When does dying matter?
A few months ago, I was standing next to the doors of a Tube train from Canary Wharf to Westminster. By my feet was a large bag. The bag was large, bulging and had paint splattered on it. I imagined that it was a painter or decorator’s bag. However, I looked up and down the carriage and didn’t see any painters or decorators. In fact, everyone (including myself) was wearing suits. I wondered if this bag was a bomb, and considered whether I should ask others if they owned it.
This is not interesting, in itself. What is interesting is that this experience made me think, from my perspective, does it matter if it’s a bomb? If this bag had exploded, I’d have died instantly and without knowing. Ignoring any consideration that others that could be harmed directly and indirectly through mourning, would an explosion of the bag matter to me? I figured not: either it wasn’t a bomb, and I would be fine, or it was, and I’d die instantly, but be fine up to that point. What I find interesting (and surprising) about this is that I appear to be fairly indifferent to instant, unknowing death. I think that this is entirely compatible with my standard, human fear of painful, knowing death, and, indeed, any form of unwanted human suffering. I think this view may be widely shared, although I doubt many people have thought about it in detail. After all, people generally report that, had they the option, they’d drift of quietly in their sleep.
I write about this now because I have just read Galen Strawson, who writes on something similar in The Philosophy Magazine. I also wonder about the wider implications: for example, is working in a bomb disposal team actually better than fighting on the front line, because although your risk of death is higher, so is the ‘quality’ of death (i.e. instant and unknown)? On the other side of the equation, at what point does becoming a suicide bomber became preferable (in terms of utility) to being dragooned into fighting as an insurgent?
And it turns out people in suits do occasionally take decorator’s bags on the Tube with them: the owner and his bag alighted at Canada Water.
Is it always the case that instant, unknowing death is a better outcome? I am pretty sure that most people wouldn’t want to endure a long painful death. But is it possible that some might take the other option – as it at leaves the opportunity to confront death on their own terms? Could the human ego take control – the desire to put some sort of legacy in place before death, to have have revenge on someone or to make your peace with someone estranged? Assuming that death is final and there is nothing afterwards, I might think that in some respects some would take the extra time on earth even it meant pain and suffering.
John, thanks for your comment (which I have amended to correct the better/worse typo). I think I didn’t write clearly. I am not saying that a quick death is always preferable to a slow one. Indeed, if I had to pick a quick or slow death, I may be tempted to go for the slower one, as long as the pain was in some way bearable: I am not sold on the idea that our minds survive our physical death and, as you say, I would reason that some life (under some pain) would be better than none.
What I was trying to get at was the notion of an unknowing death – where you have no idea that you are going to die in the short term. Two examples of ‘unknowing’ may be standing next to the bomb on a train, or being poisoned in one’s sleep. My question is: if I think I am going to wake up tomorrow, and go to bed happy, what does it matter (to me) if I do not? I think Galen Strawson is arguing that it doesn’t – that the future forgone – the unseen tomorrow – was never mine to own, and so I cannot mourn its loss to me.