Masterton Malin, Hansson Mats G, Höglund Anna T, Helgesson Gert
Department for Public Health and Caring Sciences, Centre for Bioethics at Uppsala University and Karolinska Institutet, Uppsala, Sweden.
Theor Med Bioeth. 2007;28(2):137-49. doi: 10.1007/s11017-007-9028-y. Epub 2007 Jun 5.
Queen Christina of Sweden was unconventional in her time, leading to hypotheses on her gender and possible hermaphroditic nature. If genetic analysis can substantiate the latter claim, could this bring the queen into disrepute 300 years after her death? Joan C. Callahan has argued that if a reputation changes, this constitutes a change only in the group of people changing their views and not in the person whose reputation it is. Is this so? This paper analyses what constitutes change and draws out the implications to the reputation of the dead. It is argued that a reputation is a relational property which can go through changes. The change is "real" for the group changing their views on Queen Christina and of a Cambridge kind for the long dead queen herself. Cambridge changes result in new properties being acquired, some of which can be of significance. Although the dead cannot go through any non-relational changes, it is possible for the dead to change properties through Cambridge changes. In this sense changes in reputation do affect the dead, and thus Queen Christina can acquire a new property, in this case possibly a worse reputation.
瑞典的克里斯蒂娜女王在她所处的时代是不落俗套的,这引发了关于她的性别以及可能的雌雄同体特质的种种假说。如果基因分析能够证实后一种说法,这会在女王去世300年后让她声名扫地吗?琼·C·卡拉汉认为,如果一种声誉发生了变化,这仅仅意味着改变观点的那群人发生了变化,而不是拥有该声誉的那个人发生了变化。是这样吗?本文分析了构成变化的因素,并探讨了对逝者声誉的影响。有人认为,声誉是一种可以发生变化的关系属性。对于改变对克里斯蒂娜女王看法的群体来说,这种变化是“真实的”,而对于早已去世的女王本人来说,这是一种“剑桥变化”。“剑桥变化”会导致获得新的属性,其中一些属性可能具有重要意义。虽然逝者不会经历任何非关系性的变化,但逝者有可能通过“剑桥变化”改变属性。从这个意义上说,声誉的变化确实会影响逝者,因此克里斯蒂娜女王可能会获得一种新的属性,在这种情况下可能是更坏的名声。