The wishes of the dead seem to have normative significance. We take seriously people's last requests, what they loved, what they valued, even after they have escaped this mortal coil. The law—in a way that seems perfectly normatively uprightFootnote 1—takes seriously the wishes of the dead as they concern, for instance, their property, their reproductive material, and their image and reputation.
But these facts present a philosophical puzzle. Why should we care about the wishes of the dead? Why should the fact that some dead person preferred x to y be a reason to promote x rather than y, especially if there is additional reason to prefer y to x? In this paper, I argue that extant solutions to this problem are inadequate and provide an alternative. Rather than explaining the normative significance of the wishes of the dead in terms of the interests or well-being of the dead, I claim that the ultimate normative explanation is to be provided by the normative demands of friendship.
The plan of this paper runs as follows. In Section I I argue that there appears to be a prima facie problem when it comes to offering normative justification for typical practice vis-á-vis the wishes of the dead. In Sections II and III, I consider three solutions to this problem and find them wanting. In Section IV, I argue that taking seriously the wishes of the dead seems to be tied intimately to the special reasons we have as a result of friendship. Section V explores and defends this justification. And Section VI argues that the Associative Account can plausibly be used to defend the practice of taking seriously the wishes of the dead in matters of law.
I. THE PROBLEM
Most legal systems take the wishesFootnote 2 of the dead seriously. The simplest case is that of wills. Though most jurisdictions place substantial limits on the power of the dead to disburse resources and other worldly goods to the living, most legal systems allow some latitude to the dead to express their wishes when it comes to their property after they die and will require that such property be distributed in the manner so indicated. Indeed, legal systems grant recognition to a wide range of other wishes of the dead, as well. Leaving aside wills, the dead also have substantial reproductive rights, especially as concerns frozen sperm and ova,Footnote 3 rights to privacy, and rights to publicity, including the protection of their image after their death.Footnote 4
And leaving aside the vagaries of any particular legal system, it just seems right that, in many cases, the dead's wishes have normative pull. Take, for instance, the following case:
Baffin Bay: After my grandfather dies, in going through his affairs, I discover a diary entry that indicates he would like his ashes scattered in Baffin Bay, where he once traveled with his wife (now deceased).
Given my discovery, no one would believe that I lack reason to follow through on my grandfather's wishes, despite the expense and time involved in making this wish come true. While I may not have decisive reason to move heaven and earth to do so, the fact that my grandfather wished for it is certainly something that has normative significance.
To put this idea more precisely, consider the
Reason Thesis: it is at least sometimes the case that agents have a reason to ϕ that is explained, in part, by the wishes of a dead person.
The Reason Thesis certainly seems true in Baffin Bay.
But this raises an important normative question: Why? Why should the fact that a dead person wished for x generate or constitute a reason to promote x? Furthermore, this question seems all the more urgent given the normative strength we often attribute to the wishes of the dead. In particular, one would scarcely object to my holding that the fact that my grandfather wished it would be sufficient (at least most other things being equal) to justify my scattering his ashes in Baffin Bay, despite the expense and effort involved. Put another way, not only is there a reason to respect the wishes of the dead, doing so (in many cases) seems at least on balance normatively justified. Call this the
Justification Thesis: it is at least sometimes the case that agents have sufficient normative justification to ϕ that is explained, at least in part, by the wishes of a dead person.
Notice the “sometimes.” If my grandfather wishes me to murder his work rival, or promote the glories of Adolf Hitler, while his wish is a reason to do so, this reason will obviously not be justifying given the massive and overwhelming reasons against doing so.
Notice that the Justification Thesis is weaker than a further thesis, which runs as follows:
Requirement Thesis: it is at least sometimes the case that agents have a normative requirement to ϕ that is explained, in part, by the wishes of a dead person.
And while I will focus on the Justification Thesis here, the Requirement Thesis seems true as well. For instance, imagine that I had booked a cruise of Baffin Bay this summer. My friend asks me whether I plan to take my grandfather's ashes to scatter them. “Nah,” I say. “It would add bulk to my suitcase.” “But didn't he want his ashes to be scattered there?” “I suppose, but who cares? Certainly not him anymore!” In ignoring my grandfather's wishes, especially given that to respect them would be relatively low cost, I seem to have done something wrong.Footnote 5
But leaving aside the Requirement Thesis, the Justification Thesis is hard enough to explain. This is in part because, independently of the wishes of the dead, there may be background or default normative circumstances that one would ordinarily think would be sufficient to require us to act. To see what I mean by this, notice that there may very well be strong normative rationale for certain standard courses of action when it comes to matters involving the dead. Taking the simplest case of a person's property, one possibility is state seizure: when a person dies, there (let's suppose) are strong reasons for the state to seize their property and use it for normatively justified ends (such as, e.g., advancing the welfare of the least well-off, and so on). So as to remain ecumenical between substantive theories of justice, morality, and so forth, I'll simply refer to the normatively required practice leaving aside any wishes of dead folks as the “normative default.” But notice that in granting the wishes of the dead normative status, one is allowing these preferences to overrule the normative default.Footnote 6 Leaving aside the legal context, one might consider, again, Baffin Bay. Ordinarily we would think I have strong, decisive reason to do something with my resources other than spending them on a trip to the cold waters of Baffin Bay, something I have no independent interest in doing. Perhaps I should spend them on my kids, or myself, or the least well-off. But the fact that my grandfather wished to have his ashes scattered in Baffin Bay seems to give me at least sufficient reason to ignore the other uses to which my funds may be put.
Given these reflections, we may be tempted to cast a skeptical eye on the typical normative respect we grant to the wishes of the dead.Footnote 7 First, consider the normative default. Let's assume for the purposes of argument that the normative default concerns the welfare and material circumstances of the living. But given the Justification Thesis, the wishes of the dead can overrule the normative default, i.e., the welfare interests of the living. To take a simple case, consider:
Coin Collection: Roger has two children, Anne and Boris. Anne takes great pleasure in helping Roger with his coin collection and has become something of an expert in the pursuit. Boris enjoys coin collecting, but substantially less than Anne. Roger leaves his coin collection to Boris.
In this case, it seems right to say that, e.g., we are justified in distributing the coins to Boris on these grounds. But this clearly comes at a cost: Anne would have appreciated them much more and, had Roger not expressed his wishes in this way, this consideration seems normatively decisive.
As I say, this is a simple case, but it shows the point at issue. Assuming that the assignment of a normative default has some general rationale—that is, after all, why it is the normative default—why should it be the case that the wishes of a dead person can overrule this rationale? This is especially puzzling in light of the surface plausibility of the
No Harm Principle: fulfilling the wishes of people after they have died does not make them better-off; frustrating the wishes of people after they have died does not make them worse-off.
Given that respecting the wishes of the dead can negatively impact the overall welfare of the living (as in Coin Collection), and given—if we accept the No Harm Principle—that respecting the wishes of the dead does not affect the dead in any way, the practice of allowing the wishes of the dead to overrule the normative default starts to sound a bit absurd.
II. INSTRUMENTAL JUSTIFICATIONS
What follows is a discussion of three attempts to respond to the—quite reasonable—skepticism surrounding the normative significance of the wishes of the dead.
The first possible rationale for granting the wishes of the dead normative status (even to the extent that they override or tell against the default normative presumption) is relatively straightforward. There may be instrumental justifications for allowing the wishes of the dead to overrule the normative default. For instance, as a legal matter, the ability of people to distribute their property has been held to encourage hard work and participation in the labor force.Footnote 8 Given that this sort of participation has some normative justification (which I'll just assume for the sake of argument) it could be that while taking seriously the wishes of the dead does not have any intrinsic normative justification, it is a helpful tool in the achievement of those things that are normatively significant, including those mentioned above. After all, if I can bequeath my property as I see fit (say, to my children or to causes that I care about), I may be led to seek to acquire more, work harder, engage more productively in the national economy, and so on, perhaps leading to intrinsic goods somewhere down the line. Furthermore, one might imagine that the living may be distressed to learn their own posthumous wishes will be ignored, and hence reasons to look after the wishes of the dead result from an interest in ameliorating this distress.
I don't wish to gainsay the possibility that respecting the wishes of the dead has these effects, at least in many cases. Perhaps it does. But notice that instrumental justifications such as these cannot be the whole story. Most importantly, this justification would seem to provide no rationale for, e.g., reasons to scatter my grandfather's ashes in Baffin Bay. I find it hard to believe that knowing that my earthly remains will be disposed of in a manner I prefer will have any particular impacts on my life as it is lived now or will encourage the development of earthly well-being in any significant way. Furthermore, we might simply imagine that no one really knows anything about my grandfather's wishes, and so my refusal to take his ashes to Baffin Bay wouldn't cause any problematic distress. But this doesn't seem to cancel the reasons I may have to do so.
Finally, it also just seems incorrect that it is the instrumental effects of conforming to the wishes of the dead that provide such conformity normative justification. In being asked to justify taking my grandfather's ashes to Baffin Bay, I'm not generally tempted to refer to, say, the instrumental effects of so doing. Rather, I refer to my grandfather's wishes, full stop: “My grandfather wanted his ashes scattered in Baffin Bay. I felt I should do that for him.” Such a claim would generally (other things being more or less equal) be taken as sufficient in itself to justify my action.
III. TWO “INTEREST” THEORIES
The second approach—which comes in two forms—takes as central the interests of the dead. Key in distinguishing the two varieties concerns the term “interests.” What does this mean? The first version of an interest theory holds that the interests of the dead refers specifically to their welfare, their quality of life. This view—call it the welfarist interest theory—holds that the No Harm Principle is false and seeks to justify normative practice on those grounds, insofar as benefit, harm, and so forth clearly matter. The second view—call it the unbounded interest theory—holds that the interests of the dead simply refer to their preferences or desires. And thus even if thwarting or satisfying a decedent's interests does not materially affect her well-being, does not benefit or harm her, the normative rationale to be had for taking seriously the wishes of the dead in promoting some state of affairs ϕ is the fact that ϕ was something a dead person desired, intended, and so on.
I'll take both versions of the interest theory in turn.
A. The Welfarist Interest Theory
The welfarist interest theory, as just noted, denies the No Harm Principle. You'll recall that according to this principle, you cannot harm someone after they die by failing to respect their wishes. This principle was important to the skeptical argument offered in Section I, insofar as skepticism about the importance of the fact that some dead person preferred some state of affairs might very well be allayed if it could be shown that, in fact, respecting the wishes of the dead affects their well-being, i.e., makes them better- or worse-off.
This very claim is suggested by Joel Feinberg:Footnote 9
Suppose that after my death, an enemy cleverly forges documents to “prove” very convincingly that I was a philanderer, an adulterer, and a plagiarist, and communicates this “information” to the general public that includes my widow, children, and former colleagues and friends. Can there be any doubt that I have been harmed by such libels?Footnote 10
There could be many potential explanations for this intuition.Footnote 11 Perhaps the most plausible one is that the maintenance of a person's reputation is generally something that they hold very significant when it comes to their projects, goals, and lifetime achievements. If, for instance, my reputation is destroyed following my death, it may count as a failure of my life's project, or perhaps an important part of it, rather than what might otherwise have been a success.Footnote 12 It seems quite plausible to hold that this is a harm—not necessarily a harm to a person after death, but a harm to a person while they lived. After all, a project I cared deeply about was a failure. Of course, puzzles arise concerning posthumous harm, including, e.g., the timing puzzle (when does a posthumous harm harm a person?) and others.Footnote 13 But notice that it's far from clear that these puzzles can't be overcome.Footnote 14
Given all this, I remain officially neutral on the No Harm Thesis in this paper.Footnote 15 But even if, for the above reasons, we reject it, does this mean that the welfarist interest theory is sufficient to justify the typical normative practice as regards the wishes of the dead? No. The possibility of harms to a decedent cannot explain all, or even very many, of the wishes of the dead to which we grant normative status. First point: for it to be the case that the wishes of the dead can materially impact that person's welfare, it must be that these wishes are, in fact, welfare relevant. In other words, if it is the case that there is a distinction between preferences that are relevant to my welfare and preferences that are not relevant to my welfare, the welfarist interest theory requires that the normatively relevant wishes of the dead be in the prior rather than the latter category. Second point: when it comes to a person's pro-attitudes, it is common to hold that not all of them are welfare relevant. Most important for my purposes is that there is a distinction between desires, aims, goals, etc., that can plausibly be held to have welfarist content and those that cannot. Parfit notes that the fact that I desire another person's medical condition to be alleviated does not seem to entail that, when it is alleviated, I am made better-off.Footnote 16 In addition, this fact seems to hold even if, say, I adopted another person's medical condition as a central goal of life. As Feinberg himself notes, I can have aims, goals, and so forth that are strictly other regarding. And when I do, it's unclear that the success of such projects entails that I am benefited, or that the failure of such projects would harm me significantly. Indeed, that there is such a difference in prudentially significant and non–prudentially significant desires appears to be approaching something of a philosophical dogma.Footnote 17 Desires I have for the sake of my children's welfare, desires I have to conform to moral demands, desires that I have to see, e.g., the Arctic Circle remain frozen may very well be important to me, but their frustration is no harm to me.Footnote 18
But third: in considering the interests of the dead, we typically make no distinction between wishes that are plausibly welfare authoritative and wishes that are not plausibly welfare authoritative. Indeed, it would be odd for a particular will, say, to be overturned if we learned that the bequests contained therein were motivated strictly by other-regarding concern, and therefore could not be properly held to redound to a person's own welfare interests. Take, again, Coin Collection. It may be that Roger has no particular welfarist interest in seeing the coin collection go to Boris rather than Anne. One might hold that it was purely other regarding; Roger just wanted Boris to have it for reasons unknown. Even if Roger cared very deeply about it, the structure of the relevant desire in question is not of the prudential sort; it's a desire that he has not for his own sake but for the sake of his children.
Thus even if we reject the No Harm Principle, its rejection cannot plausibly explain all of the ways in which the wishes of the dead provide normative reasons.
B. The Unbounded Interest Theory
Perhaps we can expand the welfarist proposal and hold, instead, that the wishes of the dead have normative significance not on grounds of the well-being of the dead, in particular, but on the grounds that the decedent had an interest of whatever kind (prudential or non-prudential) in promoting some particular state of affairs. Call this the “unbounded” interest theory.
However, the unbounded interest theory as discussed here is inadequate in providing an explanation of the Justification Thesis. This is because it does not provide what we are looking for: we want to know why the interests of the dead (especially if interests of the dead are to be characterized in such a thin manner) ought to overrule the normative default. The welfarist interest theory does this: it argues that respecting the wishes of the dead alleviates harm to or potentially benefits the decedent. Because the unbounded interest theory goes beyond a welfarist formulation it provides no particular answer to this question, other than saying that they do—to hold that wishes of the dead have normative standing sufficient to justify overruling a normative default is merely to say that the wishes of the dead have normative standing sufficient to justify overruling a normative default. Let me put this point a different way. If we're assuming that respecting a dead person's wishes has no instrumental benefits, that this person need not be harmed by failing to respect his or her wishes, why should it be justified to conform to their wishes rather than the normative default? This question seems to deserve an answer and is not at all adequately treated simply by saying that a decedent's wishes are normatively significant.
But there is a second, serious problem that is in fact shared by both versions of the interest theory. Call this
The Fading Thesis: the normative significance of the wishes of the dead decreases over time.
As time passes, it seems right to say that the normative impact of the wishes of the dead also fades. I may have a reason of a particular strength to scatter my grandfather's ashes in Baffin Bay soon after his death, but this reason will likely decrease in significance as the decades pass. Indeed, this fact is reflected in law.Footnote 19 But neither the welfarist nor the unbounded interest theory seem to be able to explain this fact. If we have sui generis reason to respect the wishes of the dead (as claimed by the unbounded view) why should it be that we have less reason to do so twenty years after the person died? After all, this doesn't change anything about the extent to which it was, in fact, a wish. The same holds for a welfarist approach. After all, there is no in-principle reason why the harm done to a dead person would fade over time. Once the death threshold has been passed, it would appear that the significance of harm done to a dead person will simply depend on the wishes or desires maintained by the dead person and whether they in fact extend for a particular duration. And so if we are to treat those desires as the source of potential harm to a person, that, for instance, these legal rights should fade over time seems inexplicable without specific reference to what a person actually desired and whether or not at this particular time they are harmed in a particular way. Once again, take Coin Collection. If Roger's wish is discovered many years after his death, it seems right to say that the reasons given by the welfare of, e.g., Boris and Anne will play a more considerable part in our decision-making. Now, this isn't to say that Roger's wish will have no significance, but it will not be as significant as time passes. The same can plausibly said of Baffin Bay.
IV. THE ASSOCIATIVE ACCOUNT
In this section, I would like to sketch a response to the skeptical argument outlined in Section I. This section will be focused on cases that are specifically outside the legal context; I will pick up the legal case again in Section VI. To begin, consider another case:
Paris: Doris visits her grandfather Joe on what is sure to be his deathbed—he's been in poor health for a number of years, and most of his physicians agree that his time has come. It is important for her to see him in part to say goodbye, but also to reminisce about all the good times they had together while her mother and father were otherwise occupied and while Joe was her caregiver. At one point, Joe recalls his time overseas during the war and afterward, on his honeymoon with Doris's grandmother. “You know,” he says, “you really need to see Paris. Those lights!” Doris replies that she'll try to do so. “Don't just try,” Joe says. “Do it for me.” Soon after, Joe dies peacefully.
A few years later, Doris has yet to visit Paris. She realizes that it would be time-consuming and expensive. But despite preferring to avoid the hassle, she concludes that she really must go: “It was important to grandpa, and if I don't go now, I never will.”
The reasoning on display in Doris's decision to go to Paris shouldn't strike us as alien or unusual. Indeed, the fact that Joe wished for her to go seems like a reason for action: a fact that counts in favor, for Doris, of going to Paris. And, indeed, it seems sufficient to justify action: few would hold that Doris acted irrationally in going to Paris on these grounds.
And it seems quite clear that it is the wish itself providing normative justification. It is surely not in Joe's interest—that is, self-interest—for Doris to go to Paris. Though he takes an interest in her going, it is not for his own sake. The satisfaction of his desire for her to go is not in any way a benefit to him. Of course, one might say that visiting Paris, for Doris, will have special instrumental significance given that Joe asked her to go. For instance, seeing the Eiffel Tower may cause Doris to remember Joe fondly, and her experience will be all the richer for Joe having asked her to go. And while this is certainly true, it doesn't seem to capture the significance held by Joe's request. When Doris considers going to Paris, it certainly isn't the richness of her experience that is guiding her, or any particular instrumental effects. It's rather the wish itself—Joe's wish. But, once again, we must attempt to understand just exactly what sort of normative significance it has. Why, in other words, should this fact be relevant for Doris's deliberation about whether to go to Paris?
I think the answer to this question lies in the relationship Doris maintains to Joe. To see this, suppose that Doris one day receives an email from someone who happened to stumble on to her professional website. “I thought,” writes this person, “that based on your personal history you might be interested in seeing Paris. Those lights! You should go someday. Do it for me!” Doris reads this message and doesn't take it at all seriously, simply deleting it. The fact that this person wanted Doris to go to Paris doesn't seem to make any normative difference for Doris, and this fact doesn't change at all, as far as I'm concerned, if Doris learns that this person has died. Even if she is otherwise indifferent between, say, visiting Barcelona and visiting Paris, we would find it very strange that she should settle her deliberations by considering the wishes of this dead stranger. Perhaps it would be different if we learned that the fact that the stranger wished for her to go to Paris would have some instrumental benefits. Or perhaps it might be different if we could make it the case that her going to Paris would be a benefit for the stranger. But none of these things seem in operation here any more than in the original case. But there seems to be an important difference: because this person is a stranger, there seems to be substantially less normative significance (if there is any at all) in the fact that this dead person wished for her to go to Paris.
The fact that Joe is Doris's grandfather, that they have an important relationship, thus seems to have a non-accidental role to play in explaining the practical reasons Doris may have to take Joe's wishes seriously in deciding to go to Paris. Indeed, it would be odd for Doris to fail to cite the fact that Joe was her grandfather in justifying her decision to go to Paris. Indeed, we might say that at least part of the rationale for the significance of Joe's wishes for Doris is Joe's significance for Doris.
Of course, this is not to say that the wishes of strangers mean nothing at all or should play absolutely no role in our deliberation. For instance, one might imagine a stranger coming up to us with the manuscript of her life's work, urging that we submit it to her publisher, before dying. Surely we would have a reason to do so.Footnote 20 But the wishes of strangers qua wishes rather than qua benefits (of which the publication of one's life's work surely countsFootnote 21) or harms will—or so I claim—fail to have the typical normative significance we ascribe to the wishes of those dead to whom we are close. (I will refer, generally, to the fact of such relationships as the fact of “friendship,” and the practical reasons associated with such relations as reasons of friendship.) These reflections suggest that one important explanatory feature of the normative significance of the wishes of the dead is the existence of a normatively significant friendship between the deceased and the person for whom the decedent's wishes constitute practical reasons. To sum up the idea expressed in this section, consider:
The Associative Account: At least someFootnote 22 reasons to respect the wishes of the dead are to be explained by, and are derivative of, general associative reasons we have when it comes to our treatment of, e.g., friends, family, and so on.
Important here is that if the Associative Account succeeds, it provides a plausible defense of the Justification Thesis against the skeptical argument offered in Section I. This is because we typically believe that associative reasons, reasons of friendship, and so forth can overrule normative defaults. For instance, it seems plausible to say that if one can save only one among two strangers from drowning, one is required to flip a coin. However, this normative default is overruled if one of the persons threatened with drowning is a friend or loved one. If one would otherwise be required to donate $500 to an efficient charity, this normative default can be overruled if you intend those funds to benefit a friend or child. Of course, this is not to say that such reasons always overrule other considerations. But no matter: neither do the wishes of the dead.
So far I have made an intuitive case for the Associative Account, but it would do to say a little more concerning how and why associative reasons can capture the intuitive normative significance of the wishes of the dead.
V. THE NORMATIVE SIGNIFICANCE OF FRIENDSHIP
Why, one might wonder, should friendship play this normative role, assuming it does? To begin, note that friendship is widely recognized as a source of normativity: we face normatively significant reasons that are derived from being in friendships and other associational relations with others. But it is important here to engage in an inquiry concerning how friendships generate reasons and what, specifically, these facts of friendship count in favor of.
Of course, the normative significance of friendship is a colossal topic, and I must necessarily cover it in brief here, making a number of crucial assumptions. First, I'm going to assume a particular sort of answer to the question of how friendships generate reasons. Plausibly, friendships (and other associative relations) are normatively significant given the underlying facts of the relationship between people. It is not, in other words, because I promise to treat friends in a certain way, nor is it some sui generis fact about friendship or other relations that entails that they are reason giving.Footnote 23 They are reason giving because they are constituted by particular concrete interactions and relationships. David Brink puts the point in the following way:
Following Aristotle, we might characterize . . . these relationships as forms of friendship (philia), and we might understand friendship as involving good will toward one's friend that is based on shared history, where shared history might be understood in terms of the way in which the beliefs, desires, intentions, experiences, emotions, and actions of each interact with and influence those of the other. Indeed, it would be natural to think that the strength of a friendship or association is directly proportional to the degree of psychological interaction and interdependence, with stronger and more intimate associations held together by greater psychological interdependence and influence . . . If we understand associational duties on this model, then such duties depend upon the right sort of interpersonal interaction and influence and do not automatically arise from all interpersonal relations. So, for example, children would owe no typical filial duties to biological parents who have played no role in their nurture and development.Footnote 24
Brink accepts what has come to be called a “substantivist” account of reasons of friendship. According to these accounts, reasons of friendship are grounded in substantive interaction, influence, and interdependence of the psychological states of friends.Footnote 25 I will assume a substantivist account in what follows, but (or so it seems to me) the use I make of such substantive accounts will rely on normative consequences of such views that will (or should) appeal to any account of reasons of friendship. Most important for my purposes is the extent to which reasons of friendship arise on the basis of, and can vary depending on the strength of, psychological interaction and influence.
However, even if we accept this, a second (crucial) question remains. Even if friendship is normatively significant on these grounds, what do the facts of friendship count in favor of? What, in other words, do we have reason to do given a friendship?
A. The Amplification Model
One plausible suggestion is that the fact of friendship and the relationships that help to undergird such friendships add weight to reasons that apply to behavior toward non-friends, as well. To bring this down to earth a little, imagine that we generally have reason to benefit people qua people. The fact of friendship, on the amplification model, would add weight to the reasons to benefit friends in particular. Brink suggests just this sort of model:
Associative relations ground special concern for the well-being of one's associates. This concern can take the form of negative duties to refrain from harming one's associates and positive duties to maintain the association and provide various forms of aid and comfort. But the object of one's concern will be one's associates and their well-being.Footnote 26
On this proposal, the fact of friendship with others entails that we have a stronger balance of reasons to benefit our friends rather than others, but the object of our general concern remains the well-being of our friends, just as it is in the case of the stranger.
If we were simply to accept the amplification model, friendship relations could not ground the sort of reasons that seem plausible to ascribe to Doris given Joe's wishes. Recall that there appears to be a difference in the content of Doris's concern. In Doris's case, it seems implausible to hold that there is something about the stranger that genuinely matters, but it just so happens that this very thing about Joe matters more. Rather, it's that the stranger's wishes that Doris visit Paris seem to have no significance whatsoever (that is, assuming they are neither welfare relevant nor potentially instrumentally significant), whereas Joe's wishes (even assuming a lack of welfare relevance or instrumental significance) matter. So the amplification model cannot seem to help us explain the normative significance of Joe's wishes.
But I think there are strong reasons to at the very least supplement the amplification model with additional concerns that go beyond what we would ordinarily be concerned about in non-friendship relations. The amplification model, in other words, is not a complete account of the reasons of friendship.
B. The Sui Generis Model
What I shall call the sui generis model holds that friendship relations, while they may amplify the significance of, e.g., welfarist concerns, will also generate new concerns—reasons to act in particular ways toward friends that we lack in the case of non-friends.Footnote 27
To begin, Sarah Stroud notices that as friends we are under certain obligations to “stick up” for our friends, rather than joining in gossip behind their backs. Stroud places this under a general category of loyalty:
It is commonly accepted that loyalty is one of the constitutive elements of friendship. One particular aspect of that loyalty, it seems, is sticking up for your friend. If someone pokes fun at one of your friends, or makes a joke at his expense, or says something false or misleading (and derogatory) about him, it seems not to be your responsibility as a good friend not to join in the fun; not even simply to remain silent and withhold comment; but, on the contrary, to stick up for your friend. One might say you owe it to your friend to defend him in the court of public opinion.Footnote 28
Furthermore, though more controversially,Footnote 29 both Stroud and Simon Keller hold that we have obligations of friendship to form certain beliefs, or adopt certain doxastic practices, when it comes to our friends.Footnote 30 We owe it to our friends to “think well of them,” at least when the evidence permits of such an interpretation, an obligation we may not have to everyone.
In addition, in the context of friendship relations, we take ourselves to have reason to adopt not just our friend's well-being as an end, but our friend's ends generally.Footnote 31 (In other words, though we may have reasons to be specially beneficent or benevolent toward friends, we also have reasons to promote the achievement of friends’ non-welfare-relevant ends.) Indeed, this is intuitive. Imagine, for instance, that my friend has been itching to play a particular board game. I have no desire to play the game. Furthermore, or so we can stipulate, I know the game isn't very good; it goes on too long, it's too complicated, and the rulebook is frustratingly vague. Bottom line: we won't have a particularly good time playing it. While facts about our well-being may tell against my acquiescing to playing this game, it seems that there are additional reasons to be had: my friend wants to do it. This reason does not seem to redound, specifically, to my friend's welfare interests.Footnote 32 And yet, there seems to be a reason for me to acquiesce. It seems right to say—at least some of the time—that the fact that the state in which we play this game is an end of my friend's is a reason to promote this state. Notice that, in a vaguely anti-Kantian thought, the same does not seem to hold of people who are not my friends. Though some stranger may have looked forward to playing this game, I seem to lack reason to acquiesce—welfarist concerns seem center stage in such a case.
Notice that I do not claim here that we have reasons to promote our friends’ (non-welfarist) ends no matter what the ends are. For instance, it may be that the fact that my friend wants me to dye my hair purple does not seem to entail any particular normative pull for me. But at least in cases that concern our, e.g., interactions together, or my friends’ self-regarding (though perhaps non-welfarist) ends,Footnote 33 we seem to have reason to promote such states that we lack for non-friends.
Furthermore, consider the practice of mourning. When a loved one has died, we typically hold that this fact alters our reasons for behavior. We adopt certain styles of dress, we eschew parties or jovial social gatherings, and so on. These customs seem to provide us practical reasons for action that cannot themselves be mere amplifications of reasons that preexisted the friendship relation. And while it may be that these reasons are not particularly strong, they seem to be reasons nonetheless. But of a piece with reasons of mourning are what I shall call reasons of remembrance. On this topic, Jeffrey Blustein writes:
If love is a way of valuing persons, the worm of love in remembering the dead . . . is also a work of valuing or, more precisely, continuing to value a loved one after his or her death, despite “the multiplicity of life's demands” that press on us and make this valuing a challenge and an achievement. This work of love, as well as other sorts of memorial work . . . involves a mode of caring for and valuing another, and so, broadly speaking, they fall within the moral domain and are of moral significance, although, of course, instances of them can be morally flawed.Footnote 34
When our friends die, we certainly have reasons to remember them, to keep our relationship with them lively (or as lively as possible under the circumstances). We keep pictures of them, we visit their graves, we “pay our respects,” we do things (such as put on a performance, or write a piece, etc.) “in memory of,” and so on. If, for instance, a good friend of ours had died but we refuse to visit the grave this would certainly be interpreted (absent excusing factors) as something of a breach in the relationship—there must be “something wrong.”
It may be thought that such acts of remembrance, while commonplace, stand no less in need of justification or rationale than the general practice of paying attention to the wishes of the dead. Though I don't share this form of skepticism (indeed, it seems to me to stand no more in need of rationale than our general practice of caring for the interests of our friends—it's just something friends do), such rationale can be provided.Footnote 35 Standard accounts of the nature of friendship relations hold that this relationship is in part characterized by mutual interaction and influence.Footnote 36 Particularly important here is the influence aspect. Though I might have been away from a friend for a long time, one thing that makes our relationship strong is that my friend influences me and my psychological states and vice versa. I do things that were introduced to me by my friend, I take suggestions, I am interested to experience what my friend advises, and so forth. It may have been years since, for instance, my friend suggested that I watch a particular episode of Star Trek. And while I may not have seen him for a long time, I might decide to watch it while browsing Netflix and come to enjoy it. Part of my enjoyment will be colored by the fact that it was a friend's recommendation, and my enjoyment of it can be chalked up to an important part of our friendship, the influence that extends beyond mere interaction. This is a real way of deepening our friendship and extending our relationship.
In addition, as friends we typically have reason to deepen or extend our relationships. Recall that, as Brink writes, concern for one's associates “can take the form of . . . positive duties to maintain the association and provide various forms of aid and comfort.”Footnote 37 Key here is the maintenance of the association: we have reason to interact, to influence each other, to spend time together, to talk, and so forth. But reasons of remembrance, at least some of the time, can be justified on precisely these grounds. While we can no longer interact with the dead, the dead can influence us—if only through our memory of them.
C. Friendship, the Dead, and the Three Theses
Thus it seems sensible to say that reasons that arise from friendship and association—the near and dear—can give rise to a general cluster of reasons that do not simply amplify welfarist concerns of friends but rather are sui generis concerns that arise from the fact of friendship.
But if this is correct, how does this help to explain the normative significance of the wishes of the dead? Response: though any one particular set of reasons won't be able to explain all of our typical practices as they concern the wishes of our dead friends, they will be able to justify (at least most of) those practices when considered together.
First, take the fact that we appear to have reasons to promote our friends’—even non-welfarist—ends. Notice that the reasons to take seriously a friend's ends can surely survive long absences—this is because, as held by the substantive account assumed here, such reasons are grounded in the fact of interaction, influence, and so forth. I may not have seen my friend for years, but this does not alter the fact of our history of interaction, influence, and so forth. But I also share this with my dead friends, and hence one would expect the reasons in question to apply wherever the facts noted by substantive accounts of friendship relations exist (including in cases in which one's friend has died).
Now, this claim may be worthy of skepticism. After all, there's one thing that the absent friend has that the dead friend doesn't, viz, the promise of future interaction.Footnote 38 But while this may make some difference, it does not entail that a history of such interaction does not yield reasons to conform to promote the ends of our friends. Suppose my friend is about to embark on a one-way trip across the galaxy; his speed will make it impossible for us ever to communicate again. As I say goodbye he asks me to make sure his fish are fed. To suggest that I would have no reasons to promote this end just on grounds that we won't see each other again seems entirely false. I would think I have strong reasons to do so, grounded in friendship, reasons that I would go out of my way to make sure I fulfill. Thus the reasons to take seriously our friends’ ends must be partly grounded in a backward-looking fashion (i.e., in our history of influence and interaction).
Hence if the reasons to take seriously our friends’ ends is grounded (at least in part) in a history of interaction and influence, there is nothing about death that alters this fact. (Though, of course, as the bonds of friendship wane, or as the history of interaction is further and further in the rearview mirror, such reasons will also fade; see below.) And hence it may plausibly be said that the fact of friendship can explain the normative significance of, e.g., conforming to the dead's wishes in a number of cases (including, e.g., how to distribute my easy chair, and so forth). This can plausibly explain the reasons I have to, e.g., scatter my grandfather's ashes in Baffin Bay (which are also plausibly supported by general reasons of remembrance) and to protect the reproductive rights and interests of the dead.Footnote 39 This can also, one presumes, help to explain the reason we have to distribute Roger's coin collection to Boris rather than Anne.
Furthermore, a significant source of reasons to take seriously the wishes of the dead concerns what I have called “reasons of remembrance.” For those friends with whom we are distant—especially salient in the case of dead friends—we have reasons to deepen and extend our friendships with them, to “pay our respects,” and so on. These reasons will often be satisfied by taking seriously the wishes of our dead friends, to promote those things they cared about. This is especially significant in Doris's case.Footnote 40 In going to Paris, she is not genuinely interacting with Joe, but Joe is clearly influencing her, and in going to Paris she is allowing Joe to influence her—deepening their friendship, even after Joe has departed. In a more humdrum case, it may be that I watch a Star Trek episode because, well, this is a way of being a friend to a person who has since died—allowing him to influence me beyond the grave.
And while this particular set of reasons is perhaps most salient in Paris, it is nevertheless present in, e.g., Baffin Bay and even—or so I claim—in Coin Collection. In Baffin Bay, I clearly intend to “pay my respects” to my grandfather by fulfilling his wishes, by being a friend to him in scattering his ashes as he wished. Doing so is clearly part of a mourning ritual that has normative significance among friends. Furthermore—though this is somewhat more tenuous—one can see distributing Roger's coins in the manner he wished as a way of being a friend to Roger, as a way of paying one's respects to a friend who has departed.
A quick objection when it comes to Coin Collection. Surely, it might be said, I don't have to be Roger's friend to feel the normative significance of his wishes as concern the distribution of his coin collection. But the Associative Account seems to predicate such reasons on an underlying relationship. This objection is significant, but I don't think it succeeds. First, we should distinguish between a case of legal significance and a case without legal significance. In the former—perhaps the stranger is a court-appointed probate executor or something like that—I agree that one needn't have a particular relationship with Roger to treat his will as significant, but this does not imply that friendship is not part of the story; I will discuss this more in Section VI. However, outside of the legal context, it's far from clear that such wishes do have normative significance in the absence of friendship relations. Imagine that Roger contacted me by email out of the clear blue sky—he simply picked an email address at random and sent me the instructions for distributing his coins. He also says quite clearly that this distribution doesn't mean anything to his welfare, and that it would mean quite a bit to Anne in comparison to Boris. I submit that his wish that his collection be given to Boris should have no normative significance (unless, once again, one feels compelled for legal reasons).
In addition to explaining the data, the Associative Account can plausibly explain the three theses that seem to apply to the normative significance of the wishes of the dead. Furthermore, the Associative Account can explain the Fading Thesis. This is because reasons of friendship fade over time as people spend time apart. After having spent long periods apart, lack of interaction necessarily leads to a lack of influence and of the ability of one person to influence the other. And hence it would appear natural, and certainly tracks commonsense experience, that reasons to consider the wishes of the dead that are derived from reasons of association (like, e.g., reasons to take one's friend's ends as one's own) will fade as time goes on. The history of interaction and influence will produce stronger reasons as that history is more recent, weaker as times goes on. Of course, this is not to say that they will disappear particularly quickly. Depending on the strength of the underlying relationship, it could be that these reasons reverberate for a very long time. Furthermore, with proper efforts at remembrance we can keep these friendships, and hence the reasons that derive from them, vibrant for a longer period of time. But not forever. It is sensible to believe, at the very least, that the longer a friend has been dead, the weaker the reason one has to take their interests seriously. This is explained by the gradual fading of the underlying friendship.
In addition—as mentioned above—the Reason Thesis, Justification Thesis, and Requirement Thesis all seem plausibly explained by the Associative Account. After all, we clearly have reasons—as argued in the previous section—to take seriously our friends’ wishes (even apart from their welfare significance), to remember them, and to deepen and strengthen our relationship. Together, these aspects of the normative significance of friendship will explain what we take to be typical reasons that arise given the wishes of the dead.
VI. OBJECTION: THE LEGAL CASE
At this point a reasonable objection may be raised. As you may recall, the wishes of the dead seem to possess kind of normatively justified legal status. But if I'm relying on norms of friendship and association to justify respecting the wishes of the dead, how does this allow us to justify, e.g., the typical legal practice of respecting last wills and testaments? After all, there's no guarantee that any particular probate judge will maintain a normatively significant friendship with any decedent.
My response here will be somewhat sketchy, but I think that the objection relies on too narrow an understanding of associative reasons. Indeed, it seems to me plausible to say that there is often a range of associative reasons that apply within the context of legal systems.Footnote 41 Though casting these associative reasons in this light may be somewhat tendentious, we might say that within the bounds of individual legal and political systems there exists something we might call civic friendship.Footnote 42 Political institutions certainly represent a form of associative bonds between people—the political bond—and it seems right to say that such bonds carry with them associative obligations relevant to the political context, in particular the legal context.Footnote 43
Indeed, whether one wants to refer to such relations as “friendship” or not (I'll refer to them as relations of “civic association” here), note that the facts that ground associative reasons in the more standard interpersonal case arise as well in the civic case. Recall that, on a substantivist view, associative reasons are generally grounded in influence and interaction among people. These reasons need not be the product of voluntary agreement, nor need they require any kind of “affection,” say. But it is clear that in political societies, this mutual interaction and influence is manifest. Our mental states, desires, beliefs, abilities, prospects, attitudes, and so on are shaped and molded by our extant political society from a very young age. And insofar as we are part of our political community, we help in turn to mold the mental states, desires, beliefs, and so forth of other members of our civic society. Of course, each individual will contribute only so much influence and interaction via political society to any other particular person. But acting in concert, each member will contribute to the general political community, which will then provide a tremendous influence on the desires, beliefs, and the like of every other member of one's political community.Footnote 44 Of course, associative reasons in the civic case will bear a number of dissimilarities to ordinary friendship. But it's clear that the underlying factors that give rise to non-civic friendship can also give rise to associative reasons on a political scale.
This response is underdeveloped and permits of a number of additional refinements. But the essential point, it seems to me, holds. If we allow that civic association can, and typically does, exist between citizens and other citizens, or citizens and the political institutions that govern them, it would appear that this sort of association can and will yield reasons that are at least similar to reasons of association in general cases. Like reasons of more typical interpersonal friendship, reasons of civic association will include reasons to take one's friend's ends as one's own, reasons of remembrance (e.g., flying flags at half-mast), and (more generally) reasons to extend and develop the relationship itself. Furthermore, the rationale to believe that reasons of civic association can survive death precisely mirrors that in the more ordinary case. If reasons of civic association are a result of mutual interaction and influence, this influence can extend beyond death. Indeed, this seems clearly the case in the political context. Insofar as the political community we construct during our lifetimes will last beyond our deaths, our compatriots will continue to be influenced by us so long as that political community is in existence. Of course, like friendships in the ordinary case, this influence will gradually fade, perhaps even disappear, over time. But this will depend on the facts of the specific political community and the person in question.
If this is correct, then I take the following weak thesis to be rendered plausible, viz, that legal systems in which the wishes of the dead are given significance are plausibly justified at least in part by the existence of intra-societal associative obligations. I do not claim here that such reasons are strong enough to require the common law practice of granting the wishes of the dead significance—that, I think, would be too strong or at least too strong for me to defend in this short space. Rather, it seems right to say that legal systems seeking to provide a normative justification for the practices we have already cited in this paper, which often outstrip instrumental, welfarist, and interest-based justifications, can offer the nature of civic association as justification.Footnote 45
VII. CONCLUSION
Initially, our practice of taking seriously the wishes of the dead seems puzzling. Why should it be that a dead person's interests, desires, and so on normatively affect us even long after they are dead, even to the extent of making real, living persons worse-off?
Put bluntly, the answer is that in normatively significant contexts, the dead are our friends. And we have reason to take the ends of our friends seriously, to remember them fondly, and to deepen our friendships and relationships with them to the extent that we can. But all of these reasons seem to quite clearly tell in favor of respecting the wishes of the dead.
In conclusion I should say that nothing in this paper rules out the possibility of other reasons to take seriously the wishes of the dead. If the No Harm Principle fails, sometimes we will have welfare-related reasons to do so. Perhaps we will sometimes have more general instrumental reasons to do so, as well. Maybe, indeed, there are other reasons as yet uncovered. But exploring reasons of friendship and association provides reasons in favor of taking seriously the wishes of the dead and does so even in cases in which our practices are left unexplained by competing rationales.
