The Posthumous Dignity of Dead Persons

In this chapter, the author explains the community of the 100 billion dead and builds a theory on how to approach them best. He provides evidence for posthumous dignity and identifies its constituent elements. The author shows that the posthumous dignity of the dead is the reason why the living have duties of respect and protection toward the dead. He operationalizes these two duties into more specific ones. A dead body is not an ordinary object, neither from a medical nor from a legal perspective. It is impossible to prove conclusively the existence of posthumous dignity as a dimension of the dead. Specific groups act or are entitled to act as representatives of the dead and to perform duties of protection. Posthumous dignity is not a right . The dead do not have rights and therefore no right to either posthumous dignity or posthumous respect.