Life Liberty The Defense Of Dignity

Author : Leon Kass
Publisher : Encounter Books
ISBN 13 : 1594030472
Total Pages : 323 pages
Book Rating : 4.75/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Life, Liberty and the Defense of Dignity written by Leon Kass and published by Encounter Books. This book was released on 2002 with total page 323 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book grapples with the moral meaning of the new biomedical technologies now threatening to take us back to the future envisioned by Aldous Huxley in "Brave New World". In a series of meditations on cloning, embryo research, the sale of organs, and the assault on mortality itself, Kass questions the wisdom of trying to break down the natural boundaries given us and to remake the human body into an instrument of our will.

Author : Peter Lawler
Publisher : Open Road Media
ISBN 13 : 1497636361
Total Pages : 430 pages
Book Rating : 4.61/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Modern and American Dignity written by Peter Lawler and published by Open Road Media. This book was released on 2014-04-08 with total page 430 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An Indispensable Guide to Our Most Pressing Moral and Political Debates The horrors of the twentieth century exposed the insufficiency of speaking of human rights. In intending to extinguish whole classes of human beings, the Nazis and Communists did something much worse than violating rights; they aimed to reduce us all to less than who we really are. As political philosopher Peter Augustine Lawler shows in this illuminating book, rights are insecure without some deeper notion of human dignity. The threats to human dignity remain potent today—all the more so for being less obvious. Our anxious and aging society has embraced advances in science, technology, and especially biotechnology—from abortion and embryonic stem-cell research to psychopharmacology, cosmetic surgery and neurology, genetic manipulation, and the detachment of sex from reproduction. But such technical advances can come at the expense of our natural and creaturely dignity, of what we display when we know who we are and what we’re supposed to do. Our lives will only become more miserably confused if we cannot speak confidently about human dignity. In Modern and American Dignity, Lawler, who served on President George W. Bush’s Council on Bioethics, reveals the intellectual and cultural trends that threaten our confidence in human dignity. Exploring a wide range of topics with wit and elegance, Lawler has provided an indispensable guide to today’s complex political, bioethical, and cultural debates.

Author : B. F. Skinner
Publisher : Hackett Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1603840818
Total Pages : 241 pages
Book Rating : 4.11/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Beyond Freedom and Dignity written by B. F. Skinner and published by Hackett Publishing. This book was released on 2002-03-15 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this profound and profoundly controversial work, a landmark of 20th-century thought originally published in 1971, B. F. Skinner makes his definitive statement about humankind and society. Insisting that the problems of the world today can be solved only by dealing much more effectively with human behavior, Skinner argues that our traditional concepts of freedom and dignity must be sharply revised. They have played an important historical role in our struggle against many kinds of tyranny, he acknowledges, but they are now responsible for the futile defense of a presumed free and autonomous individual; they are perpetuating our use of punishment and blocking the development of more effective cultural practices. Basing his arguments on the massive results of the experimental analysis of behavior he pioneered, Skinner rejects traditional explanations of behavior in terms of states of mind, feelings, and other mental attributes in favor of explanations to be sought in the interaction between genetic endowment and personal history. He argues that instead of promoting freedom and dignity as personal attributes, we should direct our attention to the physical and social environments in which people live. It is the environment rather than humankind itself that must be changed if the traditional goals of the struggle for freedom and dignity are to be reached. Beyond Freedom and Dignity urges us to reexamine the ideals we have taken for granted and to consider the possibility of a radically behaviorist approach to human problems--one that has appeared to some incompatible with those ideals, but which envisions the building of a world in which humankind can attain its greatest possible achievements.

Author : James Greenaway
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN 13 : 1793611017
Total Pages : 253 pages
Book Rating : 4.17/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Human Dignity, Education, and Political Society written by James Greenaway and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2020-07-07 with total page 253 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A life of liberty and responsibility does not just happen, but requires a particular kind of education, one that aims at both a growth of the human soul and an enrichment of political society in justice and the common good. This we call a liberal education. Forgetfulness of liberty is also a forgetfulness of the multi-dimensional nature of the human person, and a diminution of political life. Keeping in mind what can be lost when liberal education is lost, this volume makes the case for recovering what is perennially noble and good in the liberal arts, and why the liberal arts always have a role to play in human flourishing. Each of the authors herein focuses on the connection of three primary themes: human dignity, liberal education, and political society. Intentionally rooted in the hub that joins the three themes, each author seeks to unfold the contemporary significance of that hub. As a whole, the volume explores how the three themes are crucial to each other: how they illuminate each other, how they need each other, and how the loss of one jeopardizes the wellbeing of the others. In individual chapters, the authors engage various relevant aspects of liberal education. As a result, the volume is organized into three parts: Liberal Education and a Life Well Lived; Thinkers on Dignity and Education in History; Contemporary Topics in Dignity and Education. As education is increasingly channeled into an ever more narrow focus on technical specialization, and measured against professional success, students themselves face a maelstrom of campus politics and competing political orthodoxies. These are among the issues that tend to militate against the operative liberty of the student to think and to speak as a person. This edited collection is offered as an invitation to think again about the liberal arts in order to recover the meaning of education as the authentic pursuit of the good life or eudemonia.

Author : George Kateb
Publisher : Harvard University Press
ISBN 13 : 0674264975
Total Pages : 257 pages
Book Rating : 4.77/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Human Dignity written by George Kateb and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2011-01-03 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We often speak of the dignity owed to a person. And dignity is a word that regularly appears in political speeches. Charters are promulgated in its name, and appeals to it are made when people all over the world struggle to achieve their rights. But what exactly is dignity? When one person physically assaults another, we feel the wrong demands immediate condemnation and legal sanction. Whereas when one person humiliates or thoughtlessly makes use of another, we recognize the wrong and hope for a remedy, but the social response is less clear. The injury itself may be hard to quantify. Given our concern with human dignity, it is odd that it has received comparatively little scrutiny. Here, George Kateb asks what human dignity is and why it matters for the claim to rights. He proposes that dignity is an “existential” value that pertains to the identity of a person as a human being. To injure or even to try to efface someone’s dignity is to treat that person as not human or less than human—as a thing or instrument or subhuman creature. Kateb does not limit the notion of dignity to individuals but extends it to the human species. The dignity of the human species rests on our uniqueness among all other species. In the book’s concluding section, he argues that despite the ravages we have inflicted on it, nature would be worse off without humanity. The supremely fitting task of humanity can be seen as a “stewardship” of nature. This secular defense of human dignity—the first book-length attempt of its kind—crowns the career of a distinguished political thinker.

Author : Tobin James Mueller
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 196 pages
Book Rating : 4.92/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The New Age Politics written by Tobin James Mueller and published by . This book was released on 1987 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Author : Marcus Düwell
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 1107782406
Total Pages : 1130 pages
Book Rating : 4.02/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Cambridge Handbook of Human Dignity written by Marcus Düwell and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2014-04-10 with total page 1130 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This introduction to human dignity explores the history of the notion from antiquity to the nineteenth century, and the way in which dignity is conceptualised in non-Western contexts. Building on this, it addresses a range of systematic conceptualisations, considers the theoretical and legal conditions for human dignity as a useful notion and analyses a number of philosophical and conceptual approaches to dignity. Finally, the book introduces current debates, paying particular attention to the legal implementation, human rights, justice and conflicts, medicine and bioethics, and provides an explicit systematic framework for discussing human dignity. Adopting a wide range of perspectives and taking into account numerous cultures and contexts, this handbook is a valuable resource for students, scholars and professionals working in philosophy, law, history and theology.

Author : Leon R. Kass
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 1439105685
Total Pages : 389 pages
Book Rating : 4.89/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Toward a More Natural Science written by Leon R. Kass and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2008-06-30 with total page 389 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Kass shows how the promise and the peril of our time are inextricably linked with the promise and the peril of modern science. The relation between the pursuit of knowledge and the conduct of life—between science and ethics, each broadly conceived—has in recent years been greatly complicated by developments in the science of life. This book examines the ethical questions involved in prenatal screening, in vitro fertilization, artificial life forms, and medical care, and discusses the role of human beings in nature.

Author : President's Council on Bioethics (U.S.)
Publisher : U.S. Independent Agencies and Commissions
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 588 pages
Book Rating : 4.46/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Human Dignity and Bioethics written by President's Council on Bioethics (U.S.) and published by U.S. Independent Agencies and Commissions. This book was released on 2008 with total page 588 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Contains a collection of essays exploring human dignity and bioethics, a concept crucial to today's discourse in law and ethics in general and in bioethics in particular.

Author : Richard A. Epstein
Publisher : Independent Institute
ISBN 13 : 1598133373
Total Pages : 362 pages
Book Rating : 4.70/5 ( download)

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Download or read book In All Fairness written by Richard A. Epstein and published by Independent Institute. This book was released on 2019-10-01 with total page 362 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Growing concern about inequality has led to proposals to remake American society according to ill-conceived and coercive "egalitarian" values that are fundamentally unfair. This unique book reveals the modern romance with equality as a destructive flirtation. The elites who advocate such notions claim they champion the poor—but more often than not the nostrums of this managerial class undermine, rather than advance, mass prosperity and human well-being. The authors of In All Fairness challenge all of the prevailing egalitarian ideas, including the claim that the country is riven by inequality in the first place. After all, our economy thrives with a division of labor that allows individuals who are unequal in interests and talents to pursue their own unique goals. Looked at in this way, equality is far more widespread than overheated rhetoric might lead one to expect—as factual data show. But it is an equality of a particularly valuable type—one arrived at, not by top-down attempts to impose economic uniformity, but by our respecting inviolable rules of fair play and the dignity of each person, a dignity that requires everyone to respect the voluntary transactions of others. This approach holds equity, liberty, diversity, and prosperity together. Would we want it any other way in America and anywhere around the world? The authors draw on economics, philosophy, religion, law, political science, and history to provide answers to a perennial question that especially agitates the American public today: Can the coercive powers of the state be used to achieve a kind of arithmetic equality? The authors, each in their own way, make a strong case that they should not be used in this fashion. Love inequality or loathe it, In All Fairness is full of key insights about the connections among fairness, liberty, equality and the quest for human dignity. You won't think about wealth and poverty, equality and inequality, in the same way ever again.