Body-Self Dualism in Contemporary Ethics and Politics [Paperback]

Patrick Lee (Author), Robert P. George (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0521124190 | ISBN-13: 978-0521124195 | Publication Date: September 14, 2009 | Edition: 1

This book treats the question of what a human person is and the ethical and political controversies of abortion, hedonism and drug-taking, euthanasia, and sex ethics. It defends the position that human beings are both body and soul, with a fundamental and morally important difference from other animals. It defends the traditional position on the most controversial specific moral and political issues of the day.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Robert P. George... is this country's most influential conservative Christian thinker."
-David D. Kirkpatrick, New York Times

"This new book by Lee and George promises to be a book of singular importance and standing-a book whose arguments would have to be addressed by anyone seriously entering the discussions in this field. Lee and George address the most contentious issues in our politics-- euthanasia, abortion, hedonism, same-sex marriage, homosexuality-- yet they move with scrupulous fairness to give an accurate account of arguments 'on the other side,' and meet those arguments directly and fully."
Hadley Arkes, Amherst College

"Body-Self Dualism in Contemporary Ethics and Politics is a rigorous, bold defense of the biological, material unity and value of persons. Lee and George vigorously challenge competing accounts in philosophy of mind and personal identity, and then employ their unified theory of human nature to confront contemporary treatments of reproduction, sexual ethics, and other matters of practical moral concern. This book defends some controversial, 'conservative' values with systematic, clear arguments; it deserves a wide readership."
Charles Taliaferro, St. Olaf's College

"The greatest interest lies in the detail of the argument and the way in which it illuminates the familiar while also producing unexpected insights and leading to a noble and convincing conception of human beings as at once living animals, intellectual subjects, and moral and spiritual beings...it will aid the much needed challenge to prevailing orthodoxies"
-First Things

Book Description

Profoundly important ethical and political controversies turn on the question of whether biological life is an essential aspect of a human person, or only an extrinsic instrument. Lee and George argue that human beings are physical, animal organisms - albeit essentially rational and free - and examine the implications of this understanding of human beings for some of the most controversial issues in contemporary ethics and politics.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 232 pages
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press; 1 edition (September 14, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0521124190
• ISBN-13: 978-0521124195
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.9 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #416,500 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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19 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Outstanding Philosophical Critique of Dualism, May 13, 2008

By 

E. C. Brugger (Denver, Colorado) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Body-Self Dualism in Contemporary Ethics and Politics (Hardcover)

Lee and George have set forth a sophisticated refutation of the philosophical idea called "body-self dualism". At the heart of this philosophy is the view that humans persons are not deserving of moral respect in virtue of being whole, living, bodily human organisms, but in virtue of some quality which they develop over time, usually consciousness. It follows that human persons are something other than their bodies (not more than their bodies, but other than their bodies), that consciousness is personal but living bodies without consciousness are subpersonal. It further follows that those who are not yet conscious (e.g., embryos and fetuses), and those who have irretrievably lost consciousness (e.g., those in irreversible commas) are not persons and therefore may be treated instrumentally and even killed for the good of others. This reasoning underlies justifications for euthanasia, abortion and embryo destructive experimentation.
Lee and George set forth a basic argument in defense of the view that bodily (biological) life is an essential and intrinsic aspect of persons. They entertain extensive objections against this view. And then they put the view to work in relation to several contemporary controversial moral issues: hedonism and hedonistic drug taking, abortion, euthanasia and issues in sexual ethics.
The basic argument goes like this: sensation is a bodily act of a living being; therefore the agent that senses is a bodily entity, an animal; but in humans, the agent who senses also reasons and has self-awareness; therefore the agent who reasons and has self-awareness is a bodily entity, not a spiritual entity making use of the body as an extrinsic instrument.
Having established the animality of human beings, Lee and George in chapter two argue that human are nevertheless unique kinds of animals, animals with a radical difference from all other bodily beings, which requires that they be treated radically different from the way all other animals are treated. They argue, in other words, that the animal organism that constitutes the human being is a "person". And that the personhood claim is fully compatible with the animalist claim. This of course takes careful argument, which Lee and George execute masterfully.
Their `human organisms are human persons' argument has obvious and profound implications. For example, in chapter four it is used to address the issue of abortion. It leads to the conclusion that human embryos and fetuses are complete, though immature, human beings. But since human beings are human persons, embryos and fetuses are human persons. Since humans are deserving of full moral respect in virtue of being persons (i.e., in virtue of that which separates them from other animals), embryos and fetuses are deserving of full moral respect.
Similarly, in chapter five, treating euthanasia, they argue that since human beings remain persons throughout their entire duration as animal organisms (i.e., until organismic death), they retain the basis of their full moral worth -- and hence remain entitled to full moral respect --even when their health is diminished, even radically diminished by disease or incapacity.
Finally, in chapter six treating sex and the body Lee and George argue that since bodies are not extrinsic to persons but are fully personal, they cannot be treated as mere extrinsic tools in the pursuit of fulfillment by the conscious self. This indeed is how they are envisaged in contemporary forms of both sexual liberalism and libertinism, which, the authors argue, rely on an untenable dualistic conception of the person. They carefully argue that the traditional view that sexual activity is morally right only in marriage, and as open to new life and embodying marital unity, "is the only view consistent with the bodily nature of the human person."
The text is the most systematic and rigorous defense of the substantial unity of the human person available today and a most formidable critique of the body-self dualism that underlies much of today's liberal ethical reasoning. It provides the scholarly community and all intelligent persons interested in the questions it treats with sophisticated philosophical replies to some of the most pressing and indeed culture shaping moral questions of our day.

6 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Faith in the Disguise of Philosophy, April 10, 2009

By 

Gelasius - See all my reviews

This review is from: Body-Self Dualism in Contemporary Ethics and Politics (Hardcover)

If one believes as a matter of Faith in the gift of creation and the ownership of man by God his creator, this secularized version of faith is an adequate, though often obtusely worded, defense of that which the beauty of faith better expresses. Faith, however, disguised as philosophy is unpersuasive as the claimed philosophy despite its ornate phrasing -- which seems affected at times -- begs all of its essential questions including what flows from the obvious subordination of body to consciousness even in adults (compare, for example, the respect given quadraplegics and the manner of treatment of an equally unresponsive body of a deceased person), the book has even less explanatory power vis a vis embryos. The difficulty is Lee & George are the supposed (Catholic) philosophical foundation in reason for an entire edifice of harsh (premature) judgment and closed-minded politics that today plays out in ways that ultimately defeat the love of the creation story so much needed to be revived.