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Editorial

The Grim Reader

by Rick Lewis

Some of the Philosophy Now team were worried when we decided that the theme of this issue would be death. Not only did they feel it to be unlucky, they also fretted about who it would appeal to. Who would read it, apart from pale adolescents who like dressing in black and listening to Sisters of Mercy albums? Who would advertise in it, apart from maybe funeral parlours? I assured them that death was of more general concern than that.

Death is not only a great mystery, it is, of course, one of those matters that crops up in everyone’s lives like an unwelcome guest, usually unexpected, usually uninvited. Confronting death, as with confronting some ethical problems in life, is something everyone ends up having to do at some stage, whether they are interested in philosophy or not.

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