Next topic Wolff discusses concerns the rights of dead humans. His first verdict is that the dead have no rights: as soon as a person dies, they lose all their rights, and at the same time, all their obligations vanish. This means particularly that the dead cannot own or possess anything, so that all things they had cease to be theirs.
The obvious question now is what happens to the things the dead person owned, and more extensively, to all the rights they had. Wolff notes that if the right in question was personal – something only they could have, such as when their neighbour allowed them to borrow a horse occasionally – this right just vanished at the time of death. On the other hand, other kinds of rights and particularly all property can be transferred from one owner to another. Thus, a person can decree that at the time of their death these rights and things will be transferred to a certain person. Sometimes the transfer happens even automatically, for instance, when the dying person owed something to another, what was owed should after the death naturally pass to the other. Only in the case that the dying person did not own enough for covering this debt, is it at least partially annulled. Furthermore, Wolff clarifies, while the rights and the property can change owner at the event of death, debt does not, that is, if you inherit something from a person, you are not obligated to pay what the dead person owed to someone else.
Although the dead do not have rights in some sense, Wolff continues, they do have rights in the sense that people still have obligations concerning them. For instance, if the dead deserve some praise, they should be praised even after their death. More generally, any good things they have done should be returned in some manner, for example, by doing good to people they had loved. This duty, Wolff thinks, should be followed especially by those who benefited from the deeds of the dead person, including those who inherited something from them.
What then of the dead who have done things that go against all morals, such as murderers? Wolff thinks that it would be best that such acts would be simply forgotten, so that no one would be influenced by these examples. If the deeds are well known, then they could be discussed, but only with the intention of instructing people not to do such things. Thus, bad deeds of the dead should be excused, as much as possible.
In Wolff's opinion, every dead person deserves some respect just due to their humanity and should thus be treated with some respect, even if they were our enemies. This respect concerns even the dead body or the corpse, which should not be treated like dead animals, Wolff insists. All dead bodies should be removed from the sight of the living, since corpses transmit diseases, but they should not be thrown to dogs or left rotting. Wolff underlines that human corpses should especially not be eaten, except in extreme necessity.
Wolff admits that there’s a number of appropriate ways to dispose of a dead body, such as cremation. Still, he thinks that the most convenient and thus the preferred way to deal with the corpse is burial, where the dead body is covered in soil. Right of burial is thus a universal right of all humans, and to show our respect to the dead, we should attend the funeral ceremonies where the dead are buried.
Where the dead can be buried, then? Wolff notes that in the natural state, the dead could be buried anywhere, but after the introduction of ownership, it requires the permission of the owner of the land. Thus, there arises a need for cemeteries or places where people are customarily buried.
Memory of the good and illustrious deeds of the dead should remain alive, Wolff notes. For this reason he recommends raising monuments, not just at the place where the remains of the dead are buried, but even in other places (these are particularly called cenotaphs). Other means include making funeral orations and inscribing epitaphs at monuments.
Funerals are not just about the simple fact of burying the dead, Wolff adds, but they often include ceremonies and rituals that are not strictly necessary for the sake of the burial itself. One such ritual is that people are not buried in nude. Wolff explains that this should be a universal custom, since it helps us to further separate dead humans from dead animals. Then again, he adds, there is no general rule whether the corpse should be wrapped in linen or whether the dead person should just wear regular clothing, but this must be decided by the circumstances. In any case, if the clothing symbolises the love and gratefulness toward the dead person, Wolff considers it appropriate that the clothed body is exposed to the eyes of the people in the funeral, for instance, by opening the coffin before lowering it to the grave.
We usually feel sad, when people dear to us have died. Thus, Wolff says, it is just natural that we show some external signs of sadness, such as crying. Furthermore, he adds, it is quite appropriate that we voluntarily choose to show further signs of mourning, such as a certain style of dress we wear.
Wolff concludes the chapter with a question controversial for a long time: is it allowed to dissect human bodies in order to learn about anatomy? He notes that dissection is essential to understand what makes humans healthy and what causes sickness. Furthermore, he adds, knowing the structure of the human body lets us also glimpse to the mind of its creator or God. Hence, Wolff sees no reason why bodies could not be dissected, as long as it is not done to living humans and as long as the dissected bodies are given a decent burial.
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