Talking about the end
How Epicurus and Christopher Hitchens faced death
It is often said the only certainty in life is death; yet contemplating mortality is something many spend most of their lives avoiding. As confronting as it is to think about, I want to talk about death. But I’m going to begin by talking about life — and in doing so describe my theory of what people need in order to be satisfied with their lives — because I don’t think you can really understand death, and how we think about death, until you understand how we think about life. I’ll also briefly contrast the views of the ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus, with those of the late Christopher Hitchens, in relation to living and dying well.
In the 1980s psychologists popularised something called self-determination theory. It’s a motivational theory that says all people need to be satisfied in life is three things: competence, autonomy, and relatedness. I think this is about half right. I’ve adapted the theory and created what I call self-requisite theory, for which I consider the three things people really need to be satisfied are: competence, control and connectedness. This may sound like all I’ve done is break out the thesaurus, but there are subtle differences.
I think self-determination theory has it right with competence. We all want to be good at what we do and derive a…
