PHL 201 Study Guide - Final Guide: Lucretius
16 May 2016
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Document Summary
English philosopher bernard williams maintains, against lucretius, that a person"s death is a bad thing for her. The reason is that we have desires to satisfy, and death prevents us from satisfying them. Williams" response to lucretius makes use of a classification of desires into two categories. First, there are some things we desire to do but only if we live long enough. Those desires are conditional on our being alive. For example, i desire to travel to paraguay when i retire- if i live that long. It"s one of the things i would like to do if i"m still around, but it is not my reason for wanting to be around. I would have the same degree of interest in existing even if travel to paraguay was ruled out. With no prospect of ever visiting paraguay, my interest in living would not decrease. Some of our desires, however, are categorical desires.
