Some of his arguments were a little extreme—he didn’t think, for instance, that there is any moral obligation to follow wills of the deceased if there is an overriding interest in redistributing wealth elsewhere, or that there are strong moral objections to using cemetery grounds for, say, housing for the poor. The general theme of his research was under what circumstances someone counts as a moral agent that deserves consideration. I didn’t understand much of his work, but his central argument was quite compelling: we owe nothing to the dead. Especially when the dead are thieves and liars,
...more
