Living with the Dead

On Death, the Dead, and Immortality

J. Jeremy Wisnewski (Hartwick College, USA)

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English

Routledge
14 April 2023

Non-Western philosophy; Ethics & moral philosophy; Society & culture: general; Sociology: death & dying; Medical sociology

Series: Routledge Studies in Contemporary Philosophy

This book explores the moral place of the dead in our lives and in our afterlives. It argues that our lives are saturated by the past intentions and values of the dead, and that we offer the dead a form of modest immortality by fulfilling our obligations to remember them.

In the first part of the book, the author examines the scope and limits of our obligations to the dead. Our obligations to respect the wishes of the dead are more substantial than commonly acknowledged, but they can be overridden in a range of cases when they conflict with the vital interests of the living, such as in organ donation and wealth inheritance. By contrast, the author contends that the obligation to remember, at least collectively, cannot be completely overridden. In the second part of the book, the author argues that tradition offers the dead a form of modest immortality—the dead live on insofar as we enact those intentional states with which they most identified. He draws on the Confucian view of ritual to argue that ritual absorption ""reincarnates"" the dead in the actions of the living. Finally, the author defends a Jamesian account of a pluralistic self that is consistent with the view that we have obligations to the individual dead and that the selves of the dead are pragmatic constructions.

Living with the Dead will appeal to scholars and students interested in the philosophy of death, ethics, and cross-cultural philosophy.

By: J. Jeremy Wisnewski (Hartwick College USA)
Imprint: Routledge
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 229mm, Width: 152mm,
Weight: 485g
ISBN: 9781032293851
ISBN 10: 1032293853
Series: Routledge Studies in Contemporary Philosophy
Pages: 252
Publication Date: 14 April 2023
Audience: College/higher education , Professional and scholarly , Primary , Undergraduate
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

J. Jeremy Wisnewski is Professor of Philosophy at Hartwick College in upstate New York. His previous books include The Politics of Agency (Routledge, 2016), Heidegger (2013), Understanding Torture (2010), and Wittgenstein and Ethical Inquiry (2007).

Reviews for Living with the Dead: On Death, the Dead, and Immortality

Wisnewski does a remarkable job of addressing a number of central issues in the philosophy of death in the course of presenting a clever, creative, and cross-traditional argument for a modest form of immortality. This book is an invaluable addition to the literature on this topic. Adam Buben, Leiden University, The Netherlands