released 8/25/2023
In 2002, not long after accepting the post of chair of the President’s Council on Bioethics, Dr. Leon Kass presented readers with his book Life, Liberty, and the Defense of Dignity: The Challenge for Bioethics. Its essays addressed topics as wide-ranging as the sale of human organs, human cloning, and the role of technology in liberal democracies. But the unifying theme was always the threat of dehumanization in one form or another, and the challenge of sustaining a society and a government capable of and interested in protecting human dignity. Leon Kass talked with Ken Myers about his book and much of that interview is presented in today’s Feature.
36 minutes
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On this 1995 Conversation, Leon Kass discusses his book The Hungry Soul: Eating and the Perfecting of Our Nature, in which he explores how the activity of eating provides clues for understanding human nature and helps guide morality and communal life. Then Brother Peter Reinhart talks about the art of breadmaking as a metaphor for spiritual life. (72 minutes)
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