirement's got more implications than that. It's got the implication that you can't even say you're better off staying alive. And that's very, very hard to believe.

Imagine that you've got some happy person, some incredibly happy person with a wonderful life filled with whatever goods you think are worth having in life — love and accomplishment and knowledge and whatever it is. He's walking across the street and he's about to get hit by a truck. And so, at some risk to yourself, you leap into the way, pushing him out of the way, saving his life. And happily, you don't get hurt either. He looks up, realizes he was this close from death and he says, "Thank you. Thank you for saving my life."

And now what you have to say is, "I'm afraid you're rather confused. Because to say 'thank you' for my saving your life is to presuppose I've benefited you in some way. To presuppose I've benefited you in some way is to assume that you're — it's a good thing that your life has continued. But, you see, given the two-state requirement, we can't say it's a good thing that your life continued, because the two-state requirement says we can only make that kind of remark when there's a before state and an after state. And the after state would have been nonexistence. So, you see, you're really rather philosophically confused in thinking that I've done you some sort of favor by saving your life."

Originally Posted by The Losing something Good argument

I can't take that argument seriously. It seems to me that — and I hope that none of you would take it seriously, either. Of course, you are doing somebody a favor when you save their life, given the assumption that their life has been and would continue to be wonderful. And what that shows is not that so nonexistence really is a kind of spooky, super thin state or condition. No, of course it isn't. Nonexistence is nonexistence. It's no kind of condition or state at all. What it shows is the two-state requirement isn't a genuine requirement on these sorts of evaluations. We don't have to say that if you had died — when you point to the person whose life you saved, we don't have to say that had you died, you would have been in some inferior state. We simply have to say the life you would have had, had I saved you and indeed will have, given that I have saved you, is a great life. Since it's good, to lose it would be bad. Since losing it would be bad, saving it for you is benefiting you. It's doing you a favor. Two-state requirement says otherwise. Two-state requirement's got to go.

Originally Posted by Two Durations rather than Two-States

But, having gotten rid of it, we can say the same thing in principle on the other side. Imagine there was somebody whose life was horrible, full of pain and suffering and misery. Now, whether there could be such a person, again, that's a question we'll turn to in a second. But if there were such a person, then we can say, for their life to continue isn't good for them; it's bad for them. Their life is full of misery and suffering and frustration and disappointment. And the more and more of that, the worse and worse the life is. To lead a life of 100 years, where every moment is torture and pain, is worse than a life of 30 years, where every moment is torture and pain.

So, if you had such a person, for their life to go longer would be bad. In which case, for their life to be going shorter, would be better for them.
And that's all we mean when we say they'd be better off dead. Not that there's some spooky super thin and hard to describe condition that they'd be in if they were dead. But simply, we look back at the two possible lives they could have. Just with the person whose life we saved. The first person, we compare the great life that lasts 100 years versus the great life that only lasts 20 years because you didn't save their life. We say, oh, the life of 100 years, better life. And so, saving their life is a good thing for them. Similarly, we compare the lives of misery, the long life versus the short life of misery. And we say, oh, the long life of misery is a worse life to have than the short life of misery. And that being the case, we simply can say you'd be better off dead. Not that you'd be in some condition that's a good one. It's simply, you'd avoid this condition, which is a bad one. And if the two-state requirement says otherwise, so much the worse for the two-state requirement.

Originally Posted by PairTheBoard

I don't think that's a fair representation of his remarks regarding the two-states requirement. He does motivate its rejection as applied to death by pointing out how its implications run counter to intuition. But I don't think intuition is at all a bad place to start as long as you have somewhere to go from there. Here he proposes alternate methods of evaluation. What would be irrational would be to say that because one method of evalution cannot be applied in this case that no evaluation of the case is possible. That would not follow even if you couldn't come up with alternate methods.

But in this case he does provide reasonable alternate methods to the two-state requirement. One works on the principle that losing something good is bad. The other works on the principle that more time in a good state is better than less and visa versa. Now you can argue against those methods if you like but saying that all Kagan's done with the two-state requirement is "dismiss it because it doesn't feel agreeable" misrepresents his lecure imo.

Shelly Kagan lecture 24 of 36 - On suicide - Part 1

At the end of the link is a transcript of the lecture. Quoted below in 4 parts is his discussion of the two-state requirement.



Seems like a fair description of the two-state requirement and the problem it seems to pose for a philosophy of death.



This seems intended as motivational and to show how counter-intuitive the implications are. Remember, this is a lecture rather than a professional philosophy paper.




Seems reasonable to me.





PairTheBoard

Originally Posted by Matt Marcinkiewicz

Very overrated, based on the few lectures i watched. Kagan's take on the two-state requirement is hilariously irrational...dismiss it because it doesn't feel agreeable...typical, even in Iv[e]y-level philosophy

There's no way to justify living or dying logically...this course thus reduces to uninteresting philosophical masturbation. (And I'm genuinely contrasting that with interesting philosophical masturbation...because there is a continuum of intrigue to all philosophy, even as all of it ultimately falls victim to the is-ought fallacy. Can be fun to see where it goes wrong...in this case, there's little entertainment value).