Monday, October 26, 2015

Do the Dead Ones Have Rights?

There is a news item that appeared on 24th October, 2015 in the Times of India that says that a dead woman was dug out from out grave and 'sexual exploitation' was performed on the corpse. The policemen say that 'rape' charge could not be applied yet until medical examination is done on the corpse. But the fact that she has been disrobed confirmed some sort of sexual exploitation on the corpse. Is this a wrong action? Is the one who did this doing something that is morally wrong? 

But what is moral wrongdoing? Moral wrongdoing is to harm someone, one may say. But harming a criminal in the form of putting him to jail by the state is not moral wrongdoing; in fact, not harming the criminal that way can be construed as moral wrongdoing upon other citizens when the possibly of this criminal harming other citizens persist. So harming others is not necessarily moral wrongdoing. I would say moral wrongdoing is depriving others of their due right; and when there is a contest of rights, then the one who deserves more or whose rights should take precedence over other's right claims must get what is due. So moral wrongdoing is depriving others of their right. 

So is sexual exploitation of a corpse morally wrong? Yes. I guess that most people will say intuitively that it is wrong. But when we say that it is wrong, then it has to imply that there is a right claim being violated upon by a moral agent. Because without a right claim being violated by a moral agent, moral wrongdoing cannot be accounted for. But the implication of such idea  then underscores that the dead ones too have certain sort of right-claims. It is not only the living ones that bear right, but the dead ones too bear right. And moral wrongdoing can be done even to the dead ones as well, not just to the ones alive at present.

The sort of rights the dead ones have would include the right not to harm their good legacy with lies and not to sexually exploit their corpse. 

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