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Who Count as Persons?: Human Identity and the Ethics of Killing
Just 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 dying, he proposes ways to recover a personal ethical stance in a global society that increasingly devalues the individual.
Kavanaugh discusses the work of a range of philosophers, artists, and activists from Richard Rorty and Søren Kierkegaard to Albert Camus and Woody Allen, from Mother Teresa to Jack Kevorkian. His approach is in stark contrast to that of writer Peter Singer and others who believe that not all human life has intrinsic moral worth. It will challenge philosophers, students of ethics, and anyone concerned about the depersonalization of contemporary life.
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 dying, he proposes ways to recover a personal ethical stance in a global society that increasingly devalues the individual.
Kavanaugh discusses the work of a range of philosophers, artists, and activists from Richard Rorty and Søren Kierkegaard to Albert Camus and Woody Allen, from Mother Teresa to Jack Kevorkian. His approach is in stark contrast to that of writer Peter Singer and others who believe that not all human life has intrinsic moral worth. It will challenge philosophers, students of ethics, and anyone concerned about the depersonalization of contemporary life.
- GenresPhilosophy
240 pages, Paperback
First published February 1, 2001
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August 11, 2024
Very meaningful.
This was not the easiest book to read. Not by a mile. I don’t think this book was meant for the lay audience or maybe I just don’t enough experience reading philosophy. Either way, I would say I understood maybe 40% of what this book was trying to convey.
At its heart, it read like a thesis and the author made some interesting attempts to almost define what makes a person a person. That’s the part I got lost in. They tried to insert real-world examples and those were somewhat helpful to enable understanding. The part that I most connected with and understood was the last few chapters that delved into the ethics of killing. That was easier to understand because it was cemented in real-world realities.
Overall, this thesis has made me question and delve deeper into my own beliefs. However, a good chunk of this was also immensely difficult for me to understand.
This was not the easiest book to read. Not by a mile. I don’t think this book was meant for the lay audience or maybe I just don’t enough experience reading philosophy. Either way, I would say I understood maybe 40% of what this book was trying to convey.
At its heart, it read like a thesis and the author made some interesting attempts to almost define what makes a person a person. That’s the part I got lost in. They tried to insert real-world examples and those were somewhat helpful to enable understanding. The part that I most connected with and understood was the last few chapters that delved into the ethics of killing. That was easier to understand because it was cemented in real-world realities.
Overall, this thesis has made me question and delve deeper into my own beliefs. However, a good chunk of this was also immensely difficult for me to understand.
Displaying 1 of 1 review