The Solace

Abstract While navigating his own mother’s cancer diagnosis, the author explores how we might find solace in the fact that we will die. Traditionally, philosophical answers to this question center on two possibilities. First, some argue that death is not bad for the one who dies, because they won’t exist after once they are dead. Second, others argue that because immortality would be bad, death has considerable upside. Finding these two answers less than satisfying, the author explores a third option. This third source of solace starts with the idea that insofar as our lives are worth being grateful for, they must have a value. This book argues that because life is implicated in all of our good projects and relationships, its value radiates out to all of life’s parts, be they good or bad. And because passing away is one of the parts of life, it gets some of this radiant value. Finally, just as we are grateful for the value of our lives, so we can affirm this value in passing away. Gratitude is not the most fitting way of affirming the value in death, since passing away is also bad for those who die by depriving them of life’s good opportunities. A more fitting affirmation of the value that death borrows from life, when passing away also visits so much badness upon us, is to take some solace in the fact that our passing away has a portion of life’s positive value.