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PHIL 176: Death

Lecture 16 - Dying Alone; The Badness of Death, Part I. Professor Kagan puts forward the claim that Tolstoy's character Ivan Ilych is quite the typical man in terms of his views on mortality. All of his life he has known that death is imminent but has never really believed it. When he suddenly falls ill and is about to die, the fact of his mortality shocks him. In trying to further access how people think about death, Professor Kagan explores the claim that "we all die alone," presents a variety of arguments against it and ends by considering whether the primary badness of death could lie in the effects on those who are left behind. (from oyc.yale.edu)

Lecture 16 - Dying Alone; The Badness of Death, Part I

Time Lecture Chapters
[00:00:00] 1. Ilyich's Reaction to Death: Typical, but Why?
[00:01:34] 2. Near-Death Experiences as Reminders of Mortality
[00:08:11] 3. "Everyone Dies Alone": Common Belief, but Necessary Truth?
[00:13:53] 4. Deconstructing the "Dying Alone" Statement
[00:27:59] 5. Weaknesses in Interpreting "Dying Alone" as Observation of Human Psychology
[00:34:56] 6. Introduction to Value Theory: Is Death Bad?

References
Lecture 16 - Dying Alone; The Badness of Death, Part I
Instructor: Professor Shelly Kagan. Transcript [html]. Audio [mp3]. Download Video [mov].

Go to the Course Home or watch other lectures:

Lecture 01 - Course Introduction
Lecture 02 - The Nature of Persons: Dualism vs. Physicalism
Lecture 03 - Arguments for the Existence of the Soul, Part I
Lecture 04 - Introduction to Plato's Phaedo; Arguments for the Existence of the Soul, Part II
Lecture 05 - Arguments for the Existence of the Soul, Part III: Free will and Near-death Experiences
Lecture 06 - Arguments for the Existence of the Soul, Part IV; Plato, Part I
Lecture 07 - Plato, Part II: Arguments for the Immortality of the Soul
Lecture 08 - Plato, Part III: Arguments for the Immortality of the Soul (cont.)
Lecture 09 - Plato, Part IV: Arguments for the Immortality of the Soul (cont.)
Lecture 10 - Personal Identity, Part I: Identity across Apace and Time and the Soul Theory
Lecture 11 - Personal Identity, Part II: The Body Theory and the Personality Theory
Lecture 12 - Personal Identity, Part III: Objections to the Personality Theory
Lecture 13 - Personal Identity, Part IV; What Matters?
Lecture 14 - What Matters (cont.); The Nature of Death, Part I
Lecture 15 - The Nature of Death (cont.); Believing You will Die
Lecture 16 - Dying Alone; The Badness of Death, Part I
Lecture 17 - The Badness of Death, Part II: The Deprivation Account
Lecture 18 - The Badness of Death, Part III; Immortality, Part I
Lecture 19 - Immortality Part II; The Value of Life, Part I
Lecture 20 - The Value of Life, Part II; Other Bad Aspects of Death, Part I
Lecture 21 - Other Bad Aspects of Death, Part II
Lecture 22 - Fear of Death
Lecture 23 - How to Live Given the Certainty of Death
Lecture 24 - Suicide, Part I: The Rationality of Suicide
Lecture 25 - Suicide, Part II: Deciding under Uncertainty
Lecture 26 - Suicide, Part III: The Morality of Suicide and Course Conclusion