Life, Liberty and the Defense of Dignity: The Challenge for Bioethics

by Leon R., M.D. Kass

Publisher: Encounter Books
ISBN: 1893554554

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Book Description

At the onset of "Life, Liberty and the Defense of Dignity," Leon Kass gives us a status report on where we stand today: "Human nature itself lies on the operating table, ready for alteration, for eugenic and psychic 'enhancement,' for wholesale redesign. In leading laboratories, academic and industrial, new creators are confidently amassing their powers and quietly honing their skills, while on the street their evangelists are zealously prophesying a posthuman future. For anyone who cares about preserving our humanity, the time has come for paying attention."

Trained as a medical doctor and biochemist, Dr. Kass has become one of our most provocative thinkers on bioethical issues. Now, in this brave and searching book, he also establishes himself as a prophetic voice summoning us to think deeply about the new biomedical technologies threatening to take us back to the future envisioned by Aldous Huxley in "Brave New World." As in Huxley's dystopia, where life has been smoothed out by genetic manipulation, psychoactive drugs and high tech amusement, our own accelerating efforts to master reproduction and genetic endowment, to retard aging, and to conquer illness, imperfection, and death itself are animated by our most humane and progressive aspirations. But we are walking too quickly down the road to physical and psychological utopia, Kass believes, without pausing to assess the potential damage to our humanity from this brave new biology.

In a series of meditations on cloning, embryo research, the human genome project, the sale of organs, and the assault on mortality itself, Kass evaluates the ongoing effort to break down the natural boundaries given us and to remake the human body into an instrument of our will. What does it mean to treat nascent human life as raw material to be exploited? What does it mean to blur the line between procreation and manufacture? What are the proper limits to this project for the remaking of human nature? These are the questions we should be asking to prevent runaway scientism with its utopian longings from reshaping humankind in the image of our own choosing.

Kass believes that technology has done and will continue to do wonders for our health and longevity and that we have much to be thankful for. But there is more at stake in the biological revolution that saving life and avoiding death. We must also strive to protect the ideas and practices that give us dignity and keep us human.

"Life, Liberty and the Defense of Dignity" challenges us to confront the posthuman future that may await us by thinking deeply about the life and death issues we face today.

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.

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

From Book News, Inc.

In order for society to protect itself against runaway biotechnology, Kass (social thought, U. of Chicago) says it is most important to recognize which human goods are in danger and worth defending. He argues that the scientific-technological approach to the world and to life have transformed the view of the meaning of humanity, and people are in jeopardy of forgetting what they have to lose.

About the Author

Leon R. Kass is a Professor in the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago and Hertog Fellow in Social Thought at the American Enterprise Institute. Among his books are "Toward a more natural Science: Biology and Human Affairs;" The Hungry Soul;" The Ethics of Human Cloning (with James Q. Wilson);" and "Wing to wing, Oar to Oar: Readings on Courting and Marrying" (with Amy A. Kass). In 2001, President Bush Appointed Dr. Kass to chair the new President’s Council on Bioethics.

Customer Reviews

I fail to see how Sherman Durfee's rant qualifies as a book review as there seems to be no mention of the actual text. I'd like to address Mr. Durfee's concerns and then discuss the book.

Dr. Kass is an MD by training. He then went on to become a Professor at the U of Chicago with the Department of Social Thought (not a lecturer). While at the U of C, I never once saw him "prancing around," though he did once have a book signing - which seems normal for people who do things like, say, write books. His views would be considered by most to be conservative and thus "right-wing" since to people such as Durfee, the two are exactly the same. His views are thoughtful, though, and should be considered by anyone with an open mind. I imagine Dr. Kass has had to discuss his views with patients who suffer from neurologic diseases and doubt that he has any difficulty doing so. As a pathologist who sees all the horrible cases a hospital has while interacting with many scientists, I don't find it difficult to tell people certain treatments are morally wrong, and I have no where near the intellectual fortitude of Dr. Kass. Finally, I doubt if Dr. Kass works any less hard than Mr. Durfee's scientists who are "working overtime" and "toiling hours away." Mr. Durfee is either a scientist with an over-inflated idea of himself or an idealogue who has no idea how hard or why most scientists work. Mr. Durfee's biggest complaint is that the book has somehow insulted him. He has obviously not read it and instead insults anyone who might question the use of the sick and dying to justify all methods of scientific research.

Like his previous books, this book is timely and well-written. It is accessible to most people (who actually take the time to read it). It provides cogent arguments against some methods that many have come to agree with for the sake of the sick. It should be read by anyone who believes that the means are not always justified by the end and who is open to intellectual argument.

This is a book that anyone worried about the brave new world that awaits us ought to read. Kass is heads and shoulders above all the others who have written about the dilemmas of bioethics. He has a certain reassuring melancholy in the face of all the febrile assurances that we are entering a paradise of longevity and health through stem cells. He shows that the subject of bioethics cannot be approached without a strong understanding that by toying with God's creation we are arrogating to ourselves the power of God--and that, since the Greeks, has been a prescription for disaster.