Raymond Angelo Belliotti

Posthumous Harm (eBook, ePUB)

Why the Dead are Still Vulnerable

• Format: ePub

Produktbeschreibung

Reasonable people agree that, other things being equal, it is immoral to fail to fulfill deathbed promises, to maliciously defame the dead, and to mistreat corpses. But philosophical controversy swirls over why such acts are morally wrong. Are these acts wrong only because they violate moral norms against breaking promises, lying, and abusing others? Are these acts morally deficient because they wrong the dead? Are these acts morally wrong because they harm or injure the dead? Or are these acts blameworthy because they wrong, harm, or injure those who survive the deaths? Who are the genuine victims, if any, of these morally wrong acts? When first confronting such questions seriously, we discover paradoxes. On one hand, we are inclined to think that the dead person is in some sense wronged, harmed, or injured by posthumous treachery. After all, when a promise is broken, when someone is maliciously defamed, and when someone's request concerning the disposition of his remains is dismissed, we are inclined to think of the victims as the promisee, the defamed person, and the ignored person, respectively. On the other hand, in the case of the dead there are no "people" who might be identified as victims. Assuming that death marks finality, once we are dead we are no more. So perhaps the typical moral paradigms dissolve in such cases. Posthumous Harm: Why the Deadare Still Vulnerable addresses these issues and the host of questions surrounding them.

Produktdetails

• Verlag: Bloomsbury eBooks US
• Seitenzahl: 192
• Erscheinungstermin: 15. Dezember 2011
• Englisch
• ISBN-13: 9780739171066
• Artikelnr.: 48210838

Autorenporträt

Raymond Angelo Belliotti is State University of New York Distinguished Teaching Professor of Philosophy Emeritus and author of twenty-six books, including Values, Virtues, and Vices, Italian Style: Caesar, Dante, Machiavelli, and Garibaldi and Heroism and Wisdom, Italian Style: From Roman Imperialists to Sicilian Magistrates, both published by Fairleigh Dickinson University Press.

Inhaltsangabe

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