Ethics and Culture Cast

O. Carter Snead, the Director of the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture, has penned an acclaimed new book, "What It Means to Be Human: The Case for the Body in Public Bioethics." In this episode, we chat with Professor Snead about the premises of his book, which is a survey of the understanding of human flourishing that underlies the American legal and policy landscape regarding abortion, assisted reproductive technologies, and end-of-life issues.

Special Guest: Carter Snead.

Links:

• What It Means to Be Human: The Case for the Body in Public Bioethics — The natural limits of the human body make us vulnerable and therefore dependent, throughout our lives, on others. Yet American law and policy disregard these stubborn facts, with statutes and judicial decisions that presume people to be autonomous, defined by their capacity to choose. As legal scholar O. Carter Snead points out, this individualistic ideology captures important truths about human freedom, but it also means that we have no obligations to each other unless we actively, voluntarily embrace them. Under such circumstances, the neediest must rely on charitable care. When it is not forthcoming, law and policy cannot adequately respond. In this provocative and consequential book, Snead rethinks how the law represents human experiences so that it might govern more wisely, justly, and humanely.
• ‘What It Means to Be Human’ Review: Unchosen Obligations (by Yuval Levin) — "A critical examination of the moral suppositions underlying contemporary bioethics might shed light on much more of our common life than our engagement with biology and medicine. Such an ambitious examination has now been taken up by O. Carter Snead in 'What It Means to Be Human.' The result is a rare achievement: a rigorous academic book that is also accessible, engaging and wise."
• Answering the Psalmist (Review by Archbishop Charles J. Chaput) — "Today we have the ability, or soon will, to rewire ourselves at the biological level; to “improve,” in the sunny language of science boosterism, what it means to be human from the inside out. Genetic catastrophe is not (yet) in our vocabulary. And what harm can a little merging of humans and machines do? Like the sorcerer’s apprentice, we’re long on knowledge and ambition, but short on wisdom. This is what makes a new book by O. Carter Snead both timely and so important."
• Video: Faculty Seminar on Public Bioethics — O. Carter Snead, Notre Dame Law School professor, director of the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture, and author of the new book "What It Means to Be Human: The Case for the Body in Public Bioethics," presents the thesis of his book in a seminar and Q&A session for the dCEC's Sorin Fellows Program.
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Dr. Komrad is a psychiatrist on the teaching faculty of Johns Hopkins and Sheppard Pratt in Baltimore and Clinical Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Maryland and Tulane. He earned his undergraduate degree in molecular biophysics at Yale University, his M.D. degree at Duke Medical School, and trained in internal medicine and psychiatry at Johns Hopkins. He was an attending psychiatrist on the Treatment Resistant Psychotic Disorders Unit at Sheppard Pratt Hospital for 15 years, where he continues to train residents in psychotherapy and psychopharmacology.

In addition to clinical psychiatry, Dr. Komrad is a medical ethicist. He chaired the Ethics Committee and ethics consultation service for the Sheppard Pratt Health System in Maryland for over 25 years. He served on the Ethics Committee of the American Psychiatric Association for 6 years, which oversees ethics and professionalism for psychiatry in the U.S. Recently he has been speaking throughout the U.S. and internationally, also consulting to government policy makers, expressing ethical concerns related to physician assisted suicide and euthanasia, especially concern that these procedures are available to people with mental illness in some countries. He speaks widely about why legalizing these procedures is neither good social policy nor good medical ethics.

Special Guest: Mark Komrad, MD.

Links:

• Dr. Mark Komrad, MD homepage
• Video: Physician-Assisted Suicide & Euthanasia for Non-Terminal Patients with Mental Disorders: An Emerging Ethical Crisis — Talk delivered at St. Mary's College, Notre Dame, IN
• You Need Help: A Step-by-Step Guide to Convince a Loved One to Get Counseling — Just about everyone knows a relative, friend, or coworker who is exhibiting signs of emotional or behavioral turmoil. Yet figuring out how to reach out to that person can feel insurmountable. We know it is the right thing to do, yet many of us hesitate to take action out of fear of conflict, hurt feelings, or damaging the relationship. Through a rich combination of user-friendly tools and real-life stories, Mark S. Komrad, MD, offers step-by-step guidance and support as you take the courageous step of helping a friend who might not even recognize that he or she is in need. He guides you in developing a strong course of action, starting by determining when professional help is needed, then moves you through the steps of picking the right time, making the first approach, gathering allies, selecting the right professional, and supporting friends or relatives as they go through the necessary therapeutic process to resolve their problems.
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Links:

• The Qur'an and the Bible: Text and Commentary — While the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament are understood to be related texts, the sacred scripture of Islam, the third Abrahamic faith, has generally been considered separately. Noted religious scholar Gabriel Said Reynolds draws on centuries of Qur'ānic and Biblical studies to offer rigorous and revelatory commentary on how these holy books are intrinsically connected.
• The Emergence of Islam — This brief survey text tells the story of Islam. Gabriel Said Reynolds organizes his study in three parts, beginning with Muhammad's early life and rise to power, showing the origins and development of the Qur an with a distinctive, if unique, juxtaposition between the Qur'an and biblical literature, and concluding with an overview of modern and fundamentalist narratives of Islam's origin, which reveals how those who represent Islam's future begin by shaping its past.
• Muslims: Their Religious Beliefs and Practices — Muslims: Their Religious Beliefs and Practices offers a survey of Islamic history and thought from the formative period of the religion to the contemporary period. It examines the unique elements which have combined to form Islam, in particular, the Qurʾān and perceptions of the Prophet Muḥammad, and traces the ways in which these ideas have interacted to influence Islam’s path to the present. Combining core source materials with coverage of current scholarship and of recent events in the Islamic world, Bernheimer and Rippin introduce this hugely significant religion, including alternative visions of Islam found in Shi’ism and Sufism, in a succinct, challenging, and refreshing way. The improved and expanded fifth edition is updated throughout and includes new textboxes.
• Islam without Extremes: A Muslim Case for Liberty — As the Arab Spring threatens to give way to authoritarianism in Egypt and reports from Afghanistan detail widespread violence against U.S. troops and women, news from the Muslim world raises the question: Is Islam incompatible with freedom? In Islam without Extremes, Turkish columnist Mustafa Akyol answers this question by revealing the little-understood roots of political Islam, which originally included both rationalist, flexible strains and more dogmatic, rigid ones. Though the rigid traditionalists won out, Akyol points to a flourishing of liberalism in the nineteenth-century Ottoman Empire and the unique “Islamo-liberal synthesis” in present-day Turkey. As he powerfully asserts, only by accepting a secular state can Islamic societies thrive. Islam without Extremes offers a desperately needed intellectual basis for the reconcilability of Islam and liberty.
• Minding Scripture Podcast — Minding Scripture is a podcast series where divine word and human reason meet. We explore questions that believers and skeptics alike ask about the Bible and the Qur’an. Minding Scripture is moderated by Gabriel Reynolds, co-hosted by Francesca Murphy, Tzvi Novick, and Mun'im Sirry, and sponsored by the World Religion World Church program in the Department of Theology at the University of Notre Dame.
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Father Wilson Miscamble, C.S.C. is a professor of history at Notre Dame and the author of the newly-published American Priest: The Ambitious Life and Conflicted Legacy of Notre Dame's Father Ted Hesburgh. Father Miscamble is a longtime friend of the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture, speaking at several of our Fall Conferences over the years as well as giving the invocation at the inaugural presentation of the Notre Dame Evangelium Vitae Medal for heroes of the pro-life movement.

Special Guest: Rev. Wilson Miscamble, C.S.C..

Links:

• American Priest: The Ambitious Life and Conflicted Legacy of Notre Dame's Father Ted Hesburgh — Considered for many decades to be the most influential priest in America, Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh, C.S.C. played what many consider pivotal roles in higher education, the Catholic Church, and national and international affairs. American Priest examines his life and his many and varied engagements—from the university he led for thirty-five years to his associations with the Vatican and the White House—and evaluates the extent and importance of his legacy.
• The Most Controversial Decision: Truman, the Atomic Bombs, and the Defeat of Japan — This 2011 book explores the American use of atomic bombs, and the role these weapons played in the defeat of the Japanese Empire in World War II. It focuses on President Harry S. Truman's decision making regarding this most controversial of all his decisions. The book relies on notable archival research, and the best and most recent scholarship on the subject to fashion an incisive overview that is fair and forceful in its judgments. This study addresses a subject that has been much debated among historians, and it confronts head-on the highly disputed claim that the Truman administration practiced "atomic diplomacy." The book goes beyond its central historical analysis to ask whether it was morally right for the United States to use these terrible weapons against Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It also provides a balanced evaluation of the relationship between atomic weapons and the origins of the Cold War.
• The Catholic University in the Age of Corporate/Consumer Capitalism — Fr. Miscamble's presentation at the CEC's 2005 Fall Conference, discussing "Joy in the Truth."
• Catholic Politicians and the Modern World: Some American Case Studies — Fr. Miscamble's presentation at the CEC's 2006 Fall Conference on Modernity.
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Leonard J. DeLorenzo, Ph.D., is the director of undergraduate studies at the McGrath Institute for Church Life where he also serves as academic director for Notre Dame Vision, directs the Sullivan Family Saints Initiative, and hosts the popular radio show and podcast Church Life Today. He holds a concurrent teaching appointment in the Department of Theology.

Special Guest: Leonard J. DeLorenzo.

Links:

• Lenny's Homepage — I’m Leonard and I’m glad you’re here.
• The Chronicles of Transformation: A Spiritual Journey with C. S. Lewis — The Chronicles of Transformation, edited by University of Notre Dame professor Leonard J. DeLorenzo, is a collaborative work between scholars and artists, aimed to open adult readers' eyes and hearts to the transformative power of Lewis' Narnia, book by book. Jesus teaches,"Unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven." The Chronicles of Narnia, read anew, can help us do just that.
• McGrath Institute for Church Life — The McGrath Institute for Church Life partners with Catholic dioceses, parishes, and schools to address pastoral challenges with theological depth and rigor. By connecting the Catholic intellectual life to the life of the Church, we form faithful Catholic leaders for service to the Church and the world.
• Church Life Today Podcast — Digging deeper than soundbites and hot-takes, I talk with scholars and pastoral leaders about the most important theological, social, and ministerial issues in the Church and the world.
• Theme song: "I Dunno" by Grapes — I dunno by grapes (c) copyright 2008 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license. Ft: J Lang, Morusque