Posthumous Harm: Why the Dead are Still Vulnerable

by Raymond Angelo Belliotti

Overview

After introducing the early work of philosophers such as Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus, Cicero, Machiavelli, and Kant on the matter, this book critically examines the literature over the past four decades on the topic of posthumous harm.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780739171066
Publisher:	Lexington Books
Publication date:	12/15/2011
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	192
File size:	420 KB

About the Author

Raymond Angelo Belliotti is SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor of Philosophy at the State University of New York at Fredonia.

Table of Contents

Introduction
Chapter 1: Classical Writers
Chapter 2: The Contemporary Debate: In the Footsteps of Aristotle and Kant
Chapter 3: The Feinberg-Pitcher Account
Chapter 4: Refinements and Alternatives to the Feinberg-Pitcher Account
Chapter 5: Biological and Biographical Lives
Chapter 6: Why Rocky Marciano is Still Vulnerable

Editorial Reviews

Engagingly written and tightly argued, Posthumous Harm clarifies the paradoxical intuition that we can harm the dead even if their consciousness has been extinguished. If death is the end of all experience, then the dead seem safe from harm. So why do we take care to dispose of their remains and assets as they wished? Why is it wrong to besmirch the reputation of Cicero or Rocky Marciano? How can there be harm if there is no subject to experience the harm? Considering the hypothetical posthumous defamation of Rocky Marciano, Belliotti makes a convincing case that the prize fighter can be harmed today even though he has been dead since 1969. Taking inspiration from Aristotle and Kant, and engaging contemporary philosophers including Nagel and Feinberg, Belliotti has produced a truly unique work, the only book-length study of the issue.

William Irwin