Abstract

What is harm? I offer an account that involves the victim’s either suffering some adverse intrinsic change or being prevented from enjoying some beneficial intrinsic change. No one is harmed, I claim, in virtue of relational changes alone. Thus (excepting for contrived cases), there are neither posthumous harms nor, in life, harms of the undiscovered betrayal, slander, reputation-damaging variety. Further, two widespread moves in the philosophy of death are rejected. First, death and posthumous are not to be assimilated—death does bring about adverse internal change and harms us straightforwardly. Second, Pitcher-type accounts of posthumous harm are criticized—posthumous events can thwart the satisfaction of my interests, but I am not harmed either just when this occurs or, earlier, when I first acquire or invest in those interests. We have other ways of describing what is going on