Description
Book SynopsisIn this book Jurgen Habermas - the most influential philosopher and social thinker in Germany today - takes up the question of genetic engineering and its ethical implications and subjects it to careful philosophical scrutiny.
Trade Review"Thoughtful and stimulating."
Times Literary Supplement "A rich introduction to current ethical thinking in Europe and to the relevance of philosophy to society."
Canadian Medical Association Journal
"When a philosopher of the stature of Jurgen Habermas makes an intervention into contemporary genetics it pays to sit up and listen. Habermas has produced this short but sharp analysis on the ethical sides of genetic engineering and technology that never seem to be discussed at any length by professional philosophers."
Disability and Society
This book is of particular interest for two sorts of reasons. For those interested in bioethics, it contains a genuinely new set of arguments for placing serious restrictions on using prenatal genetic technologies to "enhance" offspring. And for those interested in Habermas's moral philosophy, it contains a number of new developments in his "discourse ethics" - not the least of which is a willingness to engage in applied ethics at all. It is greatly to Habermas's credit that he has squarely faced this issue, depsite the fundamental challenge it poses for discourse ethics."
Ethics
"When one of the most famous living philosophers takes a stand on certain moral dilemmas that arise from the current boom in developments in the bio-sciences, it is natural that it should provoke great interest."
Radical Philosophy "Habermas' thoughtful and self-critical contribution reads like the start of an important conversation."
Jon Turney, Times Higher Education Supplement
"A very useful source of philosophical understanding of these issues."
Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law
"We are fortunate to have Jurgen Habermas writing about bioethics. His intelligence, moral seriousness and intellectual sophistication make him an exemplary figure on the Left."
Mark Blitz, Claremont Review of Books
Table of ContentsPublisher’s Note.
Foreword.
Are There Postmetaphysical Answers to the Question: What is the “Good Life”?.
The Debate on the Ethical Self-Understanding of the Species.
I Moralizing Human Nature?.
II Human Dignity versus the Dignity of Human Life.
III The Embedding of Morality in an Ethics of the Species.
IV The Grown and the Made.
V Natality, the Capacity of Being Oneself, and the Ban on Instrumentalization.
VI The Moral Lmits of Eugenics.
VII Setting the Pace for a Self-instrumentalization of the Species?.
Postscript.
Faith and Knowledge.
Notes.
