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Dead People and the All‐Affected Principle
Author(s) -
Bengtson Andreas
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
journal of applied philosophy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.339
H-Index - 30
eISSN - 1468-5930
pISSN - 0264-3758
DOI - 10.1111/japp.12378
Subject(s) - democracy , inclusion (mineral) , boundary (topology) , bridge (graph theory) , sociology , focus (optics) , law , epistemology , law and economics , political science , social science , philosophy , mathematics , medicine , mathematical analysis , physics , optics , politics
Discussions of the all‐affected principle as a solution to the boundary problem – how do we specify the group making democratic decisions? – have focused extensively on future people. We have yet to focus on dead people, however. This article tries to bridge this gap by arguing that the all‐affected principle – i.e. the all actually affected interests principle – entails inclusion of dead people. This is true because dead people can be harmed or legally affected, and this is sufficient for having a claim to democratic inclusion. The last part of the article discusses where this leaves the all‐affected principle in the quest for the proper boundary principle, including a discussion of possible institutional solutions to the enfranchisement of dead people.