Main description:

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.

Contents:

Part 1: The Dead Among Us 1. Introduction 2. An Encounter with the Corpse 3. Promises and Respecting the Ends of the Dead: An Arm-twisting Argument and a Kantian Framework for Respect 4. Disturbing Bodies: Art, Science, and Exhumation 5. Human Resources: The Cases of Cannibalism and Organ Harvesting 6. Memento Mortuis: The Obligation to Remember the Dead 7. Dialogues with the Dead: Memorials, Monuments, and the Duties of History Part 2: The Immortal Dead 8. The Argument for Modest Immortality 9. Is the Immortal Life Worth Living? 10. Ars moriendi: Learning to Live with Death and the Dead