Philosophers have argued back and forth about whether the fear of death can be justified by arguments of rationality. Ewin (philosophy, U. of Western Australia) suggests that both sides have gotten the question wrong. Fear of death, he suggests, is prerational, underlying all of the concepts with which we reason. Rather than reifying "Reason," we should see reasons as emerging from a complex of emotion, cognition, and other aspects of being human that emerged from our evolutionary history. In approaching reason and death in this way, we can shed new light on the moral judgements on euthanasia and related questions. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc. , Portland, OR.