From: Damien Broderick (damienb@unimelb.edu.au)
Date: Fri Aug 29 2003 - 22:39:08 MDT
At 12:13 AM 8/30/03 +0200, Anders wrote:
>At least a pleasantly non-shrill tone of criticism, and I
>think it is worth considering what our answer to her ought
>to be.
Somerville says:
>But no lesser person than Dr. Leon Kass, chair of the (U.S.)
>President's Commission on Bioethics, has argued against radical life
>extension. "Human life without death would be something other than human,"
>he says; consciousness of mortality gives rise to our deepest longings and
>greatest accomplishments.
This is non-shrill, but it's the more profoundly chilling for that. What
sort of pleasantly non-shrill lunacy is this? How would, and should, we
respond, say, to a far less horrible and global claim such as "Human life
without widespread cholera would be something other than human," or "Human
life without the routine death of most infants would be something other
than human"?
Somerville, having declared >H options inhuman, adds:
>But the affluent and educated will inevitably be more able to avail
>themselves of such choices.
Why would they wish to do so if the goal is so repellant?
Damien Broderick
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