Abstract

I defend two major theses: (i) because the dead no longer exist, the dead cannot be harmed or wronged; and (ii) because the dead cannot be harmed or wronged, it is irrational to care about the future postmortem state of our reputations. I explain away common intuitions that the dead can be harmed by pointing to our ability to imagine ourselves in the place of a dead person. When we imagine ourselves in the place of a dead person, we exploit a third person perspective that is simply not available to a dead person.