From Posthumous Harm to Posthumous Wrongs

Abstract

This chapter considers and responds to some additional objections that can be raised against the book’s thesis. These include objections that claim that the Posthumous Harm Thesis has unacceptable implications; objections that even if posthumous harm is possible it is not a kind of harm that makes an act even prima facie wrong, or at least not in a non-trivial way; and objections that claim that it is morally irrelevant or insignificant. The chapter then concludes by discussing some of the ethical implications of the book’s thesis for such issues as posthumous organ and gamete removal, posthumous publication of private documents, posthumous damage to graves and corpses, and posthumous punishment and restitution.

The complex case of Ellie Anderson

“…In 2011, when Byrne’s skeleton was still on display in a different museum, it was argued that his burial wishes should finally be respected 6. To explain the wrongness in cases like Byrne's, some ethicists have argued that it is indeed possible to harm or wrong people after their death 7–10. If there is some kind of prima facie obligation to respect the wishes of people after their death, it remains to be established what kind of reasons might outweigh or support such obligations, and on whom these duties might fall.…”

Posthumous Harm and Changing Desires

“…The existence of posthumous harm, understood as a person's being harmed by an act or event that obtains after their death, has been extensively defended on desiresatisfactionist grounds. In essence, the idea behind the desire-satisfactionist defense of posthumous harm is that posthumous harm can occur when a state of affairs that obtains after a person's death frustrates one or more of the desires that the person had while they were alive (Boonin 2019;Feinberg 1987;Luper 2012;Pitcher 1984). The general, underlying principle is (some version of) the following (Boonin 2019: ch.…”

“…In short, the problem is that, in order to support the existence of posthumous harm, the Desire Principle must include futureoriented desires in its scope, but, in cases where future-oriented desires change before the time of their objects, the principle yields implausible results. In his desiresatisfactionist defense of posthumous harm, David Boonin (2019) proposes a way to overcome the problem of changing desires. He argues that, once we properly clarify the seemingly problematic results, we will see that they are not implausible after all.…”

“…In this paper, I argue, first, that there are two relevant versions of the problem of changing desires, that Boonin's (2019) proposed solution is implicitly focused on one of them, and that, on the other version, the problem of changing desires remains unsolved despite Boonin's suggested measures for overcoming it. Second, I argue that the Modified Desire Principle approach is better suited for solving the problem of changing desires, since it allows the desire-satisfactionist defense of posthumous harm to overcome both versions of the problem.…”

“…The outline of the paper is as follows. In section 2, I explain the problem of changing desires and Boonin's (2019) proposed solution. In section 3, I argue that there are two relevantly different versions of the problem.…”