James W. Walters – författare

At a time when technology can sustain marginal life, it is ever moreimportant to understand what constitutes a person. What are the medical,ethical, moral, mental, legal, and philosophical criteria that determineprotectable human life?Following immediately on the publication of his highly praised book Choosing Who's to Live, James Walters addresses with depth and wisdom anotherambitious and complicated matter: determining the nature of personhood.By providing a much-needed religious/philosophical context for the discussion--examiningcontemporary thinking on just what constitutes valuable life--Waltersbroadens his inquiry beyond the human to include other animals and dealswith the phenomenon of anencephalic infants, those who are born withouthigher brains.Searching for a measurable and humane standard of personhood, Walterslooks at the current definition of it and declares it inadequate--offeringinstead the idea of proximate personhood, with criteria for helping todetermine which individuals possess a unique claim to life.

As a deeply religious thinker who disclaimed all rationalistic systems, Martin Buber produced an insightful critique of modern philosophical ethics, one that became productive soil for another nontraditional philosophical ethic: feminism's care ethic. In light of the recent emphasis on the new morality, antifoundationalism, and postmodernism in ethics, the dialogical ethics of Martin Buber merits close examination. Most important, Walters compares and contrasts Buber's and feminism's personalist ethics in light of two considerations: the lack of attention by feminist writers to the feminist-Buber linkage and the long-standing and general inattention by twentieth-century thinkers to the ethical dimensions of Buber's thought.

Are humans free, or are we determined by our genes and the world around us? The question of freedom is not only one of philosophy's greatest conundrums, but also one of the most fundamental questions of human existence. It's particularly pressing in societies like ours, where our core institutions of law, ethics, and religion are built around the belief in individual freedom. Can one still affirm human freedom in an age of science? And if free will doesn't exist, does it make sense to act as though it does?These are the issues that are presented, probed, and debated in the following chapters. A dozen experts-specialists in medicine, psychology, ethics, theology, and philosophy--grapple with the multiple and often profound challenges presented by today's brain science. After examining the arguments against traditional notions of free will, several of the authors champion the idea of a chastened but robust free will for today, one that allows us still to affirm the value of first-person experience.