X-Message-Number: 18514
Date: Fri, 8 Feb 2002 10:05:46 -0500
From: Jeffrey Soreff <>
Subject: Re: The pro-death coalition

Mark Plus writes:
>Virginia Postrel has written quite a lot about Leon Kass and his retrograde
>views.  E.g., link to,

>http://www.dynamist.com/forbes/prodeath.html

>I've noticed from news accounts I've read about Kass that he seems impressed
>by the bad consequences of biotechnology presented in arbitrarily
>constructed fictional stories, for example, Aldous Huxley's _Brave New
>World_.  (Though I don't see what's so horrible about BNW, to be honest.)  I
>would have thought that adults are generally able to distinguish real from
>make-believe characters and situations, but apparently not Kass.

I would phrase it slightly differently.  From what I've seen of Kass's views,
the most consistent thread that emerges is a hostility towards individual
freedom, autonomy, and self-determination.  For example, Kass isn't always
pro-death - if the individual _wants_ to die, is seeing physician-assisted
suicide, then Kass wants to thwart him or her
He has also opposed cloning, in-vitro fertilization, possibly contraception
(he speaks rather obscurely in that instance).
There was a particularly nasty comment in his article on courtship (link
broken at the moment, unfortunately), where Kass praises ignorance in early
marriage, explicitly condemning lovers who learn too much about the world
and about themselves before binding themselves into commitments.  Kass is
one of the more repugnant writers I have seen.

                                       Best wishes,
                                       -Jeff

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