Natural law Judaism? The genesis of bioethics in Hans Jonas, Leo Strauss, and Leon Kass

Hastings Center Report

Volumn 36, Issue 3, 2006, Pages 32-44

  Vogel, Lawrence ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ADVISORY COMMITTEE; BIOETHICS; ETHICIST; FAMILY; FAMILY SIZE; HUMAN; HUMAN CHARACTERISTIC; MORALITY; RELIGION; REVIEW; SEXUAL BEHAVIOR; THEOLOGY;

ADVISORY COMMITTEES; BIOETHICAL ISSUES; BIOETHICS; ETHICISTS; FAMILY; FAMILY CHARACTERISTICS; HUMAN CHARACTERISTICS; HUMANS; JUDAISM; MORALS; RELIGION AND MEDICINE; RELIGION AND SCIENCE; REPRODUCTIVE BEHAVIOR; THEOLOGY;

EID: 33745905010     PISSN: 00930334     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1353/hcr.2006.0051     Document Type: Review

References (78)

1. L.R. Kass, "The Troubled Dream of Nature as a Moral Guide," Hastings Center Report 26, no. 6 (1996): 24.
2. L.R. Kass, The Beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis (New York: Free Press, 2003), 249.
3. W.A. Galston, "What's at Stake in Biotech?" The Public Interest (Fall 2002): 106.
4. L.R. Kass, "Appreciating The Phenomenon of Life," Hastings Center Report 25, no. 7 (1995): 4.
5. H. Jonas, "Contemporary Problems in Ethics from a Jewish Perspective," Philosophical Essays: From Contemporary Creed to Technological Man (Chicago, Ill.: University of Chicago Press, 1974), 178.
6. Philosophical Essays: From Contemporary Creed to Technological Man. Ibid., 173.
7. Philosophical Essays: From Contemporary Creed to Technological Man. Ibid., 176 and 178.
8. Philosophical Essays: From Contemporary Creed to Technological Man. Ibid., 177.
9. Philosophical Essays: From Contemporary Creed to Technological Man. Ibid., 178.
10. Philosophical Essays: From Contemporary Creed to Technological Man. Ibid., 179.
11. Philosophical Essays: From Contemporary Creed to Technological Man. Ibid., 180.
12. For other references in Jonas's work to the image of God motif, see Mortality and Morality: A Search for the Good after Auschwitz, ed. L. Vogel (Chicago, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 1996), 75 and 178.
13. The shadow of Martin Heidegger looms large over his most original Jewish students. Each offers a philosophical diagnosis of their mentor's moral failings. Emmanuel Levinas follows Martin Buber's criticism that Heidegger forgets "the Thou" or "Other" in his account ot authenticity. Hannah Arendt and Leo Strauss accuse Heideggers "politics of Being" of distorting a more human politics. And Hans Jonas develops Karl Loewith's charge that Heidegger fails to do justice to nature as what gives rise to life and the body as the medium of our existence.
14. For Jonass most complete account of "an existential interpretation ot biological facts," see The Phenomenon of Life (Chicago, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 2001).
15. The Phenomenon of Life Ibid., 283.
16. H. Jonas, The Imperative of Responsibility: In Search of an Ethics for the Technological Age (Chicago, Ill.: University of Chicago Press, 1984), 129.
17. Jonas, The Phenomenon of Life, 283.
18. Jonas, The Imperative of Responsibility, 140.
19. For Jonas on "the fundamental biblical propositions" negated by contemporary ethical theory, see section II in "Contemporary Problems of Ethics in a Jewish Perspective."
20. For Jonas's argument that the re-sponse to "nihilism" must be ontological, not theological, see Jonas, The Imperative of Responsibility, 47-48.
21. Jonas, "Tool, Image and Grave: On What is Beyond the Animal in Man," Mortality and Morality, 75.
22. L. Strauss, "Progress or Return," The Rebirth of Classical Political Rationalism, ed. T.L. Pangle (Chicago, Ill.: University of Chicago Press, 1989), 253.
23. Jonas, "The Concept of God after Auschwitz: A Jewish Voice," chapter 6 in Mortality and Morality.
24. Kass, "Appreciating The Phenomenon of Life," 3-4.
25. "Appreciating The Phenomenon of Life," Ibid., 4-5.
26. "Appreciating The Phenomenon of Life," Ibid., 11.
27. Ibid.
28. Ibid., 12.
29. Ibid.
30. For a comparison of the responsibilities of parents and statesmen, see Jonas, The Imperative of Responsibility, chapter 4, section III.
31. Kass, "Appreciating The Phenomenon of Life," 12.
32. L.R. Kass, The Beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis (New York: Free Press, 2003), 250. All further references to this work are given parenthetically in the body of the text as follows: (250).
33. Kass, "Appreciating The Phenomenon of Life," 11.
34. "Appreciating The Phenomenon of Life," Ibid., 12.
35. L.R. Kass, "The End of Courtship," The Public Interest (Winter 1997): 44.
36. L.R. Kass, Life, Liberty and the Defense of Dignity: The Challenge for Bioethics (San Francisco, Calif.: Encounter Books, 2002), 13.
37. Kass, "The End of Courtship," 44.
38. "The End of Courtship," Ibid., 45.
39. "The End of Courtship," Ibid., 46.
40. "The End of Courtship," Ibid., 49.
41. "The End of Courtship," Ibid., 50-51.
42. "The End of Courtship," Ibid., 53.
43. "The End of Courtship," Ibid., 56.
44. "The End of Courtship," Ibid., 53.
45. For Kass's reference to "the postmoral ambience in which we now live," see Life, Liberty and the Defense of Dignity, 144.
46. For his suggestion that in this environment "human nature is dead in the water as a moral guide," see "The Troubled Dream of Nature," 24.
47. Kass, "The End of Courtship," 53.
48. "The End of Courtship," Ibid., 62.
49. Kass, "The Troubled Dream of Nature," 24.
50. Kass, Life, Liberty and the Defense of Dignity, 143-44.
51. L.R. Kass, "Ageless Bodies, Happy Souls," The New Atlantis (Spring 2003).
52. Kass, Life, Liberty and the Defense of Dignity, 132 and 138.
53. Life, Liberty and the Defense of Dignity, Ibid., 297.
54. Life, Liberty and the Defense of Dignity, Ibid., 143.
55. Kass, "The End of Courtship," 62-63.
56. E. Cohen, "Conservative Bioethics and the Search for Wisdom," Hastings Center Report 36, no. 1 (2006): 52.
57. L.R. Kass, "Human Frailty and Human Dignity," The New Atlantis (Fall 2004/Winter 2005): 114.
58. The New Atlantis, Ibid., 118.
59. The New Atlantis, Ibid., 118.
60. The New Atlantis, Ibid., 117.
61. See Strauss, The Rebirth of Classical Political Rationalism, chapter 3.
62. The Rebirth of Classical Political Rationalism, Ibid., 270.
63. The Rebirth of Classical Political Rationalism, Ibid., 246-47.
64. The Rebirth of Classical Political Rationalism, Ibid., 252.
65. The Rebirth of Classical Political Rationalism, Ibid., 252.
66. E. Strauss, "Why We Remain Jews," in Jewish Philosophy and the Crisis of Modernity, ed. K.H. Green (Albany, N.Y.: SUNY Press, 1997), 317.
67. Jewish Philosophy and the Crisis of Modernity, Ibid., 257.
68. For Strauss on the role of "divine law" in Greek philosophy, see The Rebirth of Classical Political Rationalism, 256.
69. See Strauss's critique of the liberalism of Isaiah Berlin in The Rebirth of Classical Political Rationalism, chapter 2.
70. For Strauss's argument that the United States faces a philosophical peril similar to the relativism that weakened Weimar Germany's resistance to Nazism, see Strauss's classic Natural Right and History (Chicago, Ill.: University of Chicago Press, 1950).
71. For Kass's fullest development of Jonas's idea of "an existential interpretation of biological facts," see L.R. Kass, Toward a More Natural Science: Biology and Human Affairs (New York: Free Press, 1985).
72. L. Strauss, "Jerusalem and Athens: Some Preliminary Reflections," in Jewish Philosophy and the Crisis of Modernity, 380.
73. Kass, Life, Liberty and the Defense of Dignity, 236 and 239.
74. For Kass on "the wisdom of repugnance," see Life, Liberty and the Defense of Dignity, chapter 5.
75. Kass, "The Troubled Dream of Nature," 24.
76. Strauss, The Rebirth of Classical Political Rationalism, 267.
77. Galston, "What's at Stake in Biotech?" 106.
78. D. Hartman, A Living Covenant: The Innovative Spirit of Traditional Judaism (Woodstock. Vt.: Jewish Lights, 1997), 8-9.