What is a healthy attitude to death?

The debate around assisted dying exposes fundamental questions about our attitudes to death. We will all die. Nothing is more certain. But it’s not something most of us really think about, apart from superficially. We can often think of death as something that happens to other people. There’s a paradox – we are more distanced from death than our ancestors, yet we are exposed to it every day in the news and value it as a key component of art and entertainment. We can have a morbid fascination with death but a fear of confronting our own mortality.

While, fear, anxiety and avoidance are deeply human responses, are they good for us both psychologically and morally? Those advocating a “death positive” approach see honest conversations about death and dying as the cornerstone of a healthy society. In theory, thinking about your death should put your life into perspective and direct your actions towards things that are good for you and others. But is that necessarily the case? Should death ever be seen as anything less than a tragedy? During the pandemic, there were concerns about the subtle messaging around the ‘acceptability’ of some deaths over others. In conflict, repeated exposure to death causes a callus to form, where there may be less empathy for the dead as a survival mechanism for the living.

Does a greater openness and acceptance of death help us to live better lives? Or can losing the fear of death mean we lose something of what it means to be human? What is a healthy attitude to death?

Chair: Michael Buerk Panel: Matthew Taylor, Ash Sarkar, Konstantin Kisin and Anne McElvoy Witnesses: Charlotte Haigh, Anton Noble, Victoria Holmes, Teodora Manea.

Producer: Dan Tierney Assistant producer: Ruth Purser Editor: Gill Farrington and Chloe Walker.