Should We Pity The Dead?

Should we pity the dead over their fate? This question is very important being that pitying the dead has been a recurring reaction among us, especially when death occurs in certain circumstances. It’s common to hear lamentations like, “why will death take him too early when he has achieved nothing in life?” “Why will he die now that he’s about to reap the fruits of his labour?” “After suffering to train her children death did not allow her to enjoy their care?” “He finished building his house and when it was time to move in, death struck?”

Statements like these are very common and do come in various shades. But in whatever words they come, one similar thing about them is that they amount to pitying the dead. This attitude is born of the belief that the dead has suffered an existential misfortune; that that dead man or woman has met a great loss; in other words, that the death of a person is pain to the person.

This is why philosophers have asked the question, “does the dead suffer any pain?” “Has.he/she suffered any loss?” One way the answer has been sought is to ask these questions; “would the dead have gained more pleasure than pain if he/she were to remain alive? Did death actually prevent him/her from enjoying a pleasurable life or was death indeed a saving grace that has shielded the deceased from a painful and miserable life?”

Following from this approach, philosophers note that to determine whether the dead has suffered any pain or loss, one has to consider the amount of pleasure he/she would have gained against the amount of pain he/she would have suffered if death had not occurred. If pleasure is more, then we may begin to talk about loss, but where pain is more, then the dead may have been indeed lucky to die!

The hypothetical formula for determining this is something like this: PL – PN (where PL = pleasure that would have been gained if not for death and PN = pain that would have been suffered if not for death). In other words, the pain the dead avoided due to his/her death is subtracted from pleasure he/she has lost because of death to see the difference. However, the actual formula you’re likely to find in philosophy books is more intricate than this as one also has to factor in the pleasure and pain already experienced by the deceased before death to get a weighted ratio of pleasure to pain for an entire proposed lifetime (80 years, 90 years, 100 years etc.) which the deceased would have had if death had not come when it did.

The essence of the above exercise is to point out that when we pity the dead, we’re only looking at an incomplete picture of life. A complete picture of life would have shown us that much as the deceased may have a pleasurable and happy experience ahead were he/she to live on, he/she may just as well have ahead of him/her pains and miseries even so greater in amount as to nuetralise the envisaged joy. This is the true picture if we try to be realistic as against conjuring up a phantasy image of life where living becomes a one-sided experience stripped of its vicissitudes of pleasure-pain possibilities.

Recently, a friend told me of his relative who died in his 40s, and 10 years after, his wife died. Then about seven years after the death of his wife, his only son died. And a few years after, his only daughter died as well to bring that nuclear family to an end within a space of 20 years. While many must have pitied this man when he died, the “early” death eventually turned out to have apparently saved him from the misery and pain of having to watch his entire family die one after the other.

So the pity that goes to the dead should actually go to the living who suffers the fate of losing a loved one with all the attendant pain of missing a lovely company, a breadwinner, a benefactor etc. The impact of death is felt by the living, the dead is not longer conscious of this environment.

Perhaps, the only reason to pity the dead will be found beyond material considerations. This is where one may talk about reward for good and bad deeds, either hereafter (in terms of the Judo-Christian and Islamic eschatology) or here on earth (in terms of the Eastern cosmology of karma and reincarnation). Thus, depending on our beliefs, one may pity the dead for the reward awaiting him/her due to the nature of life lived. Beyond this, there may be no need to pity the dead. Let the energy be directed to consoling and lifting the living affected by the departure of the deceased.

This is my meditation this midweek.

Henry Chigozie Duru, PhD, teaches journalism and mass communication at Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, Nigeria.