Is it Possible to Harm the Dead?
Mark R. Wicclair
Is it possible to harm the dead? Not surprisingly, the answer depends in part on how ?harm? is conceptualized. If harm is limited to pain, suffering, deterioration in health, or death, the dead (i.e., corpses) clearly cannot be harmed. However, this is an overly narrow conception of harm. For there are a variety of other ways in which people can be harmed, including damage to reputation, invasion of privacy, loss of dignity, loss of property, restrictions on freedom, loss of employment, loss of loved ones, and so forth. A broader and more plausible conception of harm would include all actions and events that negatively affect a person?s well being. Can postmortem actions and events affect a person?s well being?
Initially, it might seem that the answer has to be, ?No, of course not.? After all, how can an action or event that occurs after a person no longer exits affect that person?s well being? There is no person to affect, and events that occur after a person?s death appear to occur too late to either harm or benefit the person.
To be sure, we cannot alter a dead person?s life experiences. Thus, if a person?s well being can be affected by an action or event only if there is a change in her life experiences, then a person?s well being cannot be affected by actions or events that occur after her death. This condition is accepted by ?mental state? conceptions of well being, according to which well being is a function of positive or negative mental states, such as pleasure or pain. However, there are alternative conceptions of well being. One of these is a desire-based or preference theory, according to which a person?s well being is a function of desire or preference satisfaction.
The difference between the two conceptions of well is illustrated by the following example. Professor Perkins, an Egyptologist at an Ivy League university, is dying of cancer. He has spent the last five years writing a manuscript on ancient Egypt. His manuscript was returned by the publisher with a note indicating that reviewers had rejected it because much of it was based on data that had been decisively refuted in a recently published article. Professor Perkins? family, friends, and colleagues tell him that his manuscript was accepted for publication, which causes him to feel very happy. He dies without discovering the truth.
According to a mental state criterion of well being, insofar as Professor Perkins was unaware of the actual fate of his manuscript and experienced no negative feelings, such as disappointment, sadness, or despondency, the rejection of his manuscript had no negative effect on his well being. By contrast, according to a desire-based or preference conception, even though he was unaware of the negative assessment of his work and felt good about what he falsely believed he had accomplished, the fact that he failed to achieve his goal of making a significant scholarly contribution had a negative effect on his well being. The desire-based or preference conception appears to provide a more plausible account of Professor Perkins? well being; and according to that conception, from the mere fact that the dead can no longer have good or bad experiences, it does not follow that events that occur after a person?s death cannot affect that person?s well being.
However, there is another obstacle to accepting the view that actions and events after a person?s death can affect that person?s well being: How can actions and events affect a person after that person is dead and no longer exists? In other words, although it might be plausible to claim that actions and events that occur after Jones dies can have a significant impact on whether or not goals and plans that he had when he was alive are achieved, since Jones no longer exists, it is not plausible to state that those actions affect Jones? well being.
To respond to this challenge, it will be helpful to consider a common basis for concluding that actions and events have an affect on a living person?s well being. Often, when it is said that a certain action or event affects a person?s well being, that judgment is based in part on a belief that the event has either thwarted or promoted one or more of the person?s goals, interests, and/or wishes. A person?s goals, interests, and wishes tend to be forward-looking (in time). Some are time-specific or dated (e.g., my desire to finish a book manuscript by the end of next year and my plan to travel to the UK this summer), and others are open-ended (e.g., my interest in assuring that my wife and son have long, happy and satisfying lives; and my desire to make a significant contribution to bioethics).
Whether time-specific or open-ended, at any given time while a person is alive there are some goals, interests, and wishes that are still pending (i.e., it is not yet determined whether or not a goal will be achieved, an interest will be satisfied, or a wish will be fulfilled).
In the case of many goals, interests, and wishes, if they are to be achieved, it must occur before a person?s death (e.g., my plan to write a book on conscientious objection in health care and my plan to visit the UK). However, some goals, interests, and wishes are not restricted in this way by death (e.g., my desire that my wife and son have long, happy, and satisfying lives). Indeed, some can be directed specifically to events after death (e.g., my ?legacy? and my desire that after my death my body not be used for medical school anatomy instruction).
While people are still alive, actions and events can affect an account of earlier stages in their lives (metaphorically: earlier chapters in their biographies or life narratives). For example, suppose for the past two years Dr. Simpson has been credited with having discovered an effective treatment for pancreatic cancer. Last week, a report of follow-up clinical trials conclusively demonstrates that the treatment is not effective. This recent finding has an effect on an account of Dr. Simpson?s life and work, and the chapter in his life narrative that credited him with having discovered an effective treatment for pancreatic cancer will have to be revised. This revision in Mr. Simpson?s life narrative appears to call for a reassessment of his well being: It can no longer be said that he accomplished one of his major life goals, and, as a consequence, his life has not gone as well as it once seemed. Significantly the discovery that the treatment is ineffective calls for a reassessment of his well being during the two-year period in the past when he was still credited with having discovered an effective treatment for pancreatic cancer. His life during that two year period was not as good as it appeared at the time because, contrary to what was believed at the time, he had not achieved his objective of discovering an effective treatment for pancreatic cancer. It is to be expected that learning that he failed to achieve an important life goal will also make Dr. Simpson feel bad (e.g., sad, dejected, frustrated, despondent, depressed, angry, unhappy, etc.). But even if Dr. Simpson is a stoic and experiences no hint of sadness, it still seems appropriate to conclude that his life during the past two years has gone less well than previously thought because he did not, after all, achieve his objective.
Just as revisions in a person?s biography during her lifetime can call for a reassessment of her well being, so, too, changes that are prompted by postmortem events can call for a similar reassessment of the once living person?s well being. To return to the example of Dr. Simpson, suppose he suffers a heart attack and dies a day before it is established that his treatment is ineffective. To be sure, since he is dead, the fact that he actually failed to find an effective treatment for pancreatic cancer cannot affect his life experiences. Thus, whether or not he was a stoic, Dr. Simpson will not experience any sadness or disappointment. However, whether he is dead or alive, the relevant chapter of his biography needs to be revised and his (prior) well being is subject to reassessment. If Dr. Simpson dies one day before his treatment is determined to be ineffective rather than several days or years later, it is no less true that his life did not go as well as previously thought.
In addition to occasioning revisions in premortem narratives, postmortem actions and events can affect a person?s life narrative by adding an ?epilogue? which extends it to include events that occurred after the person?s death. A person?s biography might include accounts of the disposition of her body and posthumous honors and awards, and, depending on the nature of those postmortem narratives, they can provide evidence for thinking that a person?s life went and/or ended better or worse. Melvin Carnahan, who was elected to the U.S. Senate from Missouri after he died in a plane crash, did not savor his victory over John Ashcroft. However, by electing him, the citizens of Missouri added a postmortem epilogue to his life narrative, one that seems relevant when assessing how well his life went. Even though he was dead at the time of the election, since winning was one of his important projects before he died, it seems plausible to claim that his life went better than it would have if Ashcroft had won.
By contrast, consider the rather bizarre case of W. Delight Malitsky, who taught music and was a concert violinist before her death in February 2002, at the age of 79. After Ms. Malitsky died of liver disease in a Philadelphia area hospital, her estranged husband drove her body, which was packed in dry ice, to Pittsburgh, where he unsuccessfully tried to donate it for medical research. Before her death, Ms. Malitsky had secured a protection-from-abuse order against her husband, and she executed a power of attorney naming her daughter from a previous marriage. Ms. Malitsky?s daughter stated that her mother?s wishes were ?to be protected from him [Ms. Malitsky?s estranged husband] and not to be humiliated or embarrassed by him…But that?s exactly what he did.? The story appeared in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, which prompted Ms. Malitsky?s family to observe that she gained notoriety in death that she had hoped to avoid.
Ms. Malitsky experienced none of these events, but this rather grotesque epilogue to her life narrative appears to have cast a dark and unwanted shadow over it. Accordingly, it might well be said that her husband harmed her after her death. In any event, Ms. Malitsky?s estranged husband acted wrongfully in virtue of what he did with her remains after her death.
