Belliotti explores obligation to the dead in new book, "Posthumous Harm"

By Roger Coda

A thorough analysis of moral obligations to the dead is presented by Dr. Raymond Angelo Belliotti, Distinguished Teaching Professor of Philosophy at SUNY Fredonia, in his newest book, “Posthumous Harm: Why the Dead are Still Vulnerable.”

While noting that most people consider it immoral to fail to fulfill deathbed promises, to maliciously defame the dead or to mistreat corpses, Belliotti’s book goes on to explore the philosophical controversy that such acts are indeed morally wrong.

Belliotti sets the table for his examination with a series of questions: 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 immoral acts?

“When first confronting such questions seriously, we discover paradoxes,” Belliotti said. “On the 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” has received the praise of King’s College Philosophy professor William Irwin, who found it to be engagingly written and tightly argued. Irwin says Belliotti clarifies the paradoxical intuition that the dead can be harmed even though their consciousness has been extinguished.

Irwin points to Belliotti’s hypothetical posthumous defamation of Rocky Marciano and 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,” Irwin said.

Published by Lexington Books, “Posthumous Harm” is the 12th book written by Belliotti, a member of the SUNY Fredonia faculty since 1984. Other books by Belliotti, who holds both a doctorate and a law degree, have explored issues in jurisprudence, sexual ethics, ethnic identity, Nietzsche, the meaning of life, human happiness, philosophy and baseball, Machiavelli, Roman philosophy and Dante.