DEATH AND DEPRIVATION

Abstract:  The view that death is the loss of a person's future is less defensible than many philosophers have thought, in part because it is often presented as a response to an indefensibly crude Epicurean doctrine. But the most direct argument for this view suffers from two sorts of ambiguity – the first concerning what it is to "have" a future to lose, the second concerning what the loss consists in. However, another conception of what is lost is possible, and this alternative, which is more congenial to the Epicurean outlook, does not depend on considerations about the future.