Life and Death: Metaphysics and Ethics

Midwest Studies in Philosophy, Volume XXIV, Life and Death: Metaphysics and Ethics is an important contribution to the literature on the intersection of issues of metaphysics and issues of ethics. In the Midwest Studies tradition, twenty of the more important philosophers writing in this area have contributed original papers that extend the boundaries of philosophical discussion of issues that are of both theoretical and practical concern to a wide–ranging audience. Topics considered include the concept of human life, the relationship between the concept of personal identity and the understanding of death, normative appraisals of death, capital punishment, euthanasia, the postponement of death and the impact of a theory of death and afterlife on one′s ethical perspective.

Metaphysics as Prolegomenon to Ethics (Joel Kupperman). The Meaning of Life (John Kekes). In Defense of a Common Ideal for a Human Life (E. M. Adams). Can the Dead Really Be Buried? (Palle Yourgrau). Later Death/Earlier Birth (Christopher Belshaw). Death and the Psychological Conception of Personal Identity (John Martin Fischer and Daniel Speak). Thick and Thin Selves: Reply to Fischer and Speak (Frederik Kaufman). The Termination Thesis (Fred Feldman). The Evil of Death Revisited (Harry S. Silverstein). Death and Asymmetries in Normative Appraisals (Ishtiyaque Haji). Appraising Death in Human Life: Two Modes of Valuation (Stephen E. Rosenbaum). "For Now Have I My Death’: The "Duty to Die" versus the Duty to Help the Ill Stay Alive (Felicia Ackerman). Taking Life and the Argument from Potentiality (Roy W. Perrett). Privatizing Death: Metaphysical Discouragement of Ethical Thinking (John Woods). Justifications for Killing Noncombatants in War (F. M. Kamm). Capital Punishment and the Sanctity of Life (Philip E. Devine). Aesthetics: The Need for a Theory (Mary Mothersill). Contributors

Peter A. French holds the Cole Chair in Ethics at the University of South Florida. He has taught at the University of Minnesota, Morris, served as Distinguished Research Professor in the Center for the Study of Human Values at the Univeristy of Delaware, and most recently served as Lennox Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas. His books include The Scope of Morality (1980), Collective and Corporate Responsibility (1980), and Responsibility Matters (1992). He has published numerous articles in several prestigious philosophy journals. Howard K. Wettstein is chair and professor of philosophy at the University of California, Riverside. He has taught at the University of Notre Dame and the University of Minnesota, Morris, and served as visiting associate professor of philosophy at the University of Iowa and Stanford University. He is the author of Has Semantics Rested on a Mistake? and Other Essays . (1992).