35. III. The Continuing Right of a Good Name
after Death. (Bona fama Defuncti).
It would be absurd to think that a dead person could possess
anything after his death, when he no longer exists in the eye of the
law, if the matter in question were a mere thing. But a good name is a
congenital and external, although merely ideal, possession, which
attaches inseparably to the individual as a person. Now we can and
must abstract here from all consideration as to whether the persons
cease to be after death or still continue as such to exist; because,
in considering their juridical relation to others, we regard persons
merely according to their humanity and as rational beings (homo
noumenon). Hence any attempt to bring the reputation or good name of a
person into evil and false repute after death, is always questionable,
even although a well-founded charge may be allowed- for to that extent
the brocard "De mortuis nil nisi bene"* is wrong. Yet to spread
charges against one who is absent and cannot defend himself, shows
at least a want of magnanimity.
*[Let nothing be said of the dead but what is favourable.]
By a blameless life and a death that worthily ends it, nothing
ends it, it is admitted that a man may acquire a (negatively) good
reputation constituting something that is his own, even when he no
longer exists in the world of sense as a visible person (homo
phaenomenon).
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