Death and The Beautiful
by Martin L. Cowen III
One of the great pleasures of the Fellowship of Reason (a reason-based moral community) is the attraction to our community of people who are interested in the philosophy of ethics. In the general population, the percentage of people interested in philosophy is miniscule. That is not to say that most people are not interested in being good. They are. We say only that most people are not interested in the philosophy of being good.
Because we have people interested in ethics among us,
we often discuss ethics. Most recently, President Ron Menich observed that
ethics courses and discussions of ethics propose “lifeboat” situations for
ethical discussion. My wife, Linda, then suggested that I watch the film, The Life of Pi (2012), which is a
lifeboat situation, as an example. These two suggestions prompt this essay.
In last month’s The
Eudaimonist (September 2013), we agreed that we all seek the following:
2. Beautiful people in character and body
3. The beautiful in action
4. The beautiful in thought
5. The beautiful in art
6. The beautiful in music
7. The beautiful in literature
8. The beautiful in architecture
9. The beautiful in nature
10. A beautiful death
A beautiful death! Now there is an interesting
subject.
As it turns out, philosophy has discussed the subject
of death for millennia.
Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592), the French essayist
famously said: “That to study philosophy is to learn to die.” (Chapter 19 of Essays.) En français: “Que philosopher
c’est apprendre à mourir.”
Montaigne’s source was Cicero: “that to study
philosophy is nothing but to prepare one’s self to die.” (Cicero’s Tusculan Disputations Book 1, 31; http://www.gutenberg.org/files/14988/14988-h/14988-h.htm)
Plato, too, expressed the same view in the dialogue Phaedo: “Ordinary people seem not to
realize that those who really apply themselves in the right way to philosophize
are directly and of their own accord preparing themselves for dying and death.”
(64a)
So, what can we say about death? Note that there are
several categories of death: death by accident or sickness, homicide, suicide,
death in dramatic situations, and death from old age.
As regular readers will know, the moral system we have
been exploring is a moral system in which all moral action is toward The
Beautiful. The moral question, according to Aristotle, is: What is the
beautiful thing to do?
Death in Dramatic Situations
Let us talk about death in dramatic situations first,
as these are more fun.
Film
Following is a list of films depicting beautiful
death. The length of the list shows the frequency of the artist’s interest in
the beautiful death. I have ordered the list from least to most obscure.
·
The Hunger Games (2012). Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) and Peeta Mellark (Josh
Hutcherson) propose to commit joint suicide near the end of their adventure. A
last minute rule change saves them.
· Gran Torino
(2008). Aging war veteran Walt Kowalski (Clint Eastwood) dies, by choice, in a
hail of bullets to save his young friend victimized by a neighborhood gang.
Star Trek (2009). Captain Kirk's father, in an altered reality, must sacrifice himself to save crew, including his wife and just born son, James Tiberius Kirk.
·
Melancholia
(2011). Justine (Kirsten Dunst) faces death with dignity as worlds collide.
·
Independence Day (1996). Russell Casse (Randy Quaid) flies his jet into the invading
spaceship in a last ditch effort to save the earth and his three children.
· 300 (2006).
King Leonidas (Gerard Butler) leads three hundred Spartans against the Persian
horde at Thermopylae in 480 B.C. Greece.
·
Man on Fire
(2004). Joyhn W. Creasy (Denzel Washington), a retired, guilt-ridden assassin,
becomes the bodyguard for a child, Lupita Ramos (Dakota Fanning), giving his
life to save hers.
·
Deep Impact
(1998). An astronaut hero Spurgeon Tanner (Robert Duvall) and his crew donate
their lives to save planet Earth from an asteroid on a collision course.
·
The Eiger Sanction (1975). A pair of mountain climbers, including the assassin Jonathan
Hemlock (Clint Eastwood) face death with style.
·
Armageddon
(1998). The astronaut hero Harry Stamper (Bruce Willis) spends his life to
destroy an asteroid on a collision course with Earth.
·
Ikiru
(2004). The bureaucrat Kanji Watanabe (Takashi Shimura) lives out his last days
performing beautiful acts of production.
·
Gattaca
(1997). Jerome Eugene Morrow (Jude Law) self-immolates at the end of his good
works.
·
The Book of Eli
(2010). Eli (Denzel Washington) dies after completing his mission from God.
·
Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai (1999). Ghost Dog (Forest Whitaker) willingly dies at
the hand of his master.
- Stand Up Guys (2012). Three aged thugs (played by Al Pacino, Christopher Walken, and Alan Arkin) spend their last 24 hours of life enacting Beautiful Deaths.
- Opera
Opera often beautifies death. Some examples follow:
·
Tosca
(premier 1900 Rome) by Giacomo Puccini
·
Romeo and Juliet (premier 1867 Paris) by Charles Gounod
·
Tristan and Isolde (premier 1865 Munich) by Richard Wagner
Real Life
Dramas
- · Todd Beamer’s heroic counterattack aboard United Airlines flight 93 on September 11, 2001, thwarting the Islamic terrorist murderous intentions to crash the plane into the United States Capitol building
- · Any of countless heroic acts of warriors in battle
- · Any of countless heroic acts of ordinary citizens faced with extraordinary circumstances
We can see in countless examples of art and real life
the sublimity of a beautiful death. The sublime is the perception of an object
or event that strikes one dumb, that petrifies, that astonishes, that awes,
that amazes. All of these phrases are gestures toward or signs of the
experience held in my mind as I write and which I hope to recall to the
reader’s mind. The point of the many public examples given in this essay is to
recall to the reader’s mind the memory of the experience of The Beautiful.
A beautiful death is possible in dramatic life and
death situations. It is art to perform the beautiful death. Not everyone will
be an artist in this domain.
Lifeboats
Real and Imagined
Ethical discussions about “lifeboat” situations are
notoriously difficult. The usual ethical rules are difficult to apply. Altruism
(sacrifice of self for others) calls for jumping overboard to save supplies for
the others (but is suicide a sin?). Utilitarianism (the greatest good for the
greatest number) would call for cannibalism by the group of the weakest (ugly).
Egotism (me, me, and more me) would call for the cannibalism of all by the
all-powerful One (also ugly).
The Life of Pi is an example of The Beautiful in a
lifeboat situation. Pi’s ship sinks over the Mariana Trench east of the
Philippines. For 227 days, Pi drifts across the Pacific Ocean in a well-stocked
lifeboat with a tiger to land finally in Mexico. The boy Pi spends his days
caring for his needs and the needs of the tiger under difficult lifeboat
conditions and they both survive.
Chuck Nolan (Tom Hanks) in the film Cast Away (2000) survives nobly alone on
a deserted island after a plane crash.
There is another story about a tiger and a boy. The
boy is walking one day across an open plain outside his village. Suddenly, he
spies a tiger about to pounce and eat him. The boy runs for his life to the
edge of a great escarpment dropping over a thousand feet to the valley floor
below.
The boy scrambles over the edge of the escarpment to a
point where the tiger cannot reach him. The tiger remains roaring and swatting
at the boy from above. There is no way up. There is no way down, except a free
fall of 1,000 feet to certain death. The boy sees a bright red, juicy
strawberry growing in the rocks near his hand. What does the boy do?...
He eats the strawberry.
Standard ethics evaluates circumstances in terms of me
(I am to survive), you (you shall survive), or us (some will survive). Since I
propose that we Eudaimonists evaluate ethical matters by asking—What is the
beautiful thing to do?—let us attempt this in the lifeboat situation.
Psychologist Abraham Maslow (1908-1970) created his
famous Hierarchy of Needs, which is the basis of his theory of human
motivation. Here is Maslow’s Hierarchy:
1.
Biological and
physiological needs: air, food, drink, shelter, warmth, sex, sleep
2.
Safety needs:
protection from elements, security, order, law, limits, stability
3.
Social needs:
Belongingness and Love; work group, family, affection, relationships
4.
Esteem needs:
self-esteem, achievement, mastery, independence, status, dominance, prestige,
managerial responsibility
5.
Self-actualization
needs: realizing personal potential, self-fulfillment, seeking personal growth
and peak experiences
There are differences between animals and human
beings. Certainly, a human being is an animal, but she is more than an animal.
Human beings and higher animals share Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, levels 1, 2,
and 3, and perhaps as high as level 4.
Only Man has need of and claims to have moral values.
Once an individual has satisfied 1-4 needs, he can rise to the level of the
Human. We have recently learned from mythologist Joseph Campbell (1904-1997)
that the Virgin Birth motif in religious mythology relates to the birth of the
Human from man as animal. The birth to
full human-hood is “virgin” because it comes from within the
individual—self-generated. A person becomes Human when his priorities are no
longer in Maslow’s primary levels 1-4, but rise to level 5, self-actualization.
What I propose is that an ethical system based upon
The Beautiful—a moral system for human beings—is not ultimately concerned with
the base needs shared with the animals. A Human Being is concerned with his own
vision of The Beautiful.
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs does not include The Beautiful,
though The Beautiful relates to self-actualization and peak experiences.
Therefore, Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs are not complete for our ethical
purposes, failing to include expressly The Beautiful as a human need—the
quintessentially Human need.
The desire to experience The Beautiful, even in death,
is entirely personal, certainly not to be imposed by the moralist (me).
Remember that we have asserted that beauty is in the eye of the beholder; that
beauty is a perception; that proper training is necessary in order to perceive
beauty.
Death in Non-Dramatic Situations
Death is not only a philosophical subject; death is
the subject of countless poems.
Some poems urge a struggle against death.
Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night
By Dylan Thomas (1914-1953)
Do
not go gentle into that good night
Old
age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage,
rage against the dying of the light.
Though
wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because
their words had forked no lightning they
Do
not go gentle into that good night.
Good
men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their
frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage,
rage against the dying of the light.
Wild
men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And
learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do
not go gentle into that good night.
Grave
men, near death, who see with blinding sight,
Blind
eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage,
rage against the dying of the light.
And
you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse,
bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do
not go gentle into that good night.
Rage,
rage against the dying of the light.
Other poems long for death.
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
By Robert Frost (1874-1963)
Whose
woods these are I think I know
His
house is in the village though;
He
will not see me stopping here
To
watch his woods fill up with snow.
My
little horse must think it queer
To
stop without a farmhouse near
Between
the woods and frozen lake
The
darkest evening of the year.
He
gives his harness bells a shake
To
ask if there is some mistake.
The
only other sound's the sweep
Of
easy wind and downy flake.
The
woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But
I have promises to keep,
And
miles to go before I sleep,
And
miles to go before I sleep.
FOR member Dayle Harding provide us with an exegesis
of this text as follows: The woods are owned by God whose “house,” the Church,
is in the village. The rider is pausing to meditate on the “darkest evening of
the year,” a dark night of the rider’s soul. The rider is longing for death,
perhaps considering suicide. However, the rider decides against suicide because
he has many remaining life tasks. He will “sleep” after completing the journey
of his life.
Other poems propose The Beautiful death.
Excerpt from
a French Poem by Fredrick the Great (1712-1786), King of Prussia
Oui, finissons sans
trouble et mourons sans regrets,
En laissant l’Univers
comblé de nos bienfaits.
Ainsi l’Astre du jour au
bout de sa carrière,
Répand sur l’horizon une
douce lumière,
Et les derniers rayons
qu’il darde dans les airs,
Sont les derniers soupirs
qu’il donne à l’Univers.
Yes, let us end untroubled and die without regrets,
Leaving the universe brim-full with our benefactions.
Thus the Star of days, come to the end of its career,
Pours out its sweat light across the horizon,
And the last rays that it shoots through the air
Are its last sighs, its parting gifts to the World.
Conclusions
Lest my readers be confused, this essay is not eulogy
in praise of death. For instance, the death of a child before the parent is a
horror from which a parent cannot recover. Even if the parent survives
physically, the person will no longer be the same or whole. There is nothing
beautiful about it. Premature death by accident or disease is an ugly thing,
though an artist might bring considerations of The Beautiful to his own death
in such circumstances to the extent he is able to control the end.
No philosophy of life can avoid the subject of death,
and now Eudaimonism has addressed the subject. Perhaps it is appropriate that
next week is Halloween, a Celebration in defiance and mocking of death.
As always, “What is the Beautiful thing to do?”
Boo!
