Abstract
In the course of his paper Death and Transcendence Professor Rowe presents us with a dilemma:
Either death is a bad thing or it is not. If it is not a bad thing then there is no problem to be solved, there is no real question about whether we can transcend the badness of death … On the other hand, if death is a bad thing, then, since we are powerless to alter its badness and powerless to escape it, death cannot be transcended at all. Thus, finding a way of transcending death seems to be impossible. Either there is nothing to transcend or the badness of death is ineluctable and cannot be transcended. (p. 134)
I shall argue in the present paper that this apparent dilemma is a false one, that it can make sense to speak of transcending death, and that traditional religions, as well as ethical systems, have something to offer toward the realization of this possibility.
The sting of death is sin. (1 Corinthians 15:56)
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
Ludwig Wittgenstein, ‘Lectures on Religious Belief’, Lectures and Conversations, ed. Cyril Barrett (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1966), 53–72.
D.Z. Phillips, Death and Immortality (London: Macmillan, 1970).
In this he follows Fred Feldman in his article ‘Some Puzzles About Death’, The Philosophical Review 100, no. 2 (April 1991), 205–27
reprinted in John Martin Fischer (ed.), The Metaphysics of Death (Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1993), 307–26, though Rowe’s argumentation is free from the references to possible worlds which unduly complicate Feldman’s article.
See ‘Death’ in Thomas Nagel, Mortal Questions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), 1–10.
‘Harm to Others’, in Fischer, The Metaphysics of Death, p. 73, reprinted from Joel Feinberg, Harm to Others (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984), 79–95.
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 1997 The Claremont Graduate School
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Moore, G. (1997). Death, Value and Transcendence. In: Phillips, D.Z., Tessin, T. (eds) Religion without Transcendence?. Claremont Studies in the Philosophy of Religion. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-25915-1_11
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-25915-1_11
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-25917-5
Online ISBN: 978-1-349-25915-1
eBook Packages: Palgrave Religion & Philosophy CollectionPhilosophy and Religion (R0)