philosophizing death
So I'm in this class called Death. It may sound like a morbid topic for a second-semester senior embarking on a new chapter of her life in a couple months, but it's actually turned out to be one of the best classes I've taken here at Yale. (Others include Ethics, also with Shelly Kagan; Managing Production Process with Vicki Nolan at the Yale School of Drama; Environmental Politics and Law with one of my all-time favorite professors John Wargo; Taiwan History with my senior essay advisor Beatrice Bartlett; Chinese Literature with the virulently anti-Communist Wei Su; and most surprisingly, Financial Accounting. I wholeheartedly recommend any of these courses to non-seniors.)
The two main parts of the course that we've covered so far are the larger "metaphysical" questions about death and the existence of the soul, and value judgements about death, why we perceive death as a bad thing, and what effect--if any--death has on the way we live. (The reason I put quotes around metaphysical is because I don't want to pretend like I understand what it means. All things meta are way beyond my philosophizing capabilities.) These past couple weeks have focused on the latter question, and it's fascinating stuff. Section today revolved around a thought experiment about whether it is better to know the exact date and time of your death. Say you're given an envelope with that information inside, and you have just one chance to open the envelope and know when you will die or to continue living without that knowledge. The question is, should you choose to know the exact date and time of your death? And what influence would it have on the way you live?
I won't get into the whole discussion here, but one girl said something I hope I'll never forget. She suggested that whether or not you open the envelope will depend on what it is you want out of life, and for what purpose you're living your life. If you measured based on the attainment of certain goals or certain things, then it may be important to know just how much time you have so that you can plan accordingly. But if what you value is a certain outlook or attitude towards living, then it doesn't matter when it will all come to an end. How long your life will be isn't important--it's the approach you take to each day that determines the quality of your time here.
She certainly spoke more eloquently than I conveyed here, but it really resonated with me. Given that we're not living in a thought experiment and we don't know when our lives will come to an end, it seems like attitude is the only thing we do have a measure of control over. And that--at the risk of sounding cheesy--is rather comforting.
(On a related but similarly positive note, we got our second papers back in section today. I'm proud to announce that I got a B+! Which in a class taught by Shelly Kagan is something of an achievement, especially for a severely senioritis-plagued specimen of imminent alumnus-hood such as myself. It's also a vast improvement from the dismal grade I got on the first paper I turned in. And yes, the topic for that piece of *@#& was indeed metaphysics.)
The two main parts of the course that we've covered so far are the larger "metaphysical" questions about death and the existence of the soul, and value judgements about death, why we perceive death as a bad thing, and what effect--if any--death has on the way we live. (The reason I put quotes around metaphysical is because I don't want to pretend like I understand what it means. All things meta are way beyond my philosophizing capabilities.) These past couple weeks have focused on the latter question, and it's fascinating stuff. Section today revolved around a thought experiment about whether it is better to know the exact date and time of your death. Say you're given an envelope with that information inside, and you have just one chance to open the envelope and know when you will die or to continue living without that knowledge. The question is, should you choose to know the exact date and time of your death? And what influence would it have on the way you live?
I won't get into the whole discussion here, but one girl said something I hope I'll never forget. She suggested that whether or not you open the envelope will depend on what it is you want out of life, and for what purpose you're living your life. If you measured based on the attainment of certain goals or certain things, then it may be important to know just how much time you have so that you can plan accordingly. But if what you value is a certain outlook or attitude towards living, then it doesn't matter when it will all come to an end. How long your life will be isn't important--it's the approach you take to each day that determines the quality of your time here.
She certainly spoke more eloquently than I conveyed here, but it really resonated with me. Given that we're not living in a thought experiment and we don't know when our lives will come to an end, it seems like attitude is the only thing we do have a measure of control over. And that--at the risk of sounding cheesy--is rather comforting.
(On a related but similarly positive note, we got our second papers back in section today. I'm proud to announce that I got a B+! Which in a class taught by Shelly Kagan is something of an achievement, especially for a severely senioritis-plagued specimen of imminent alumnus-hood such as myself. It's also a vast improvement from the dismal grade I got on the first paper I turned in. And yes, the topic for that piece of *@#& was indeed metaphysics.)
posted by the Assistant at 9:51 PM
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