As noted in the previous essay, it can be argued that the likeness of a dead celebrity is a commodity that and used as the new owner sees fit. On this view, the likeness of a celebrity would be analogous to their works (such as films or music) and its financial exploitation would be no more problematic than selling movies featuring actors who are now dead but were alive during the filming. This view can be countered by arguing that there is a morally relevant difference between putting a re-animation of a celebrity in a new movie and selling movies they starred in while alive.

As with any analogy, one way to counter this argument is to find a relevant difference that weakens the comparison. One relevant difference is that the celebrity (presumably) consented to participate in their past works, but they did not consent for the use of their re-animation. If the celebrity did not consent to the past works or did consent to being re-animated, then things would be different. Assuming the celebrity did not agree to being re-animated, then their re-animation is being “forced” to create new performances without the agreement of the person, which raises moral concerns.

Another, more interesting, relevant difference is that the re-animation can be seen as a very basic virtual person. While current re-animations lack the qualities required to be a person, this can  be used as the foundation for a moral argument against the creation and exploitation of re-animations. Before presenting that argument, I will consider arguments that focus on the actual person that was (or perhaps is) the celebrity.

One approach is to argue that a celebrity has rights after death and their re-animation cannot be used in this manner without their permission. Since they are dead, their permission cannot be given and hence the re-animation is morally wrong because they would exploit the celebrity without their consent.

But, if the celebrity does not exist after death, then they would seem to lack moral status (since nothing cannot have a moral status) and hence cannot be wronged. Since they no longer exist to have rights, the owner of the likeness is free to exploit it—even with a re-animation,

The obvious problem is that there is no definite proof for or against an afterlife, although people do often have faith in its existence (or non-existence). So, basing the rights of the dead on their continued existence would require metaphysical speculation. But denying the dead rights based on the metaphysical assumption they do not exist would also be problematic for it would also require confidence in an area where knowledge is lacking. As such, it would be preferable to avoid basing the ethics of the matter on metaphysical speculation.

One approach that does not require that the dead have any moral status of their own is to argue that people should show respect to the person that was by not exploiting them via re-animation. Re-animating a dead person and sending it out to perform without their consent is, as noted in the first essay, a bit like using Animate Dead to create a zombie from the remains of a dead person. This is not a good thing to do and, by analogy, animating a technological zombie would seem morally dubious at best. For those who like their analogies free of D&D, one could draw an analogy to desecrating a corpse or gravesite: even though a dead person can no longer be harmed, it is still something that should not be done.

A final approach is to build on the idea that while the re-animation is clearly not a person, it can be seen as a simplistic virtual person and perhaps this is enough to make this action wrong. I will address this argument in the final essay of the series.