100% Money back guaranteed

Document provided by...: www.proquest.com; (Learn more...); ProQuest creates specialized information resources and technologies that propel successful research, discovery, and lifelong learning.

Are you the owner of this document? Click here for information on why it's on Docstoc.

About This Document: The occasion was Tinker's reading of Human Dignity and Bioethics, a 550-page volume of essays commissioned by the President's Council on Bioethics. When applied to questions in bioethics, Pinker insists, the notion of dignity produces deeply negative results, including the rejection of the principle that medical practice ought to maximize health and flourishing; rejection of the "modern conception of freedom"; advocacy of "pro-death and anti-freedom views" (said specifically of Leon Kass' deployment of the dignity idea); and support of "moralistic justification[s] for expanded government regulation of science, medicine, and private life." By contrast, he says, the public-policy thoughts of those who like autonomytalk belong in such a society and ought to be enacted there.\n The short answer is that autonomy-talkers such as Pinker are likely to think of worth principally in terms of capacity and thus to draw small the circle of those understood to be human and thereby in principle exempt from deliberate killing or damage.

Stats: Type:
Acrobat PDF; Size:
252 kb; Pages:
3; Views:
21; Posted:
05/28/10

Categories: DocStore > Periodicals > Humanities
Tags: First Things, Aug Sep 2008, The Very Autonomous Steven Pinker, Griffiths, Paul J, Commentary, Religion, Ethics, Christianity, Councils

The Very Autonomous Steven Pinker

Document Sample

The

By registering with docstoc.com you agree to our
privacy policy and terms of service