Books

Leading a Worthy Life

– Leon Kass, Leading a Worthy life: Finding Meaning in Modern Times, (New York: Encounter, 2017).
This work is a collection of old and new essays by one of America’s leading thinkers. A true tour-de-force, it offers an excellent introduction to the great themes of Leon Kass’s life work. From the publisher: Most American young people, like… More

Apples of Gold in Pictures of Silver: Honoring the Work of Leon R. Kass

– Yuval Levin, Thomas W. Merrill, and Adam Schulman, eds. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, May 25, 2010.
Summary: Leon R. Kass has been helping Americans better understand the human condition for over four decades—as a teacher, writer, scholar, public champion of the humanities, and defender of human dignity. From bioethics to civic education, from… More

What So Proudly We Hail, The American Soul In Story, Speech, And Song

– Intercollegiate Studies Institute, 2012.
Summary: This wonderfully rich anthology uses the soul-shaping power of story, speech, and song to help Americans realize more deeply—and appreciate more fully—who they are as citizens of the United States. At once inspiring and thought-provoking, What… More

Taking Care: Ethical Caregiving in Our Aging Society

– The President's Council on Bioethics, Washington, DC, September 2005.
Excerpt: American society is aging—dramatically, rapidly, and largely well. More and more people are living healthily into their seventies and eighties, many well into their nineties. With birth rates down, with the baby boomers approaching retirement, we… More

Reproduction and Responsibility: The Regulation of New Biotechnologies

– The President's Council on Bioethics, Washington, DC, March 2004.
Excerpt: This report differs from, yet complements, the Council’s work in its previous publications. In Human Cloning and Human Dignity, we addressed the limited topic of human cloning—what to think and what to do about it—and offered specific… More

Monitoring Stem Cell Research

– The President's Council on Bioethics, Washington, DC, January 2004.
Excerpt: I am pleased to present to you Monitoring Stem Cell Research, a report of the President’s Council on Bioethics. Over the past two years, in keeping with your stated intention, the Council has been monitoring developments in stem cell research,… More

Life, Liberty, and the Defense of Dignity: The Challenge for Bioethics

– Encounter Books, January 1, 2004.
At the onset of Life, Liberty and the Defense of Dignity, Leon Kass gives us a status report on where we stand today: “Human nature itself lies on the operating table, ready for alteration, for eugenic and psychic ‘enhancement,’ for wholesale redesign.… More

Being Human: Readings from the President’s Council on Bioethics

– The President's Council on Bioethics, Washington, DC, December 2003.
Summary: Increasingly, advances in biomedical science and technology raise profound challenges to familiar human practices and ways of thinking, feeling, and acting. It is no wonder, then, that bioethics touches matters close to the core of our humanity:… More

Beyond Therapy: Biotechnology and the Pursuit of Happiness

– The President's Council on Bioethics, Washington, DC, October 2003.
Excerpt: Biotechnology offers exciting and promising prospects for healing the sick and relieving the suffering. But exactly because of their impressive powers to alter the workings of body and mind, the “dual uses” of the same technologies make… More

The Beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis

– Free Press, 2003.
Summary: As ardent debates over creationism fill the front pages of newspapers, Genesis has never been more timely. And as Leon R. Kass shows in The Beginning of Wisdom, it’s also timeless. Examining Genesis in a philosophical light, Kass presents it not… More

Human Cloning and Human Dignity: An Ethical Inquiry

– The President's Council on Bioethics, Washington, DC, July 2002.
Excerpt: Man’s biotechnological powers are expanding in scope, at what seems an accelerating pace. Many of these powers are double-edged, offering help for human suffering, yet threatening harm to human dignity. Human cloning, we are confident, is but a… More

Wing to Wing, Oar to Oar: Readings on Courting and Marrying

– University of Notre Dame Press, February 2000.
Wing to Wing, Oar to Oar: Courting and Marrying is an anthology of source readings offered as a response to the contemporary cultural silence surrounding love that leads to marriage. It addresses important questions that emerge not from theory, but from… More

The Hungry Soul: Eating and the Perfecting of Our Nature

– University Of Chicago Press, May, 1999.
The Hungry Soul is a fascinating exploration of the natural and cultural act of eating. Kass brilliantly reveals how the various aspects of this phenomenon, and the customs, rituals, and taboos surrounding it, relate to universal and profound truths about… More

The Ethics of Human Cloning

– With James Q. Wilson, American Enterprise Institute Press, June 1, 1998.
Today biological science is rising on a wall of worry. No other science has advanced more dramatically during the past several decades or yielded so many palpable improvements in human welfare. Yet none except nuclear physics has aroused greater apprehensions… More