Immortality and the Law
Immortality and the Law

Author: Ray D. Madoff

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 2010-05-11

Total Pages: 208

ISBN-13: 0300163274

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This book takes a riveting look at how the law responds to that distinctly American dream of immortality. While American law provides virtually no protections for the interests we hold most dear—our bodies and our reputations—when it comes to property interests, the American dead have greater control than anywhere else in the world. Moreover, these rights are growing daily. From grave robbery to Elvis impersonators, Madoff shows how the law of the dead has a direct impact on how we live. Madoff examines how the rising power of the American dead enables the deceased to exert control over their wealth forever through grandiose schemes like "dynasty trusts" and perpetual private charitable foundations and to control their creative works and identities well into the unforeseeable future. Madoff explores how the law of the dead can, in essence, extend the reach of life by granting virtual immortality to individuals. All of this comes, Madoff contends, at real costs imposed on the living.

Giving in Time
Giving in Time

Author: Ray Madoff

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2023-03-15

Total Pages: 289

ISBN-13: 1538131781

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Within the philanthropic sector, as never before, time is of the essence. That is, temporal considerations—questions of intergenerational ethics, of the merits of giving now versus giving later, of the benefits and perils of perpetuity—have gained greatly in prominence. Bringing together the most esteemed contemporary scholars of philanthropy, Giving in Time provides the first sustained analysis of the complex issues surrounding the temporal dimensions of voluntary giving. Incorporating the perspectives of political scientists, historians, legal scholars, and philosophers, the contributors tackle critical questions confronting a new generation of philanthropists in a way that will appeal to academics and practitioners. They take on questions such as: What are the historical and moral foundations for establishing perpetual foundations? What are the leading challenges to philanthropic perpetuity? What is the significance of the recent trend toward “Giving While Living,” the calls to give not through bequests but in one’s lifetime? What are the ethical arguments for giving now rather than giving later? What is a giver’s responsibility to his current moment in time versus his obligation to the future? How does the legal framework supporting and structuring philanthropic practice shape approaches toward giving in time? How should it?

Earthly Immortalities
Earthly Immortalities

Author: Peter Moore

Publisher: Reaktion Books

Published: 2019-06-15

Total Pages: 280

ISBN-13: 1789141060

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In this thought-provoking book, Peter Moore examines the often overlooked issues concerning human mortality, the fragile ways in which the dead can be said to “live on” in earthly terms: through their children, their work, the memories of others, their possessions, and even their bodies. Such earthly immortalities raise a host of fascinating questions about our attitudes toward life, and toward the world we leave behind us when we die. To what extent does the meaning we find in our lives depend upon the assumption there will always be a new generation to continue the human adventure? What would it be like if science were able to extend life indefinitely, and is this something already enshrined in the doctrine of reincarnation? Can we solve our anxieties about mortality by learning that life is worth living precisely because we do not live forever? In a generous and eloquent account, these and more are the questions Earthly Immortalities seeks to answer.

The Tyranny of Generosity
The Tyranny of Generosity

Author: Theodore M. Lechterman

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2021-09-30

Total Pages: 281

ISBN-13: 0197611435

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The practice of philanthropy, which releases private property for public purposes, represents in many ways the best angels of our nature. But this practice's noteworthy virtues often obscure the fact that philanthropy also represents the exercise of private power. In The Tyranny of Generosity, Theodore Lechterman shows how this private power can threaten the foundations of a democratic society. The deployment of private wealth for public ends may rival the authority of communities to determine their own affairs. And, in societies characterized by wide disparities in wealth, philanthropy often combines with background inequalities to make public decisions overwhelmingly sensitive to the preferences of the rich. Allowing private wealth to dictate social outcomes collides with core commitments of a democratic society, a society in which people are supposed to determine their common affairs together, on equal terms. But why exactly is democracy valuable? How should these values be weighed against the liberty of donors and the many social benefits that philanthropy promises? Lechterman explores these questions by examining various topics in the practice of philanthropy: the respective roles of philanthropy and government, public subsidies for private giving, the use of donations for political speech, instruments of perpetual giving, the rise in giving by commercial corporations, and "effective altruism" as a guide for individual giving. These studies build to a surprising conclusion: realizing the democratic ideal may be impossible without philanthropy--but making philanthropy safe for democracy also requires fundamental changes to policy and practice.

Dead Hands
Dead Hands

Author: Lawrence M. Friedman

Publisher: Stanford University Press

Published: 2009-03-09

Total Pages: 342

ISBN-13: 0804771081

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The law of succession rests on a single brute fact: you can't take it with you. The stock of wealth that turns over as people die is staggeringly large. In the United States alone, some $41 trillion will pass from the dead to the living in the first half of the 21st century. But the social impact of inheritance is more than a matter of money; it is also a matter of what money buys and brings about. Law and custom allow people many ways to pass on their property. As Friedman's enlightening social history reveals, a decline in formal rules, the ascendancy of will substitutes over classic wills, social changes like the rise of the family of affection, changing ideas of acceptable heirs, and the potential disappearance of the estate tax all play a large role in the balance of wealth. Dead Hands uncovers the tremendous social and legal importance of this rite of passage, and how it reflects changing values and priorities in American families and society.

On Not Dying
On Not Dying

Author: Abou Farman

Publisher: U of Minnesota Press

Published: 2020-04-21

Total Pages: 443

ISBN-13: 1452961905

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An ethnographic exploration of technoscientific immortality Immortality has long been considered the domain of religion. But immortality projects have gained increasing legitimacy and power in the world of science and technology. With recent rapid advances in biology, nanotechnology, and artificial intelligence, secular immortalists hope for and work toward a future without death. On Not Dying is an anthropological, historical, and philosophical exploration of immortality as a secular and scientific category. Based on an ethnography of immortalist communities—those who believe humans can extend their personal existence indefinitely through technological means—and an examination of other institutions involved at the end of life, Abou Farman argues that secular immortalism is an important site to explore the tensions inherent in secularism: how to accept death but extend life; knowing the future is open but your future is finite; that life has meaning but the universe is meaningless. As secularism denies a soul, an afterlife, and a cosmic purpose, conflicts arise around the relationship of mind and body, individual finitude and the infinity of time and the cosmos, and the purpose of life. Immortalism today, Farman argues, is shaped by these historical and culturally situated tensions. Immortalist projects go beyond extending life, confronting dualism and cosmic alienation by imagining (and producing) informatic selves separate from the biological body but connected to a cosmic unfolding. On Not Dying interrogates the social implications of technoscientific immortalism and raises important political questions. Whose life will be extended? Will these technologies be available to all, or will they reproduce racial and geopolitical hierarchies? As human life on earth is threatened in the Anthropocene, why should life be extended, and what will that prolonged existence look like?

Institutions For Future Generations
Institutions For Future Generations

Author: Iñigo González-Ricoy

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2016-12-15

Total Pages: 449

ISBN-13: 0191063975

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In times of climate change and public debt, a concern for intergenerational justice should lead us to have a closer look at theories of intergenerational justice. It should also press us to provide institutional design proposals to change the decision-making world that surrounds us. This book provides an exhaustive overview of the most important institutional proposals as well as a systematic and theoretical discussion of their respective features and advantages. It focuses on institutional proposals aimed at taking the interests of future generations more seriously, and does so from the perspective of applied political philosophy, being explicit about the underlying normative choices and the latest developments in the social sciences. It provides citizens, activists, firms, charities, public authorities, policy-analysts, students, and academics with the body of knowledge necessary to understand what our institutional options are and what they entail if we are concerned about today's excessive short-termism.

Routledge Handbook of Law and Theory
Routledge Handbook of Law and Theory

Author: Andreas Philippopoulos-Mihalopoulos

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2018-08-06

Total Pages: 543

ISBN-13: 1317352998

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This handbook sets out an innovative approach to the theory of law, reconceptualising it in a material, embodied, socially contextualised and politically radical way. The book consists of original contributions authored by prominent academics, all of whom provide a valuable overview of legal theory as a discipline. The book contains five sections: • Spatiotemporal • Sense • Body • Text • Matter Through this structure, the handbook brings the law into active discussion with other disciplines, as well as supra-disciplinary debates on the areas of spatiality, temporality, materiality, corporeality and sensorial studies, capturing the most exciting developments in current legal theory, and anticipating future research in the area. The handbook is essential reading for scholars and students of jurisprudence, sociology of law, critical legal studies, socio-legal theory and interdisciplinary legal studies, as well as those people from other disciplines interested in the way the law converses with interdisciplinarity. Chapter 12 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

Just Giving
Just Giving

Author: Rob Reich

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2020-05-05

Total Pages: 258

ISBN-13: 0691202273

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The troubling ethics and politics of philanthropy Is philanthropy, by its very nature, a threat to today’s democracy? Though we may laud wealthy individuals who give away their money for society’s benefit, Just Giving shows how such generosity not only isn’t the unassailable good we think it to be but might also undermine democratic values. Big philanthropy is often an exercise of power, the conversion of private assets into public influence. And it is a form of power that is largely unaccountable and lavishly tax-advantaged. Philanthropy currently fails democracy, but Rob Reich argues that it can be redeemed. Just Giving investigates the ethical and political dimensions of philanthropy and considers how giving might better support democratic values and promote justice.

Inheritance Law and Political Theology in Shakespeare and Milton
Inheritance Law and Political Theology in Shakespeare and Milton

Author: Joseph S. Jenkins

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-05-23

Total Pages: 272

ISBN-13: 131711664X

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Reading God's will and a man's Last Will as ideas that reinforce one another, this study shows the relevance of England's early modern crisis, regarding faith in the will of God, to current debates by legal academics on the theory of property and its succession. The increasing power of the dead under law in the US, the UK, and beyond-a concern of recent volumes in law and social sciences-is here addressed through a distinctive approach based on law and humanities. Vividly treating literary and biblical battles of will, the book suggests approaches to legal constitution informed by these dramas and by English legal history. This study investigates correlations between the will of God in Judeo-Christian traditions and the Last Wills of humans, especially dominant males, in cultures where these traditions have developed. It is interdisciplinary, in the sense that it engages with the limits of several fields: it is informed by humanities critical theory, especially Benjaminian historical materialism and Lacanian psychoanalysis, but refrains from detailed theoretical considerations. Dramatic narratives from the Bible, Shakespeare, and Milton are read as suggesting real possibilities for alternative inheritance (i.e., constitutional) regimes. As Jenkins shows, these texts propose ways to alleviate violence, violence both personal and political, through attention to inheritance law.