Joel Feinberg on Duties to the Dead

This week we are going to continue to discuss Locke in Monday’s class, and then for Wednesday we will read a contemporary (1980’s) paper by the philosopher Joel Feinberg. This paper is unlike everything else that we have read this semester, both because it was written in the last forty years and because even among things written the last forty years it is not a great classic. But Feinberg is well-known for defending the view that we can have obligations to people who are dead, and this is a very short article that directly raises related issues and which applies clearly to treatment of the bodies of the dead - which is what you guys need to be worried about, since zombies are reanimated corpses.

In this article, Feinberg is not really trying to defend his view that we can have obligations to people who are dead, so much as to push back against people who he thinks take too seriously the idea that we need to respect the bodies of the dead. But if you are interested in what he says about why we can have obligations to people who are dead, it comes up in this episode of the Slate podcast Hi-Phi Nation, which I also encourage you to give a listen:

As you read Feinberg’s article, think about what makes his style of writing different from those we have read so far this semester, and what you like or don’t like about that. And try to apply his reasoning to the case of zombies.

TIOR Topics

For your TIOR topic this week you can take on Feinberg, or you can take on the main author who he criticizes, Willard Gaylin, or you may take on Locke’s claims about private property, so long as you do not overlap with your TIOR from last week.