Life, Liberty and the Defense of Dignity: The Challenge for Bioethics By Leon R. Kass, MD Encounter, $26.95, 313 pages

Excerpt:

Dr. Kass manages to rely on sacred authority without being doctrinaire--instead of depending on a single sacred text or set of idealists, he points to both prophets and philosophers. At various points he quotes C. S. Lewis, Homer, Alfred North Whitehead and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. In his passage on the right to die, he looks to John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, Immanuel Kant and Friedreich Nietzsche.

Charles Rousseaux is an editorial writer for the Washington Times. Leon R. Kass is the Hertog Fellow at AEI.