Description
Book SynopsisJust what is a human being? Who counts? The answers to these questions are crucial when one is faced with the ethical issue of taking human life. In this affirmation of the intrinsic personal dignity and inviolability of every human individual, John Kavanaugh, S. J., denies that it can ever be moral to intentionally kill another.
Today in every corner of the world men and women are willing to kill others in the name of realism and under the guise of race, class, quality of life, sex, property, nationalism, security, or religion. We justify these killings by either excluding certain humans from our definition of personhood or by invoking a greater good or more pressing value.
Kavanaugh contends that neither alternative is acceptable. He formulates an ethics that opposes the intentional killing not only of medically marginal humans but also of depersonalized or criminalized enemies. Offering a philosophy of the person that embraces the undeveloped, the wounded, and the dyi
Trade Review
This book offers a powerful, challenging view of the human person for the modern world as a basis for ethical decision making, especially on life-and-death issues... We have much to learn from Father John Kavanaugh. He is insightful and learned, and his passionate concern for the dignity of human beings flows from every page. National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly [Offers] a compelling critique of contemporary society. Theological Studies A richly insightful and provocative exploration of the diverse ideologies invented to justify degrading or taking human life. Choice All college and seminary libraries need this prophetic book in their collections. Ethics
Table of Contents
Preface 1. Introduction 2. Personal Losses Traces of Lost PersonsThe Fear and Call of Personal RealitySocial and Political DepersonalizationImpersonal Theory, De-Personed Philosophythe Texture of Personal Reality and Ethical Experience 3. Personal Bodies On the Matter and Spirit of MapsOn the Matter and Spirit of PersonsPersonal EmbodimentBody as Object, Body as SubjectAmbiguities of EmbodimentThe "My-ness" and "Me-Ness" of a Personal BodyPersonal ConsciousnessPersonalized World 4. Endowments of Embodied Persons Personal FoundationsAwareness of Awaress, Selves, and PersonsThe Endowment of FreedomThe Endowment of Love in Self-Conscious AffirmationEndowed Human PersonPersonal Nature 5. Personal Entries into EthicsInescapable Perspectives of PersonsAchieving the Moral good and Doing the Right ThingKant and the Pull to the InteriorMill and the Pull OutwardThe Personal CenterThe Intrinsic TurnKilling, Autonomy, and Intrinsic Values 6. Before Good and Evil The Field of Moral ExperienceThe Dynamics of Personal Moral JudgmentThe Subjective Internal DimensionContext, Culture, and Personal ChallengeNegation of Truth and the Beginning of EvilFalls and Crimes 7. Killing Persons and Ethics The Logic of TerrorThe Moral Inviolability of PersonsDefending Life by Intending DeathKilling Incomplete PersonsKilling Defective or Dying Persons 8. Reviving Personal Life The Choice of RealitiesThe "Reality" of Consumer CapitalismReviving Personal SolitudeRecovering Personal RelationshipsRevealing Human Vulnerability Notes Bibliography Index
