18. Do the Dead Have Rights? With Joseph Bowen

05/20/24 • 42 min

Ethical questions about the dead are frequently interesting, puzzling, surprising, and weird. All of these things become clear in this conversation with Dr Joseph Bowen. Joe is a Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Leeds, specialising in moral, political, and legal philosophy. As well as whether the dead have rights, his research focuses on the nature of rights and directed duties, the justifications for and constraints on harming, the nature and scope of duties to rescue, and just war theory.
Here's Joe:
https://ahc.leeds.ac.uk/philosophy/staff/4794/dr-joseph-bowen
https://joseph-bowen.weebly.com/
He's written about whether the dead have rights in this paper:
Bowen, J. 2022. ‘The Interest Theory of Rights at the Margins: Posthumous Rights’, Without Trimmings: The Legal, Moral, and Political Philosophy of Matthew Kramer, Visa Kurki & Mark McBride (eds), (Oxford: Oxford University Press).

And here are some other readings which might be of interest:

Jeff McMahan, ‘Death and the Value of Life’ Ethics 99, 1 (1998), pp. 32-61.
Cécile Fabre, ‘Posthumous Rights’, in Matthew H. Kramer, and others (eds), The Legacy of H.L.A. Hart: Legal, Political, and Moral Philosophy (Oxford; Oxford University Press, 2008).
David Boonin, Dead Wrong: The Ethics of Posthumous Harm (Oxford; Oxford University Press, 2019).
Ben Bradley, Well-Being and Death (New York; Oxford University Press, 2009).

Book your place at our public event with Gavin Esler, "Dead Cats, Strategic Lying and Truth Decay", here.

Ethics Untangled is produced by IDEA, The Ethics Centre at the University of Leeds.
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And here are some other readings which might be of interest:

Jeff McMahan, ‘Death and the Value of Life’ Ethics 99, 1 (1998), pp. 32-61.
Cécile Fabre, ‘Posthumous Rights’, in Matthew H. Kramer, and others (eds), The Legacy of H.L.A. Hart: Legal, Political, and Moral Philosophy (Oxford; Oxford University Press, 2008).
David Boonin, Dead Wrong: The Ethics of Posthumous Harm (Oxford; Oxford University Press, 2019).
Ben Bradley, Well-Being and Death (New York; Oxford University Press, 2009).

Book your place at our public event with Gavin Esler, "Dead Cats, Strategic Lying and Truth Decay", here.

Previous Episode

17. Does Love Transcend Time? With Troy Jollimore

This episode is an exploration of the relationship between love and time with Troy Jollimore. As well as being a Professor in the Philosophy Department at California State University, Troy is a successful poet. His first collection of poetry, Tom Thomson in Purgatory, won the National Book Critics Circle award in poetry for 2006. His third, Syllabus of Errors, appeared on the New York Times' list of the best books of poetry published in 2015. He's also a literary critic, and in this interview he illustrates his ideas with examples from films and literature, as well as real life.
You can find out more about Troy's work - the philosophy, the poetry and the literary criticism - here:
https://www.troyjollimore.com/
There's a list of his philosophical papers here, including things he's written about films including Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Vertigo and The Big Lebowski, all of which are referred to in the episode:https://www.troyjollimore.com/philosophy-papers
You can read the Song of Solomon (King James version) here:
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Song%20of%20Solomon%201&version=KJV
...and you can listen to 'Endless Love' by Lionel Richie and Diana Ross here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Bwwo7ctG10

Book your place at our public event with Gavin Esler, "Dead Cats, Strategic Lying and Truth Decay", here.

Next Episode

19. What is Technological Bias and What Should We Do About It? With Meredith Broussard

Meredith Broussard is a data journalist and associate professor at the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute of New York University, as well as research director at the NYU Alliance for Public Interest Technology. Her book More Than a Glitch: Confronting Race, Gender, and Ability Bias in Tech explores the way technology reinforces inequality and asks the question, what if racism, sexism, and ableism aren't just bugs in mostly functional machinery—what if they're coded into the system itself?

It's a great read, full of eye-opening examples and insights, from a writer with the technical and ethical expertise to get to the heart of what is clearly a very significant challenge for society. We were only able to scratch the surface in this short conversation, but it's changed my thinking about technology ethics, and I was very grateful to Professor Broussard for taking the time to talk to us.
You can find out more about Professor Broussard here:
https://meredithbroussard.com/
Places you can buy More Than a Glitch include the following:
https://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/product/More-Than-a-Glitch-by-Meredith-Broussard/9780262548328
https://www.amazon.co.uk/More-Than-Glitch-Confronting-Ability/dp/0262047659

Book your place at our public event with Gavin Esler, "Dead Cats, Strategic Lying and Truth Decay", here.