Technologies of life and death : from cloning to capital punishment / Kelly Oliver.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Oliver, Kelly, 1958-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Bioethics.

Biotechnology--Moral and ethical aspects.

Biotechnology.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (272 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

New York : Fordham University Press, 2013.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

The central aim of this book is to approach contemporary problems raised by technologies of life and death as ethical issues that call for a more nuanced approach than mainstream philosophy can provide. To do so, it draws on the recently published seminars of Jacques Derrida to analyze the extremes of birth and dying insofar as they are mediated by technologies of life and death. With an eye to reproductive technologies, it shows how a deconstructive approach can change the very terms of contemporary debates over technologies of life and death, from cloning to surrogate motherhood to capital punishment, particularly insofar as most current discussions assume some notion of a liberal individual. The ethical stakes in these debates are never far from political concerns such as enfranchisement, citizenship, oppression, racism, sexism, and the public policies that normalize them. Technologies of Life and Death thus provides pointers for rethinking dominant philosophical and popular assumptions about nature and nurture, chance and necessity, masculine and feminine, human and animal, and what it means to be a mother or a father. In part, the book seeks to disarticulate a tension between ethics and politics that runs through these issues in order to suggest a more ethical politics by turning the force of sovereign violence back against itself. In the end, it proposes that deconstructive ethics with a psychoanalytic supplement can provide a corrective for moral codes and political clichés that turn us into mere answering machines.

Contents:

Front matter

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction: Moral Machines and Political Animals

One. Genetic Engineering: Deconstructing Grown versus Made

Two. Artificial Insemination: Deconstructing Choice versus Chance

Three. Girl Powered: Poetic Majesty against Sovereign Majesty

Four. Rearview Mirror: Art, Violence, and Sublimation

Five. Elephant Autopsy: Optic Machinery and the Scale of Sovereignty

Six. Deadly Devices: Animals, Capital Punishment, and the Scope of Sovereignty

Seven. Death Penalties: Ethics, Politics, and the Unconscious of Sovereignty

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

9780823252251

0823252256

9780823253036

0823253031

9780823252268

0823252264

9780823251100

0823251101

OCLC:

843882953