A few weeks ago I mentioned the decision Nabokov's son was facing of whether or not to honor his father's request to destroy unpublished work he'd left behind. If a painter requests that her heirs destroy her remaining works, should they do so?
Tom Stoppard has now weighed in on the "burn" side: "It’s perfectly straightforward: Nabokov wanted it burnt, so burn it."
Tyler Cowen goes with "not burn": "Dead people don't count in the social welfare function. ... Nor is there an incentive problem. If we release Nabokov's papers as a book, maybe the next Nabokov will burn the manuscript in the first place. We're no worse off, compared to not releasing such manuscripts. Kafka told Max Brod to burn his works, but we're all glad Brod didn't. Think of the current generation as a player in the multiple selves game of the author (he could have burnt it himself long ago) and then the right answer is obvious." He also adds, in the comments: "A simple question to ask yourself is whether you would respect the wish of a parent to have a million dollar funeral, out of your money. The book manuscript is worth much more than that."
UPDATE: Tyler gets a lot of pushback in the comments, and responds here ("we limit all sorts of destructive transactions for the living, so why not every now and then a limitation upon the wishes of the dead?").
