Introduction In his essay “Death” Thomas Nagel discusses the idea of death. He expands on his ideas and beliefs discussed in his essay, in his book “The View From Nowhere”. Nagel argues that life is all that we have and the loss of it is the greatest loss that one can sustain. I presented this idea in class, earlier this year. In this essay, I will argue that being alive, even one that does not appear to have a satisfying life, is still better than being dead, and that death is the greatest loss that one can sustain. First, I will defend my thesis, then I will respond to objections to my thesis after which I will summarize my arguments.
Defense
Being alive is better than being dead. “There will be no future experiences that will be related, in…show more content… My first response to this is that there exists an opportunity for life to get better and utility to increase if they can escape from the situation. Like Elle Wiesel in Night. If one can escape a terrible situation, there always exists the potential for one to escape and make a world of difference. This criticism fails because life can always get better even if it is quite terrible. “Death is a misfortune even when life is no longer worth living” (Nagel 225). My second response to this criticism would be to recount Nagel’s account of the Princeton bathroom spider. One summer Nagel was teaching at Princeton. As all people must do, Nagel needed to use the bathroom. Upon entering the bathroom, Nagel noticed that a spider living in the urinal. Nagel observed that the spider’s life must be “miserable and exhausting”. After a period of time, Nagel decided that he needed to help the spider. He entered the bathroom and using a paper towel moved the spider out of the urinal and onto the floor. He returned
