Abstract

According to the Epicurean tradition, there is something misleading about our common intuition that we are harmed at death. In contemporary literature, we find proponents of the anti-Epicurean view as well as staunch defenders of the no-harm theory. In this paper, I first deal with the question of the possibility of worldly presence after death and, secondly, with the idea of harm due to death of a person. The gist of my claim is that a non-absolutistic approach to the whole problematic of harm seems to have a better explanatory power in this context. In the course of my discussion, I coin and elucidate the phrase “loss of vitality” and assert that it may provide us with a more useful notion in the metaphysical treatment of death and harm. I also distinguish two perspectives with regard to being harmed and claim that there is a notable issue about being harmed at death especially when the matter is regarded internally, in contrast to an external point of view.