Is Thomas Nagel Death Writing Consoling?

Is Thomas Nagel Death Writing Consoling?

            Consolation is a critical term arising in history, philosophy, and psychology. Consolation is of great importance in the 21st century in various fields of life. When people lose their loved ones by death, they are emotionally and psychologically affected, and they require to be consoled. Death is considered as one of the most dangerous things affecting human life on earth. Death causes separation of the soul and the body. When someone dies, the person does not exist anymore, which makes the family members and the friends of the deceased suffer psychologically. Death affects every person in the world including the rich and the poor, males and female, black and white, and literate and illiterate. Because death affects everyone in the globe, then members of the world need to be consoled about death. Thomas Nagel is a professional philosopher who wrote an essay about death. Death is the greatest of all losses, and therefore, death is not a good thing. Consoling includes giving hope and comfort to the affected, and Nagel’s essay on death creates fear among the people, and therefore, Nagel’s article on death is not consoling.

Nagel acknowledges that self-referential paradoxes are necessary for matters that are contradicting for the future revision of a theory. Where there are disagreements about a particular matter, it is not possible to prove who is right according to Nagel. People have different thoughts about the effects of death. Nagel uses both objectivism and subjectivism to state his ideas about death to the audience. Nagel employs a language that is not conditional to express his opinions about death. The essay by Nagel is easy for the audience to understand because he uses short sentences and precise words to put his thoughts clearly. Nagel spoke about all the bitter facts about death in his essay because Nagel is a professional philosopher who believes in reality. Nagel did not take a strong position in the essay on whether death is a good thing or a bad thing, and his article left the audience in confusion about death. Therefore, Nagel’s essay is not consoling because Nagel did not make any arguments to bring hope to the audience about death.

In the essay on death, Nagel does not take a position on whether death is a good or a bad thing to the people. Nagel questions whether people should fear the consequences of death. Nagel casts more fear to the people by stating that death puts someone entirely away from the loved ones (Boden, 2016). The evilest thing about death is the separation of a person entirely from the relatives. Also, another consequence of death is that someone cannot experience death without dying. Nagel states that death harms individuals even without dying. Death is cruel because there is no individual currently existing on the world who have the experience of death. Nagel in his essay states all these facts about death, which casts more fear among the people living in the world. In his concluding remarks, Nagel says that death harmful to people even if people do not experience the harm of death. Therefore, Nagel essay is not consoling because, in his essay, he expresses the harmful effects of death, which is against the definition of consolation. Death is the greatest loss human beings on earth can ever experience.

Life is the most precious thing human beings on earth can enjoy and therefore, loss of human life is the greatest loss that can be experienced. In the essay, Nagel states that “On the other hand it can be said that life is all we have and the loss of it is the greatest loss we can sustain” (Hendricks, 2018). Nagel is true on the point that losing a life is the greatest loss that can ever be experienced. Death cause suffering o the family members because the family members will never see the deceased again after the deceased has died. Also, sometimes death can cause suffering of the people who have been left behind. Death of parents exposes the children left behind suffering because they do not have anyone to provide basic needs to them. I addition, people who are left behind after death are psychologically and emotionally affected because they do not have any clue of where their loved one has gone after death since no one is alive and has ever experienced death. People who are already living have suffered the psychological torture that comes after the death of a close relative or friend. Therefore, people are not comfortable with the loss that occurs with death. Nagel audience needed to be told on how they can handle the damage brought by death. Therefore, Nagel does not console his audience by just stating that death is the greatest loss that can ever be experienced. Nagel in his essay suggests that death can be a positive or negative thing depending on what people think about death.

Nagel points out that when disagreements exist about a particular matter, then it is very difficult to change the ideas of the people. On the issue of death, there are disagreements among people on whether death is a good thing or a bad thing. In the essay, Nagel states that “there is conspicuous disagreement about the matter: Some people think death is dreadful; others have no objection to death” (Hendricks, 2018). The statement by Nagel means that Nagel does not have a specific position on whether death is a good thing or a bad thing. Among to the Nagel’s audience, some people had a belief that death is a bad thing while some other people were on a crossroad where they could not judge on whether death is a bad thing or a good thing. Consolation comes with clearing out the fears people have about a particular matter to create more comfort for the people. Consoling people also includes supporting the ideas people have about a specific contradicting issue. In his essay, Nagel tries to be neutral so that he can comfort the people who do not have any judgment on whether death is a good thing or a bad thing. When Nagel states that people have different ideas about death, he comforts the people who are neutral about the matter because he supports their idea that it is not possible to judge whether death is good or a bad thing. Therefore, to some extent, Nagel essay can be considered as somehow consoling. However, the main idea about consolation is to bring comfort to the people about death. Throughout the whole essay, there is no advantage that Nagel has stated concerning death. Nagel argues only on the adverse effects of death, hence Nagel’s essay about death can be classified as not consoling.

In my view, death is a bad thing for all human beings living in the globe. Nagel suggests that death is the greatest loss human beings can ever experience. Live is a precious thing, and no sound person in the world can desire to die. Many philosophers consider death as a transition from one form of life to another. However, none of those philosophers have experienced death. Death causes a lot of grieve to the loved ones who have been left by the deceased. Children are left with no one who can provide for their basic needs. Lack of basic needs exposes children to the danger of drug abuse and crime. Also, people who are left by their loved ones can lose concentration on their jobs because of emotional and psychological problems. Most people in the world have experienced the psychological problem that occurs after a close friend, or a family member has died. Every person who is mentally fine desires to live for long to enjoy living close to the family members and close friends. As a result, human beings have come up with several medical interventions that can help people to live long. Death cannot be prevented, but medical methods help to save lives. In some life circumstances, people prefer to die instead of living (Radbruch, 2016). Death can sometimes be seen as the end of life problems when a person is in critical health condition. Some states allow euthanasia while some other countries do not allow for euthanasia. Some health conditions are incurable and leave the patient at constant pain that is unbearable to human beings, and at this condition, death can be seen as a favorable thing to help the patient from living with pain that is beyond human control. Even if sometimes death can be the only solution to end unbearable human pain, I consider death as a bad thing that everyone tends to avoid.

In summary, Nagel in his essay states the bitter facts about death, which scares the audience instead of consoling them. Nagel uses precise words and short sentences to make his essay easily understandable to the audience clearly. Nagel states that death is the greatest loss human beings can ever experience. The statement casts more fear on the audience instead of consoling the audience. Consoling is philosophically defined as comforting people about a matter that can cause suffering to the people. In another statement in the essay, Nagel states that people have different thoughts about death. Nagel states bitter consequences about death hence creating fear on the audience about death instead of consoling them. Therefore, Nagel’s essay about death can be considered as not consoling. Sometimes death can be considered as the only solution to some health conditions that cause unbearable pain to human beings. At these conditions, death can be allowed according to euthanasia theories. However, death causes psychological suffering to the people left behind, and therefore, death is a bad thing to human beings.

References

Boden, M. A., Feldman, F., Fischer, J. M., Hare, R., Hume, D., Joske, W. D., … & Luper, S.         (2016). Life, death, and meaning: Key philosophical readings on the big questions.        Rowman & Littlefield.

Hendricks, C. (2018). Slides on Thomas Nagel’s article,” Death”.

Radbruch, L., Leget, C., Bahr, P., Müller-Busch, C., Ellershaw, J., De Conno, F., … & board        members of the EAPC. (2016). Euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide: a white paper     from the European Association for Palliative Care. Palliative medicine, 30(2), 104-116.