Leading a worthy life : finding meaning in modern times / Leon R. Kass.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Kass, Leon, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Meaning (Philosophy).

Life.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (416 p.)

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

New York : Encounter Books, [2020]

Summary:

Most American young people, like their ancestors, harbor desires for a worthy life: a life of meaning, a life that makes sense. But they are increasingly confused about what such a life might look like, and how they might, in the present age, be able to live one. With a once confident culture no longer offering authoritative guidance, the young are now at sea-regarding work, family, religion, and civic identity. The true, the good, and the beautiful have few defenders, and the higher cynicism mocks any innocent love of wisdom or love of country. We are supercompetent regarding efficiency and convenience; we are at a loss regarding what it's all for.Yet because the old orthodoxies have crumbled, our "interesting time" paradoxically offers genuine opportunities for renewal and growth. The old Socratic question "How to live?" suddenly commands serious attention. Young Americans, if liberated from the prevailing cynicism, will readily embrace weighty questions and undertake serious quests for a flourishing life. All they (and we) need is encouragement.This book provides that necessary encouragement by illuminating crucial-and still available-aspects of a worthy life, and by defending them against their enemies. With chapters on love, family, and friendship; human excellence and human dignity; teaching, learning, and truth; and the great human aspirations of Western civilization, it offers help to both secular and religious readers, to people who are looking on their own for meaning and to people who are looking to deepen what they have been taught or to square it with the spirit of our times.

Contents:

Cover

Title Page

Contents

Dedication

Foreword

Introduction

1. Finding Meaning in Modern Times: An Overview

I · Love, Family, and Friendship: Some Reflections on Modern Culture

2. The End of Courtship

3. The Higher Sex Education: Help from an Old Story (with Amy Kass)

4. Virtually Intimate: Is the Internet Good for Love and Friendship?

5. What’s Your Name? (with Amy Kass)

II · Human Excellence and Human Dignity: Real and Distorted

6. Ageless Bodies, Happy Souls: Biotechnology and the Pursuit of Happiness

7. Human Dignity: What It Is and Why It Matters

8. For the Love of the Game: The Dignity of Sport (with Eric Cohen)

9. A Dignified Death and Its Enemies: Why Doctors Must Not Kill

10. A More Perfect Human: The Promise and Peril of Modern Science

III · In Search of Wisdom: Learning, Teaching, and Truth

11. The Aims of Liberal Education: On Seeking Truth

12. Looking for an Honest Man: The Case for the Humanities

13. Science, Religion, and the Human Future

IV · The Aspirations of Humankind: Athens, Jerusalem, Gettysburg

14. Human Flourishing and Human Excellence: The Truth(s) of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics

15. The Ten Commandments

16. The Gettysburg Address: Abraham Lincoln’s Refounding of the Nation

Acknowledgments

Notes

Index

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ISBN:

9781641770996

1641770996

OCLC:

1455139948