Living Forever as Leon Kass
Time again for the biannual screed by Leon Kass that anything humans do to lengthen their lives is at best a Faustian bargian; soon we'll let our pursuit of long life make us Dorian Gray. Doubtless you've read one of these pieces before, even if by accident, but as usual this one leads the reader to conclude that indeed, Leon Kass is right that he would not enjoy living forever, or that he might be less"His view is that the fact that we're going to die makes us think more seriously about our life," Callahan said. "I don't know if that's necessarily true. I'm 75 now, and that certainly hasn't been my experience."Callahan also questions the idea that our humanity is somehow tied to our sense of finitude.
"I don't think one can make our humanity dependent on the length of our life," Callahan told LiveScience. "Even if we live to be 500, we'll still be human beings."
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doesn't Kass think that things are bad if they make you feel icky? i think dead bodies are kind of icky..
- by Coffee Mug on May 26, 2006 at 6:30 AM | link
Once again the utter failure to grapple with Kass's entire body of work is mind boggling. Kass doesn't want people's lives to be extended? Right. He opposes insulin? Surgery? Antibiotics? He has spoken powerfully for the proper care of the frail elderly: I guess that was to make them die sooner?
And isn't Callahan the fellow who pushed health care rationing?
The Kassaphobia on this blog is downright irrational. I suggest counseling.
- by Wesley J. Smith on May 26, 2006 at 9:18 PM | link
I have never understood liberals desire to artifically extend the human life span to 150 years and beyond. Aren't liberals concerned about over-population? I guess that means they would prefer that they get to live forever and everyone else has to stop having babies.
- by Rebecca Taylor on May 26, 2006 at 9:41 PM | link
"Body of work?" On life extension or enhancement? Hmm. Let's count the articles. Then run a "redundancy check." The same argument over and over and over again, made no more meaningful in its rearticulation. Kass' position on surgery, antibiotics? Irrelevant.
Kass' "positions" on umpteen issues are irrelevant. His arguments are what matter. Recall that this is an academic field of endeavor, or at least mostly is, although the question of whether it is expanding to become a political field of endeavor is on the table for sure. Either way, Kass makes no consequential arguments about surgery or antibiotics that pertain to the blog posting, except in his earlier poetic assembly of previous essays (is that even in print?). Which we've read, by the way.
McGee devotes essentially an entire chapter to Kass in The Perfect Baby; at the time he was criticized by more than one reviewer for dealing with the arguments of Kass since they hadn't been advanced with any rigor or been part of the broader discussion in society.
The problem is the fifty five million versions of the Kass screed about how good it is to die. He and the minions of his now deposed Council of Lords of Seriousness advance the same kind of intuitionist arguments about why life is supposed to be short that they advance against human cloning (or for that matter, in his case, IVF).
That he is interested in the proper care of the elderly not in dispute, so long as we agree that the definition of proper for Kass would include not fighting to help them conquer any kind of disease that would result in an "artificially lengthened life."
Body of work. Please. Should we be reading the book more carefully to ensure that our nation takes truly seriously Kass' arguments against ice cream cones?
- by eds on May 27, 2006 at 1:36 AM | link