Product Description

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1144168 in Books
• Published on: 2002-10-01
• Original language: English
• Dimensions: 1.17" h x 6.30" w x 9.32" l, 1.36 pounds
• Binding: Hardcover
• 297 pages

From Publishers Weekly
For many people, the brave new world of biotechnology promises a utopian society where we will be free from diseases because of our manipulation of the genetic code. According to Kass, chairman of President Bush's Council on Bioethics, this vision of the future involves dehumanization, because the fundamental principles of cloning and stem cell research involve altering our human nature so dramatically that we are no longer human but posthuman. Fundamental to our human nature, Kass contends, is our human dignity, "our awareness of need, limitation, and mortality to craft a way of being that has engagement, depth, beauty, virtue, and meaning." Modern biology, he argues, has persuaded us that our embodiment is a fact of life to be overcome through germline manipulation or other biotechnological techniques. Through stimulating examinations of genetic research, cloning and active euthanasia, Kass makes a case that, in spite of its many promises, biotechnology has left humanity out of its equation, often debasing human dignity rather than celebrating it. In the end, he calls for a new bioethics and a new biology that will provide "an ethical account of human flourishing based on a biological account of human life as lived, not just physically, but psychically, socially and spiritually." Although some will object to Kass's importing the spiritual into the biological, his cry will strike others as a clarion call to protect human freedom from the excesses of biotechnology. Still others will be wary of his influence on the present administration.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Bioethicist Kass, who left physiological biochemistry when cloning arrived on the scene, offers an almost airtight philosophical argument that draws heavily on slippery slope thinking to support his conservative perspective. He doesn't believe that individuals or groups can exert sufficient restraint once physician-assisted suicide, pain-management to the point at which death might occur, and research on brain-stem cells enter the picture. He argues that problematic experience with physician-assisted suicide in the Netherlands shows the inevitable results once that practice has been legitimized, that beyond a certain point pain-management destroys human dignity, and that the use of stem cells is equivalent to encouraging abortion. He draws attention to the breakdown of trust between patient and physician incumbent upon allowing his three bugaboo procedures, and he raises questions concerning research, practice, and policy that should be thoroughly debated. That this book will, as it is intended to, stimulate intense discussion may be an understatement. William Beatty
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review
"Given Kass's capacity to influence public policy, we should want to inquire into his reasoning, and "Life, Liberty and the Defense of Dignity helps us do so."