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Being Human: Core Readings in the Humanities

Being Human: Core Readings in the Humanities

Current price: $30.00
Publication Date: August 4th, 2004
Publisher:
W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN:
9780393926392
Pages:
656

Description

Being Human is the first humanities reader that focuses on humanity in the literal sense—what it’s like to be human.

The Norton Edition of this widely praised collection brings the best writings in the humanities to a college audience. Each chapter presents a question or topic central to the human experience, among them "The Search for Perfection," "Are We Our Bodies?," "Vulnerability and Suffering," and "Human Dignity." To guide students as they read these influential works, every selection is prefaced by a concise headnote and thoughtful discussion questions.





How shall we promote and protect human flourishing in a world of ever-emerging technologies? At what point should we limit our quest for physical and mental perfection? Drawing on the insights of great thinkers throughout the ages, Being Human: Core Readings in the Humanities can help give readers a solid understanding of what it means to be human, both in the past and into the future. College courses, from Humanities to Bioethics to Freshman Composition, will benefit from this important collection.

About the Author

Leon R. Kass, M.D., Ph.D., is the Addie Clark Harding Professor in the Committee on Social Thought and the College at the University of Chicago (on leave of absence) and Hertog Fellow in Social Thought at the American Enterprise Institute. In 2001, President George W. Bush appointed Dr. Kass chairman of the President’s Council on Bioethics. His widely reprinted essays in biomedical ethics have dealt with issues raised by in vitro fertilization, cloning, genetic screening and genetic technology, organ transplantation, aging research, euthanasia and assisted suicide, and the moral nature of the medical profession.