It is further held that his survivors and successors-
whether relatives or strangers- are entitled to defend his good name
as a matter of right, on the ground that unproved accusations
subject them all to the danger of similar treatment after death. Now
that a man when dead can yet acquire such a right is a peculiar and,
nevertheless, an undeniable manifestation in fact, of the a priori
law-giving reason thus extending its law of command or prohibition
beyond the limits of the present life. If some one then spreads a
charge regarding a dead person that would have dishonoured him when
living, or even made him despicable, any one who can adduce a proof
that this accusation is intentionally false and untrue may publicly
declare him who thus brings the dead person into ill repute to be a
calumniator, and affix dishonour to him in turn. This would not be
allowable unless it were legitimate to assume that the dead person was
injured by the accusation, although he is dead, and that a certain
just satisfaction was done to him by an apology, although he no longer
sensibly exists. A title to act the part the vindicator of the dead
person does not require to be established; for every one necessarily
claims this of himself, not merely as a duty of virtue regarded
ethically, but as a right belonging to him in virtue of his
humanity.
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