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Steven Luper: Philosophy of death

Article  in  Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics · April 2011

DOI: 10.1007/s11017-011-9174-0

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Theor Med Bioeth (2012) 33:151–155
DOI 10.1007/s11017-011-9174-0

Steven Luper: Philosophy of death

Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2009, 264 pp, $29.00
(Paperback), ISBN: 978-0-521-88249-1

Jeremy R. Simon

Published online: 20 February 2011

Ó Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011

There is a tendency for philosophers to give blandly descriptive titles to their work,
thus leaving the reader to wonder whether he or she will receive an overview of the
topic or, rather, the author’s individual approach to the matter. Thus, I recall, as a
relatively new graduate student in philosophy, picking up a paper titled
‘‘Physicalism’’ in the hope that it would introduce me to the issues at hand. While
it was a fascinating paper, my understanding of the overall topic continued to be
sorely lacking even after I finished it. One, therefore, initially approaches
Philosophy of Death without knowing whether one will be reading a text suitable
for an university course on that topic or the author’s approach to certain subjects
related to death. What one discovers is both—an extensive, albeit incomplete,
overview of the field of philosophy of death as well as Luper’s systematic approach
to these issues.
Luper covers four general questions in this book: what is life? what is death? how
is death harmful to the subject? and why and in what circumstances is killing
wrong? The first two questions are dealt with in single chapters. The second two
generate longer discussions, with the first of these taking up several chapters
covering various aspects of the Epicurean approach to death, and the second
comprising the whole second part of the book, with separate chapters on killing in
general, suicide and euthanasia, and abortion.
Recognizing that it is difficult to discuss death—the end of life—without an
account of life, Luper begins by addressing the questions of what it is to be living
and, in particular, a human. The former question Luper answers by saying that
something is alive if its vital processes, those processes by which it maintains itself,
are controlled by ‘‘durable replicators’’ (where a ‘‘replicator,’’ something that can
copy itself, is durable if, like DNA, it can mutate and pass along these mutations and

J. R. Simon (&)
Department of Medicine and Center for Bioethics, Columbia University, 41 W. 96th Street, #9B,
New York, NY 10025, USA
e-mail: js1115@columbia.edu

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can also construct a structure, like a cell, that promotes its survival and into which it
is integrated). Thus, animals are alive whereas a robot, even one that can replace its
own parts, is not.
In contrast to this single approach to life, Luper discusses three accounts of what
it is to be human (‘‘what we are’’) and what our persistence conditions are—that we
are essentially animals and persist as long as we remain the same organism; that we
are essentially minds and persist as long as our minds do; or that we are essentially
persons (beings with particular psychological characteristics, in particular, self-
awareness) and persist as long as we retain psychological continuity and connection
across time. After raising problems for each of these accounts with thought
experiments such as brain-in-a-vat, Luper concludes that there is no clear best
account and that we should withhold judgment (though it seems from various places
in the book that he favors ‘‘animal essentialism,’’ the first position listed above).
After dealing with life and humanity, Luper turns his attention to death. He notes
first that the notion is somewhat ambiguous. Even when understood as the
termination of life (rather than a postmortem state), it can be understood in at least
four ways. Death may be understood as a process during which an organism’s vital
processes cease to function. Alternatively, death may be understood to mark one of
at least three different momentary events: the end of the process just described, the
point in that process where its completion becomes inevitable, or the point at which
an organism’s systems stop functioning as an integrated whole. Luper next explores
some other ambiguities regarding death, such as whether it must be irreversible
(Luper thinks it is best to say not) and whether something dies if and only if it ceases
to exist (perhaps not, but in that case, says Luper, we should probably expand the
concept of death to say that death occurs whenever a living being ceases to exist,
and while we are at it, we should expand life to include anything with a conscious
existence, even if it is not replicator-based). Finally, Luper discusses criteria for
determining death (clinical and various forms of brain death) and points out their
inadequacies.
The next section of the book, comprising three chapters, deals with the various
issues Epicurean philosophy raises regarding our attitudes towards death. After a
chapter discussing Lucretius’s symmetry problem and the general Epicurean project
of leading us to equanimity, or ataraxia, Luper faces the challenge Epicurus
identified of saying what manner of harm death can cause us and when that harm
can be said to occur.
To explain what sort of harm death can cause, Luper first gives a general account
of interests he calls ‘‘comparativism,’’ the most relevant part of which states
(roughly) that an event harms us if and to the extent that we are better off in a world
in which the event does not happen than in a world in which it does. As to what
constitutes our well-being, Luper again surveys several options, ultimately
plumping for an ill-defined pluralistic account of well-being, where some things
of various kinds just are, objectively, intrinsically good for us. Such goods will
include the fulfillment of some, but not all desires, and the experience of some, but
not all, pleasures, as well as other things such as wisdom. Luper then uses
comparativism to flesh out various critiques of Epicurus’s claim that death is unable
to harm us, and also looks at challenges and adjustments Epicureans can make to

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comparativism to respond to these challenges. Luper ultimately concludes that these

responses fail and that there is, therefore, a sense in which death can harm us,
namely, by depriving us of some intrinsic goods we would otherwise have obtained.
This does not, however, completely respond to Epicurus. Epicurus further asks
when this harm can be said to occur. If it occurs when we are alive, then death has
not yet occurred. If it occurs when we are dead, then we do not exist to be harmed.
Luper’s first response to this is to argue that under comparativism, an essential
premise of Epicurus’s timing argument, namely, that there must be an identifiable
time at which a harm occurs, is false. However, Luper believes that he can respond
to Epicurus even if he grants Epicurus this premise. Luper surveys five possibilities
for when death can be said to harm us, and identifies the time before death, when we
have the interests which death interferes with, as the time at which death harms us.
Having thus dealt with various questions surrounding death in general, Luper
turns to killing, i.e., death inflicted intentionally. The first question he addresses is,
under what circumstances is a killing ‘‘directly’’ wrong? That is, what would make
killing wrong specifically because of its effect on the victim (as opposed to, or in
addition to, its effects on others, such as the victim’s dependants, who are only
indirectly affected by the killing)? Luper brings four accounts as to what makes a
killing directly wrong. The first, which he calls the ‘‘harm account,’’ states that
killing is wrong because and to the extent that it inflicts harm on the victim. This of
course takes us back to the preceding chapters and their account of the harm that
death causes to the victim. The second account, the ‘‘consent account,’’ states that
killing is wrong when it violates the victim’s right to control his or her own body,
that is, when the victim has not consented to being killed. The third, ‘‘subject
value,’’ account states that killing is wrong because it destroys the intrinsic value of
the subject. As Luper finds problems with each of these accounts, he opts for a
fourth account which combines aspects of the first two. Killing a competent person
is wrong if they have not consented, and killing an incompetent person is wrong to
the extent that it harms them.
This account of the wrongness of killing is then used in the next chapter as a
platform to discuss suicide and euthanasia. Luper argues that it can be both moral
and rational to choose death. Therefore, given his conclusion in the preceding
chapter, not only is suicide permissible in some cases but so is euthanasia. If the
subject of the euthanasia is competent, then it is enough that he or she has chosen
euthanasia for it to be permissible. For incompetent subjects, euthanasia can still be
permissible as long as the killing is in their best interests, as, in some cases, Luper
believes it clearly may be. Luper further notes, in passing, that although anyone
could carry out a permissible euthanasia, it would be best done by experts, that is,
physicians.
Abortion, the topic of the last chapter, presents a somewhat less straightforward
case, though he simplifies matters somewhat by addressing only the question of
when abortion is ‘‘prima facie directly wrong,’’ that is, prima facie wrong because of
its effect on the fetus. He sets aside questions of what a woman’s rights would be in
cases where abortion is ‘‘prima facie directly wrong.’’ The best argument that
abortion is directly wrong, Luper finds, is a variant of the argument by Marquis
based on the harm account mentioned above and can be summarized as ‘‘abortion is

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objectionable because it deprives fetuses of lives they would enjoy if not killed’’ (p.
200). Luper does not find this argument completely satisfactory, and spends the rest
of the chapter analyzing this argument and responses to it. Unlike every other
chapter in this book, Luper does not reach any conclusion here. If he thinks one side
of the argument he presents here has the better of things, he does not tell the reader.
Although Luper covers a full range of philosophical issues surrounding death in
this book, there are several places, especially in the second section, on killing,
where a fuller discussion of the surrounding issues would have made both the book
and the arguments stronger. Many of these lacunae are understandable in a book of
analytic philosophy, but are nonetheless unfortunate.
One such issue is the absence of, broadly speaking, religious considerations in
this book. Again, this is understandable in a work of analytic philosophy, yet it is
still somewhat problematic. For example, Luper discusses, and essentially
dismisses, the notion that the wrongness of killing is based on the intrinsic value
of the subject being killed without acknowledging that, at bottom, the notion that
human beings have intrinsic value is a religious one, or at least a metaphysical one,
based on the idea that humans have souls. Certainly, the idea that people have souls,
and any positions based on this idea, may be rejected, but a discussion of the
intrinsic value of a person without acknowledging the relationship of this idea to the
soul seems somewhat empty.
Luper’s arguments also suffer from being somewhat detached from the real
world. Thus, he reaches the conclusion that euthanasia is permissible in the
circumstances described above. This is fine as far as it goes, but a discussion of
euthanasia, as he acknowledges by suggesting specific policies, cannot long remain
abstract. Yet, once one descends to the real world one sees that, literally, the devil
(or angel) of Luper’s proposal is in the details. While it may be true that we may
euthanize a competent person who chooses death, and that choosing death is not
prima facie evidence that one lacks competence, it is far from clear that we can
obtain the certainty about another person’s mental state and competency that would
be required for us to know that a killing was a permissible euthanasia. Likewise, it
may be that it would be permissible to kill an incompetent person if that was in his
or her best interest, but are we really skilled enough to know another person’s
interests? Neither of these questions undermine Luper’s position, they simply point
out a need for an expansion of his discussion.
A similar point relates to Luper’s recommendation specifically of physician
assisted suicide (PAS) for those who rationally choose to die. He states in passing
that he supports PAS as it would be best for the person committing suicide. This,
however, is an inadequate argument for supporting, or even permitting, PAS. Such
an argument requires a discussion of the oft considered problems of the effect of
PAS on physicians and society. If one wishes to remain above the fray, it is best to
remain completely above the fray.
I would also note that there is at least one place where I think Luper is, frankly,
wrong. According to Luper, as seen above, a necessary characteristic of life (human
or otherwise) is that it maintain itself via processes controlled by replicators, which
must be able to mutate and pass on these mutations. Yet, I cannot see how this
feature has much to do, necessarily, with life. An (otherwise) living creature

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resembling humans in every way, except that, at its lowest level, it is composed of
highly decay resistant cells and organelles and is not, therefore, dependent on
replicators like DNA to maintain itself through time, would seem to be just as alive
as the people walking on the street outside my window. Note that I am not talking
about some wet automaton built by people, but a creature that was not intentionally
created (except, perhaps, by God). Luper excludes these beings from being alive, yet
it would seem that it would be just as wrong to kill one of these creatures as it would
be to kill a human being, and for just the same reasons.
None of these critiques undermine the substantial value of this book. As
mentioned at the outset of this review, it serves two purposes. First, it coherently
gathers in one place the thought of a philosopher who has been considering the
philosophical problems of death for 25 years. Second, it serves as an overview of
the terrain, and, the first part especially, could serve as a primary text for a class on
life and death. It is also an excellent starting point for a trained philosopher wishing
to begin thinking about these issues. Each of these features is made all the more
valuable by the fact that the book contains discussions of both abstract topics such
as fear of death and posthumous harm as well as of practical issues like euthanasia
and abortion.

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