Edexcel A2 Philosophy and Ethics - Life After Death Unit

2. 1) Reasons for agreeing with Life After Death:
• ‘Is this life all there is/meaningful?’ – this can’t be the end (need
more). Logic states we can’t just be born to die.
• ‘Moral Law – Aquinas/Kant’ - assumption that of you lead a good
life, you will be rewarded – justice.
• ‘Potential Fulfilled – Augustine/Hick’ – potential to do better.
• Religious Texts.
• Eastern Religions – Reincarnation.
2) Reasons for disagreeing with Life After
Death:
• ‘Richard Dawkins (Materialism)’ - we are
only physical DNA, not divinely created.
He is a biological materialist, stating that
divine activity is illusionary, which
includes souls, heaven and reincarnation.
The soul was invented by ‘primitive
people’ and ‘if you look to science, will
know souls to be false – all humans are
survival machines’, broken by death.
• ‘Gilbert Ryle (the Ghost in the Machine)’
– If you walk into a pub and see a juke
box with a light on but no one around it,
then it goes black, then creaks, you
wouldn’t assume it was haunted. So why
do people assume you do good because
of your soul when it is likely just thought
processes? Theists are just looking for
something that isn’t there. It is a
categorical mistake to say anything you
can’t explain is the soul as it is
misleading.
• A. J. Ayer (language) – phrases used in
Religious Language don’t make sense;
‘life after death’? They are contradictions
in terms that cannot be empirically
proved.
3) Key Questions:
• Life after death.
• Can there be a post-mortem existence? (chance that it’s right)?
• What form will it take? (an object reincarnation? People? Life has to
be the same and therefore must be people?)
• Still us? (even after reincarnation? Then isn’t it life, death, new life?
Can it be you if its not your body/species?)

3. 1) Why Hick believes in Life After Death:
• At some future date (Catholics – Judgment
day), God, as an ‘act of love’ will raise the
dead in a bodily form.
• Jesus said – ‘I am the resurrection and the
life. He who believes in me, through he dies,
yet shall he live.’
• Christ was resurrected with a physical body.
2) Post-mortem existence:
• Monism=body and Soul/I/Personality are
linked together to form one entity.
• ‘Independent but interacting realities’.
• Life after death therefore involves a body
and a soul linked together.
• ‘A person is indissoluble psycho-physical
unity’.
3) Form:
• Hick’s Replica Theory.
• At death, the whole person dies.
• But God, by an act of sovereign power,
recreates the person, not as an identical-
physical organism, but as a ‘soma
pneumatikon’ (spiritual body).
• This spiritual body embodies the
dispositional characteristic and memory
traces of the person.
• ‘Exact copy’/replica of the person who dies.
4) Still us:
• A person in London disappears
and suddenly reappears in
New York – same personality
and continuity of memory.
Only thing possible changed is
continuity occupancy of space
because of monism.
• Person dies in London,
reappears in New York (with
the same characteristics). We
would be forced to say that it is
the same person.
• Person dies and the person
with the same character traits,
memories appears in a
resurrected world. Is that the
same person?
5) Quotes:
• Inhabits an environment
continuous with this ‘spiritual
body’.
• ‘…not situated at any distance,
or in any direction from the
objects in our present world
although each object in with
world is spatially related to
every other object in the same
world.’
6) Support – Peter Vardy:
• Vardy supports Hick with his
Student Essay Example.
• He argues if you get an essay
photocopied, the photocopy
has the same content as the
original.
• Therefore, you would say it is
an exact replica, which is the
same as Hick’s theory as
there is the same ‘I’ so is
therefore logical to say it’s
the same person.
7) Summary:
• Post-mortem existence; yes,
body and mind become
spiritual – God acts through
love to raise copy in this
reality as body and spirit are
linked and therefore
possible.
• Form; spiritual, in another
reality with the same body
and mind in spiritual forms
with others – looks like alive
person but see through.
• You; yes, analogy of London
to NY and life to death.

4. 2) Peter Vardy:
• Good because it is rooted in
Christian teachings.
• Resurrection of body – seen
in Jesus.
• Gospel of John; ‘I am the
resurrection and the life’.
1) Dr. Ray Moody:
• Looked at near death experiences in his research.
• Found they all have similar criteria.
• Most experienced ‘bliss and ecstasy’ – need a body for this feeling and movement which seems to add evidence.
• ‘Observe’ – see things (friends and family) in these experiences and therefore soul must be linked to eyes and therefore
body.
• ‘Awareness of physical pain’ – body and soul must be linked.
Jesus

5. 4) General:
• God could make multiple replicas
which would undermine personal
identity.
• A replica is not as valuable as the
original.
• A replica, by definition, is not the
same as the original.
• Practical issues; how the person
dies – replicated?
2) Don Cupitt:
• It requires God to make the
replica – what if there is no God?
• This means Hick’s view on life
after death is ultimate rests on
faith in God – other theories
don’t.
1) Terence Penelhum:
• ‘Time causes the person’s
identity to change’.
• Because it takes time/space
to replicate someone, you
are not the same person you
were before they died.
3) A. J. Ayer:
• Doesn’t like Hick’s ‘exact
replica’ – as the language id of
‘no literal significance’ as it
doesn’t work and gives no
empirical evidence.
• ‘The fact that it would not be
correct to call them persons
would not perhaps be of very
great importance.’

6. 1) Post-mortem existence:
• Hick: states monism is correct, so body
and soul are together after death.
• Vardy: Jesus was resurrected and
therefore so can his followers.
• Moody: there are near death
experiences and therefore existence
after death is possible.
• Cupitt: rests on Gods existence.
3) Form:
• Hick: spiritual form.
• Vardy: saw Jesus’ body and was passed
through.
• Moody: ‘observe’ – float/see people
from above in experiences.
• Cupitt: need God to replicate this form.
2) Still us:
• Hick: exact replica of spiritual person.
• Vardy: Jesus looked the same after
death.
• Moody: travel in near death
experiences and therefore have a body.
• Penelhum: time/space it takes changes
the person and is therefore not you.
• Ayer: no empirical evidence for a replica
and therefore of no importance.

7. 1) Post-mortem existence:
• Theory shaped by dualism.
• Body is physical – belonging to a physical
world of sensations.
• Soul is non-physical but exists in a spiritual
way.
• Because of this, it will not decay as nothing
can reach it.
• So they are dual united and therefore
separate at death.
• It’s the soul that gives you reason, not the
mind as it makes you want to experience
the world – coined ‘universalia ante res’
(universal concepts) by Plato. Your soul
searches for them and intuitionally know
they are wrong.
• The soul is pure and searches for greater
good and desires justice.
2) Form:
• Soul is incorruptible and therefore never
broken and immortal as it doesn’t break
away/decay.
• ‘Since we cannot see any other cause which
destroys the soul, we are naturally inclined
to conclude that it is immortal’ – Descartes.
• It can therefore live on after death.
3) Still us:
• An immortal soul – ‘I think therefore I am’ - Descartes.
• Descartes – ‘mind’ is the seat of all feelings and sensations.
• Mind/soul is the ‘essence of the person’ – soul makes you, you and
therefore when you die it is the same you.
• Thoughts are only interaction between the mind and body, but can
be understood in this reality.
• The soul is the animator/‘anima’ (Aquinas)
• ‘The mind is non-spatial, and conscious. It experiences thoughts,
feeling, desires and emotions’ – Descartes.
4) Summary:
• Post-mortem; because soul is immortal, it can live after the death
of a physical body forever as it does not decay.
• Form; spiritual form – soul lives on forever (immortal).
• You; soul makes you, you and the soul is still there (Descartes – ‘I
think therefore I am’.)

8. Dr. Deepak Chopra:
• Strength of post-mortem ideas.
• Looked into the existence of ghosts.
• After death, this energy continues in
the form of a ghost.
• Many people have such experiences
and they must therefore be reliable.
Immanuel Kant:
• Strength of form.
• ‘Summon bonum’ – the highest good.
• ‘The summon bonum is only possible
on the presupposition of the
immortality of the soul.’
• Soul shapes your mortality.

9. Richard Dawkins:
• Is a materialist, believing that only physical
things exist.
• ‘Divine activity is an illusion’.
• You are just DNA.
• Soul was invented by ‘primitive people’.
Gilbert Ryle:
• ‘Ghost in the machine’.
• ‘Category mistake’.
• Can’t find a soul because one does
not exist.

10. 1) Post-mortem existence:
• The soul itself is in a state
of illusion, enclosed in a
set of ‘bodies’.
• The ‘gross body’ – physical
body.
• The ‘subtle body’ – mind,
the intellect, the emotions
and ‘spiritual aspects’ of
the person.
• The aspects of a person
that change in their
lifetime are called
samskaras or impressions.
2) Form:
• A reincarnated body.
• On the death of the soul (atman) is born again in another bodily form (not
immortality of the soul – a new life not more life).
• The soul receives a higher or lower rebirth depending on how a person has lived
their lives.
• The good or bad actions done are called karma.
• The cycle/circle goes on through many lives until the soul achieves ultimate reality
(nirvana) and is united with Brahman.
• It is the subtle body that is reincarnated on earth.
• It is through repeated physical lives on earth that the soul ultimately discovers the
path to perfection and enlightenment (moksha).
3) Still us:
• On the death of the soul
(atman) is born again in
another body.
• ‘Just as a person casts off
worn-out garments and
puts on others that are
new, even so does the
embodied soul cast off
worn-out bodies and takes
on others that are new’ –
Bhagavad Gita 2, 13.
4) Summary:
• Post-mortem
existence; subtle
body that can live on.
• Form; reincarnated
body in this world.
• You; subtle body in
both lives.

11. 1) Dualism:
• Descartes, Plato and Aquinas may
support the idea that the thinking self
is more essential than the body, or
the view that the body has a non-
material cause.
3) Pre-existed:
• If the soul is independent of the body, then it is
logical to suppose that it could have pre-existed.
4) Dr. Ian Stevenson:
• ‘Yoga memory’ – the experience of people,
usually children, who claim to be someone reborn
with memories of a previous life.
• Takes them back through their lives in a
hypnotised state, then askes about ages they have
not yet reached (asking a 5 year old about when
they were 25) and many can recall in detail what
happened to them then.
2) Ancient:
• The belief in reincarnation is ancient, tried
and tested. It has emerged from a
sophisticated body of eastern philosophy
and metaphysics (e.g. – in the Bhagavad
Gita).

12. 1) Stephen Davies:
• Evidence for yoga memory ‘may be flimsy’ - he argues that
contact between families may allow children to account for a
remembered past life which they have not really
experienced.
3) Gilbert Ryle:
• The mind should not be seen as non-
physical; ‘ghost in the machine’.
2) Marxism:
• Bourgeoisie use reincarnation and
karma as a tool to control the
Proletariat.
• ‘sigh of the oppressed creature’.
4) Dark View:
• It assumes a dark view of reality with
the unavoidability of suffering – bad
things will happen if you're bad.

13. 1) Post-mortem existence:
• A person is made up of the physical body
and four mental elements; feelings,
perceptions, moral will and consciousness –
which together are called ‘nama-rupa’.
• The physical body is temporary; the real self
is eternal and unchanging and can live on.
2) Form:
• The physical body dies, and the ‘nama-rupa’
is released and the character aspects of the
person are reborn into another person.
• The rebirth is governed by ‘karma’ – how
good or bad a person has been in their
previous lives.
• Therefore the ‘self’/‘aspects’ must rid itself
of all change and achieve ‘nirvana’.
• ‘More numerous are those beings who,
decrease as men, are reborn in purgatory,
who are born in the wounds of animals, who
are reborn in the realms of ghosts’ – The
Buddha
3) Still us:
• The ‘aspects’ are the person.
• The ‘soul’ must fix itself.
4) Summary:
• Post-mortem existence; consciousness reses out of used body.
• Form; reborn into new body with the same character aspects.
• You; contains the same aspects/soul.

14. 1) Moral Value:
• Since we are constantly reborn we must constantly strive
for good ‘karmic effects’.
• We are never just damned or saved.
3) The enlightenment of the Buddha:
• Rebirth stresses the importance of
personal spirituality and rather faith.
2) Psychological proofs:
• There is some psychological truth in the idea of ‘anatta’
since who we are is something which is constantly
changing.

15. 1) G. E. Moore:
• There is no hard
evidence for the laws
of karma affecting our
lives. It might fall into
the ‘naturalistic
fallacy’ in that it
confuses moral ideas
with factual
information about
how the world works.
2) Dark View:
• It assumes a dark view
of reality with the
unavoidability of
suffering – bad things
will happen if you're
bad.

16. 1) Hume:
• Lack of evidence of life after death.
• When you prove a hypothesis you
prove it synthetically, posterior or
analytically, a priori.
2) Flew:
• Language meaning debate.
• Questioned whether life after
death has any ‘linguistic meaning’
in his essay – ‘Can a man witness
his own funeral?’
• The words used have no meaning.
• If a ship is torpedoed , we classify
those on board exclusively as
‘dead’ or ‘survivors’.
• It is accepted that one cannot be
both.
• Talk of surviving death is a bit like
talking of ‘dead survivors’; a
contradiction in terms.
• Therefore, he claims that the idea
of the afterlife is meaningless and
untrue.
• I, you, him can only apply to living
organisms which we can
experience or interact with.
3) Freud:
• Illusion – not real.
• It is ‘wishful thinking’.
• Projection (made to happen) by
mans own mind.
• Life after death is the creation of the
human mind.
• Society unite in ‘universal neurosis’.
• Any claim by the theist should be
‘disregarded in relation to reality’.
4) Marx:
• Oppression.
• Life after death is a man made
concept as there is no empirical
evidence.
• ‘…is the opium of the people’ –
there’s something stopping the
working class from uniting and over
throwing the ruling class.
• Marx says the working class are in a
state of ‘false consciousness’.
Summary:
• Hume:
• Resurrection – no evidence
of a body coming back to
life or the existence of a
soul.
• Immortality of the soul - no
evidence at all.
• Rebirth - no evidence for
eternal self living on after
death.
• Reincarnation – no evidence
for souls existence.
• Flew:
• Resurrection – has no literal
meaning.
• Immortality of the soul –
immortality has no literal
meaning.
• Rebirth – no literal meaning
to having new life.
• Reincarnation – no literal
significance to soul moving
in another being.

17. Possible Impossible
Man does seem to be more than just a
physical entity and so would assume that
there could be a soul – Descartes (‘I think
therefore I am’).
Lack of empirical evidence and inability to
ever prove life after death (we are alive)
seriously undermines any theory offered
in favour of it – Hume (fork analogy).
If you believe in God, you would hope a
benevolent God would allow us to love a
life that means more than just waiting to
die; need a purpose for existence – Kant
(‘Summon bonnum’).
The concept of life after death, because it
has never been proven, must be classed
as a meta-physical belief and therefore
could be seen as wishful thinking – Freud
(‘universal neurosis’).
Evidence from paranormal activity seems
to offer some empirical evidence for life
after death - Dr. Ian Stevenson (yoga
memory).
Continued belief in life after death could
be seen as a way of controlling people by
fear of eternal damnation and therefore
remains oppressive – Marx (‘false
consciousness’).

18. Differences Resurrection Immortality
Theory –
monism/dualism
- Body and soul together are one entity.
- ‘independent but interacting realities’.
- Can’t have one without the other – have to have
both.
- Body = physical soul which = spiritual.
- Dual united but separatable.
- ‘universalia ante res’.
Form life after
death takes
- Hick – at death, whole person dies and is replicated
by God into spiritual world with ‘resurrected bodies’.
- Soul is immortal, body is mortal and therefore they split at
death – soul lives
- ‘since we cannot see any other cause which destroys the
soul we are naturally inclined to conclude that it is immortal’
– Descartes.
Same I:
Descartes and
Vardy
- J. Smith analogy – same person in NY and London
(contains body and soul).
- Vardy – photocopied essay = same
- Mind is seat of feelings (pineal gland – ‘I think therefore I
am’ – Descartes).
- Thoughts = interactions between mind & body that are
understandable
Similarities Resurrection Immortality
Ayer –
Language
- Doesn’t like Hick’s ‘exact replica’ – language; is on ‘no
literal significance’ as they don’t work – no empirical
evidence given and unverifiable.
- Replica isn’t the same – cant be a replicated world.
- Language – can’t have immortal soul because we are
contingent on something to exist unless it doesn’t exist.
- Can’t have spiritual form – it’s an ‘utterance’ – no proof.
- Can’t have soul – no evidence.
Moody -
Paranormal
- Near death experience research found common
criteria that pointed to a resurrected body because
feelings of bliss/pain need a body and therefore have a
physical body in the next life.
- Dr. Chora; ghosts are real as body has left over energy at
death.
- Often seen.
Penelhum – not
the same
- Personal identity is always changing and therefore
exact replicas are impossible.
- When the soul travels to spiritual world it takes time and
space and an experience of death and therefore not the
same us.