Jack Kevorkian, HBO, and the Ethics of Euthanasia

Posted on May 7th, 2010
by FUPress

In the new HBO film You Don’t Know Jack, Al Pacino portrays Dr. Jack Kevorkian, the doctor best-known for his battle to grant patients what he considered to be one of their most basic human rights–the right to die. The film chronicles Kevorkian’s quest, court battles, and ultimate sacrifice. The movie also stars Susan Sarandon, Danny Huston, John Goodman, and Brenda Vaccaro, and was directed by Barry Levinson and written by Adam Mazer.

Euthanasia has been a topic of passionate national debate, with Kevorkian at the center of the storm. Two states, Oregon and Washington, have legalized doctor-assisted suicide since Kevorkian’s crusade began in the late 1980s. With a myriad of ethical, legal, and medical implications, there is always something new to say about the topic.

Killing and Letting Die, edited by Bonnie Steinbock and Alistair Norcross, is a collection of essays examining what euthanasia means, especially in relation to letting a patient die. What are the differences? What are the similarities?

The book is divided into two sections. The first, “Euthanasia and the Termination of Life-Prolonging Treatment” includes an examination of the 1976 Karen Quinlan Supreme Court decision and selections from the 1990 Supreme Court decision in the case of Nancy Cruzan. Featured are articles by law professor George Fletcher and philosophers Michael Tooley, James Rachels, and Bonnie Steinbock, with new articles by Rachels, and Thomas Sullivan. The second section, “Philosophical Considerations,” probes more deeply into the theoretical issues raised by the killing/letting die controversy, illustrating exceptionally well the dispute between two rival theories of ethics, consequentialism and deontology. It also includes a corpus of the standard thought on the debate by Jonathan Bennet, Daniel Dinello, Jeffrie Murphy, John Harris, Philipa Foot, Richard Trammell, and N. Ann Davis, and adds articles new to this edition by Bennett, Foot, Warren Quinn, Jeff McMahan, and Judith Lichtenberg.

In the new HBO film You Don’t Know Jack, Al Pacino portrays Dr. Jack Kevorkian, the doctor best-known for his battle to grant patients what he considered to be one of their most basic human rights–the right to die. The … Full Story →

Terror in Modern Times

Posted on April 20th, 2010
by FUPress

On April 19, 1995, a bomb exploded at the Alfred P. Murrah Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, ending the lives of 168 people. It was the worst terrorist attack in America, until, of course, the attacks on September 11, 2001. In an op-ed piece published yesterday in The New York Times, Bill Clinton ruminated on the aftermath, 15 years later. The former president invokes the kindness of those who helped in relief efforts, the strength of the survivors, and the enduring legacy of the innocents who died that day. He cautions, “Criticism is part of the lifeblood of democracy. No one is right all the time. But we should remember that there is a big difference between criticizing a policy or a politician and demonizing the government that guarantees our freedoms and the public servants who enforce our laws.”

In The Rhetoric of Terror: Reflections on 9/11 and the War on Terror, Marc Redfield examines the cultural impact of terrorism and what it means when such shocking acts of violence saturate our media and society. Redfield astutely blends the philosophy of Jacques Derrida with the modern concepts of “virtual terror” and the “war on terror.”

Forthcoming in August is Wild Materialism: The Ethic of Terror and the Modern Republic. Jacques Lezra examines political philosophy in a contemporary climate, musing on questions such as how can social unity be achieved in a divergent culture? If so, does such unity require certain universal laws? What does democracy mean in a culture of globalization, terrorism, and fundamentalism? In contemplating these questions, Lezra gets to the root of what our politics really mean in our modern world.

Thinking in Dark Times

Posted on November 13th, 2009
by FUPress

fordham

This week’s issue of Publisher’s Weekly features a review of the new collection Thinking in Dark Times: Hannah Arendt on Ethics and Politics, forthcoming from Fordham Press in January.

Thinking in Dark Times: Hannah Arendt on Ethics and Politics Edited by Roger Berkowitz, Thomas Keenan and Jeffrey Katz. Fordham Univ., $28 (288p) ISBN 978-0-8232-3076-1
Artfully balancing conceptual precision and editorial care with a deep sense of urgency, this volume of essays on one of the 20th century’s great theorists of totalitarianism and anti-Semitism offers a stimulating examination of Arendt’s political and philosophical writings. The pieces analyze the sociopolitical ramifications of her life as well as more focused discussions of key topics in the social and the political realms. Cathy Caruth offers an exemplary reading of the relationship between the Pentagon Papers and Arendt’s notion of the modern political lie that attempts not simply to cover over mistakes but to replace reality entirely by fabricating new histories. Uday Mehta gives a fascinating outline of Arendt’s views on politics and terror, while Christopher Hitchens offers some brief, idiosyncratic reflections on anti-Semitism. Contributors return repeatedly to Arendt’s 1963 coverage of the trial of Nazi official Adolf Eichmann. The essays lack a consensus on Arendt’s notion of the “banality of evil,” but it is precisely the rich variety of interpretations together with a wonderful selection of images from her personal library that make the collection so compelling. (Jan.)

This week’s issue of Publisher’s Weekly features a review of the new collection Thinking in Dark Times: Hannah Arendt on Ethics and Politics, forthcoming from Fordham Press in January. Thinking in Dark Times: Hannah Arendt on Ethics and Politics Edited … Full Story →