Thursday, March 11, 2010

Plutarch, Cons. ad uxorem 610D

Here is an interesting argument pointed out to me by Roy Sorensen, who is working on some ‘symmetry arguments’ about death and the comparison between pre-natal and post mortem times.

Plutarch, Consolation to his wife, 610D:
πειρῶ δὲ τῇ ἐπινοίᾳ μεταφέρουσα σεαυτὴν ἀποκαθιστάναι πολλάκις εἰς ἐκεῖνον τὸν χρόνον, ἐν ᾧ μηδέπω τοῦ παιδίου τούτου γεγονότος μηδὲν ἔγκλημα πρὸς τὴν τύχην εἴχομεν, εἶτα τὸν νῦν καιρὸν τοῦτον ἐκείνῳ συνάπτειν, ὡς ὁμοίων πάλιν τῶν περὶ ἡμᾶς γεγονότων. ἐπεὶ τὴν γένεσιν, ὦ γύναι, τοῦ τέκνου δυσχεραίνειν δόξομεν ἀμεμπτότερα ποιοῦντες αὑτοῖς τὰ πρὶν ἐκείνην γενέσθαι πράγματα.

Try to transport yourself in thought and stand often in the time when this child was not yet born. Then we had no complaint against fortune. Then compare the present circumstance with that: how our affairs have again become like those then. My dear, we will seem to be complaining about the child’s birth by making things before she was born less difficult than these.
This is a kind of symmetry argument aimed to show that grief at a child’s death might be tempered by considering the time before the child was born and comparing it with the present time after the child’s death.

We begin with this question: Was the time before the child was born a time when we might have a complaint against fortune? (I suppose the point is: Was it reasonable for us to complain against fortune that we were childless before the child was born?)

If we say no, then the argument continues that our current state – childlessness – is much the same as it was then. And so we should similarly have no complaint against fate.

The obvious retort is that this is crazy. Of course the time now is not like the time before the child was born because we have now lost a child. Something good has been taken away. The time now is worse than the time before she was born, even though in both we were childless.

But if we say that we are now in a worse position than we were before the child was born then it seems that we are regretting the child’s birth. Things were better before we had a child.

But again, this is weak. Yes, things might have been better before we had a child but that is because the child has died. Things were better still when the child was alive and well.

But then we have a choice, as Plutarch goes on to show in the subsequent text. Is it better to have had a child and now be bereaved or never to have had a child at all? If the latter, then we do in effect say that we have been harmed by having the child. And that is surely wrong. If the former, then we should take consolation from this and recognise that our current pain is more than outweighed by the good that the child’s life brought.

5 comments:

JJB said...

Is it better to have had a child and now be bereaved or never to have had a child at all? If the latter, then we do in effect say that we have been harmed by having the child. And that is surely wrong.

Reall? Why is 'having a child and losing him' so easily collapsed into 'having a child'?

James Warren said...

It's not collapsed, I think. It is agreed to be better to have a child (sc. that is not dead) than to have a child that is now dead. But what if the child is now dead? Either having a child and losing them is better or worse than never having a child or it is of equal value. If the last, then there is no reason to grieve. If the second, then this is to say that the parents, since they are now bereaved, are worse off because they had a child. If the first, then the parents, although bereaved, are better off than if they had never had a child.
So, I think, in descending order of preference we have:
1. Have a child; child survives.
2. Have a child; child dies.
3. Never have a child.

JJB said...

Hmm. I'm happy with my cat.

Matthew Duncombe said...

You set up the argument like this:

Having a child and losing them is either:

(a) Better than never having had a child
(b) Worse than never having had a child
(c) Equal value to never having had a child

I'm not sure that (b) shows that the parents are not harmed by the death of the child:

If (b) then the parents are worse off *because* they had a child.

The 'because' is troubling. The birth of the child is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for the grief. Its the *death* of the child sufficient condition for the grief. So we do not have to say that we are harmed by the birth of the child, only that his/her birth was necessary for the harm.

James Warren said...

Matthew,

You're quite right that Plutarch's reaction to (b) is odd; he seems to say that to think that (b) is true is to regret the child's birth. But, as you say, what we regret is not the birth but the death. I wonder if it helps at all if we think that it is already agreed by the time we get to the choice between a, b, and c, that better than having a child and losing them is having a child and still that child's being alive. We are now wondering what the second best is: is it having had a child and losing it or never having had a child at all? If the former, then (a) is true; if the latter then (b).