Posted: Nov 13, 2014 1:07 pm
Fallible wrote:Thommo wrote:Sure, but that doesn't address the issue. It takes a particular view of "suffering" (fair enough, although it's the view that Fallible expressly denied holding which prompted that quote of mine) it doesn't establish that this is what TMB meant, does it?If I expressly denied holding this view it was a mistake, because that's exactly the point I was attempting to make. Dead people have nothing.
Right, I agree and so did TMB. Does this tell us that living people have it worse than dead people, or that they have it better?
Obviously not, right? Some living people suffer terribly, some thrive and enjoy life. There is a pretty meaningful sense in which we can say that some people suffer less than dead people if we view suffering as something that can be net positive or negative. As foolish and insensitive as his comparison is, I think that's the natural way to read it - that it's wrong to dismiss the shorter lives of men by making comparisons with their bereaved spouses.