In a reassessment of the meaning of life and death, a noted philosopher offers a new definition for life that contrasts a world dependent on biological maintenance with one controlled by state-of-the-art medical technology.

The new commandments according to Rethinking Life and Death. --If you must take human life, take responsibility for the consequences of your decisions. --All human life is not of equal worth; treat beings in accordance to the ethical situation at hand. --Respect a person's desire to live or die. A profound and provocative work, Rethinking Life and Death, in the tradition of Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, examines the ethical dilemmas that confront us as we near the twenty-first century.

Our traditional ways of thinking about life and death are collapsing. In a world of respirators and embryos stored for years in liquid nitrogen, we can no longer take the sanctity of human life as the cornerstone of our ethical outlook. In this controversial book Peter Singer argues that we cannot deal with the crucial issues of the definition of death, abortion, euthanasia and the rights of nonhuman animals unless we sweep away the old ethic and build something new in its place. Singer outlines a new set of commandments, based on compassion and commonsense, for the decisions everyone must make about life and death.

For most Christian believers, what is truly remarkable and important about Jesus is not his life, but his resurrection from the dead. They may believe that Jesus' death is significant not as the end of Jesus' life, but as the first half of the saving event that comprises the Christian gospel: the death and resurrection of Jesus. For Christians, this great divine cosmic event, around which all of human history pivots, is what saves us from our sins. Apart from this, the death of Jesus would simply be the meaningless end to an interesting but insignificant life. In this lively and provocative work, Patterson reconstructs early Christian assessments of Jesus' significance and also questions basic assumptions about modern interpretations of Jesus' death. He emphasizes the importance of Jesus' life in relation to his death and resurrection. And he challenges individualistic notions of how Jesus' death relates to Christian ethics.

Argues that for the first time in history we're in a position to end extreme poverty throughout the world, both because of our unprecedented wealth and advances in technology, therefore we can no longer consider ourselves good people unless we give more to the poor. Reprint.

In this cross-cultural, interdisciplinary study, John Hick draws upon major world religions, as well as biology, psychology, parapsychology, anthropology, and philosophy, to explore the mystery of death. He argues that scientific and philosophical objections to the idea of survival after death can be challenged, and he claims that human inadequacy in facing suffering supports the basic religious argument for immortality.

Utilitarianism may well be the most influential secular ethical theory in the world today. It is also one of the most controversial. It clashes, or is widely thought to clash, with many conventional moral views, and with human rights when they are seen as inviolable. Would it, for example, be right to torture a suspected terrorist in order to prevent an attack that could kill and injure a large number of innocent people? In this Very Short Introduction Peter Singer and Katarzyna de Lazari-Radek provide an authoritative account of the nature of utilitarianism, from its nineteenth-century origins, to its justification and its varieties. Considering how utilitarians can respond to objections that are often regarded as devastating, they explore the utilitarian answer to the question of whether torture can ever be justified. They also discuss what it is that utilitarians should seek to maximize, paying special attention to the classical utilitarian view that only pleasure or happiness is of intrinsic value. Singer and de Lazari-Radek conclude by analysing the continuing importance of utilitarianism in the world, indicating how it is a force for new thinking on contemporary moral challenges like global poverty, the treatment of animals, climate change, reducing the risk of human extinction, end-of-life decisions for terminally-ill patients, and the shift towards assessing the success of government policies in terms of their impact on happiness. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.