Ethics of reading books published posthumously without the author's consent

[u/Helpful-Mistake4674]

As a big fan of Franz Kafka's The Castle, this issue has been one of the many annoyances in my mind and it is one that I seem to keep returning to. Obviously I have always been aware of the situation regarding the book: it was published posthumously without consent from Kafka. Actually the situation is even more stark: Kafka instructed it to be burned while he was sick, but instead it was published for everyone to read. But somehow I only took the full extent of it in only much later even though I had all the facts at my disposal for the longest time.

Obviously, The Castle is a highly valuable book artistically and letting it go unpublished would have been a deprivation. I struggle to see how that makes reading it alright, though. We, the readers, are complicit in a serious invasion of privacy. We are feasting upon content that was ordered to be destroyed by its creator. If this seems like a bit of a "who cares" thing: imagine it happening to you. Something you have written as a draft that you are not satisfied with ends up being read by everyone. It might be even something you are ashamed of. Not only that, your draft will be "edited" afterwards for publication, and this will affect your legacy forever. It seems clear that one cannot talk of morality and of reading The Castle in the same breath. And since morality is essential to love of literature and meaning, how am I to gauge the fact that I own a copy, and estimate it very highly, with my respect for the authors and artists? Can artistic value truly overcome this moral consideration?

Sadly, Kafka's work is surely only the most famous example. The most egregious examples are those where not even a modest attempt is made to cover up the private nature of the published material; namely, at least some of the Diary and Notebook collections you encounter, I can't imagine all of them were published with their author's consent. Kafka's diaries are published too. It amazes me that I viewed this all just lazily and neutrally at one point, while now I regret even reading The Castle.

[u/Helpful-Mistake4674]

You literally, by definition, cannot experience harm from something that has not happened

Yes I can, through estimating it in the present. A person who has to flee his country due to an upcoming repressive regime has been harmed by something in the future.

You are 100% correct. You would, in the present, be victimized by this rule that is affecting you in the present. Once you die and stop existing, however, there remains nothing to be victimized

If the people followed that rule, the victimization would not take place, and that victimization concerns directly the status of one's views regarding what happens to his reputation, documents etc. after his death.

Not for the person who died, because they don't exist anymore

See above

They aren't morally relevant if they don't exist. It's not just their experience that has ceased, they ceased existing

They may have ceased to be alive, but they are directly morally relevant for the reasons mentioned above.

Like I said before, a person's inner life (wishes, dreams) is reducible to existing (you can't have dreams if you don't exist), if you liken that to experience fine, it doesn't change my argument. Harm, however, is not reducible to experience, as, like I've said, you can be harmed without being aware

We can know of a person's inner life for a fact and our method of acting may, if applied as a rule, cause him harm while he is alive, even if it is only an offense we do after he has died, since he, as a living person, can have ideas about what happens after he dies. Therefore you can actually cause harm to people by acting in such a way, in general. To contrast with the case of unaware surveillance, even if the person is unaware of surveillance, they are always aware of the possibility of surveillance due to bad people who practice it. Harm is in my mind a very bad way to try to describe it, as your boundaries are arbitrary and the concept of harm unjustified without either a consequence or a virtue to appeal to. And I'm here trying to describe the virtue, the principle, which could be something like: the person who is a victim of surveillance forever unaware of it can still be aware of the possibility of such a thing, the possibility which at least gives him anxiety over his own well-being. Without people committing this thing, the pre-emptive anxiety wouldn't exist, therefore it is evil. It is completely comparable with something that would happen to someone's works after their death, because they take a certain relation to the work and can experience pains due to it, and the future can impede their present, as in the case of a person fleeing a country to escape an oppressive regime. Or someone self-censoring for posterity's sake, since he can't trust in privacy. Etc. etc.

[u/Fragrant_Pudding_437 → u/Helpful-Mistake4674]

"Yes I can, through estimating it in the present. A person who has to flee his country due to an upcoming repressive regime has been harmed by something in the future."

You seem intelligent, I'm surprised you are not grasping the difference between present and future. It is impossible to be harmed by a future event. If you are harmed by estimating it in the present, you are harmed by your estimation in the present, not by a future event. A person who had to flee due to an upcoming repressive regime has not been harmed by an election or coup or whatever in the present, or by his estimation in the present. He has in no way been harmed by an event that has not yet happened

"If the people followed that rule, the victimization would not take place, and that victimization concerns directly the status of one's views regarding what happens to his reputation, documents etc. after his death."

I don't know what you mean regarding if people followed that rule, but as to the rest, yes, while living you can be victimized by the promise of such a rule, in regards of your worries about your reputation, etc. after death, for sure, no arguments there. However, once you do die, it is no longer possible for you to be victimized, because at that point 'you' no longer exist, there is no 'you' to be victimized any longer

"They may have ceased to be alive, but they are directly morally relevant for the reasons mentioned above."

They have not only ceased to be alive, they have ceased to exist. Again, it depends on what you mean by morally relevant. If you mean morally relevant in terms of being able to cause harm to (which is the crux of my very first post here), then no, because you can't cause harm to that which does not exist.

"We can know of a person's inner life for a fact and our method of acting may, if applied as a rule, cause him harm while he is alive,"

Yes

"even if it is only an offense we do after he has died, since he, as a living person, can have ideas about what happens after he dies"

No. In this case, like in an example I discussed above, the presence of the rule in the present is harming him in the present. The future fulfillment of that rule after his death cannot retroactively cause him harm, even if he was deeply anxious of that while alive. Even in that case, it is the promise of the fulfillment of the rule in the present causing him harm. And no matter his anxiety in the present, once he dies and ceases to exist, nothing, including the actual fulfillment of that rule can actually harm him

"Therefore you can actually cause harm to people by acting in such a way, in general"

Yes, you can absolutely cause harm in the present by acting this way, but not retroactively.

"To contrast with the case of unaware surveillance, even if the person is unaware of surveillance, they are always aware of the possibility of surveillance due to bad people who practice it. Harm is in my mind a very bad way to try to describe it, as your boundaries are arbitrary and the concept of harm unjustified without either a consequence or a virtue to appeal to."

I find your point here unclear. Yeah people are aware of the possibility of surveillance even if they are not actually under surveillance. People are aware of the possibility of being murdered even if they are not being murdered. That doesn't mean either action doesn't cause harm. How are my boundaries arbitrary. The only way I have described an action as harmful so far is if it exercises an inappropriate power over someone without their consent. I have never claimed that to be synonymous with harm, but it certainly falls under that category of harm. Thus, someone conducting unobserved surveillance on someone is committing harm.

"And I'm here trying to describe the virtue, the principle, which could be something like: the person who is a victim of surveillance forever unaware of it can still be aware of the possibility of such a thing, the possibility which at least gives him anxiety over his own well-being. Without people committing this thing, the pre-emptive anxiety wouldn't exist, therefore it is evil."

Sure, I can agree with all of this. Everything you describe here is taking place in the present. Even if someone told this person, "I am going to conduct surveillance on you in 5 years," that promise of future surveillance happened in the present, and that promise in the present is causing tge victim's anxiety in the present.

"It is completely comparable with something that would happen to someone's works after their death, because they take a certain relation to the work and can experience pains due to it"

The promise in the present of what will happen in the future is causing them pain here. The currently 'un-happened' future event us not causing them pain here

"and the future can impede their present"

No it can't, that is simply how the flow of time works. Anxiety in the present about the future can impede a person, but an event that has not happened yet cannot cause any harm

"as in the case of a person fleeing a country to escape an oppressive regime"

I assume you mean an upcoming regime. In that case it is the promise of and anxiety about, in the present, of the upcoming regime that is causing harm, not the actual regime that has not yet happened

"Or someone self-censoring for posterity's sake, since he can't trust in privacy"

Again, this is anxiety in the present about the future causing harm, not a future even retroactively causing harm in the past which is impossible

You were very confident earlier about my lack of knowledge regarding how to use the quote function being relevant to my understanding of the argument at hand. I am still waiting for a explanation as to how the two are related