Gilbert Meilaender

Near the beginning of the twenty-fourth and last Book of Homer’s Iliad, called by Simone Weil “the only true epic” the West possesses, even the gods—detached as they are in their bliss from all sufferings—have seen enough. Achilles has become inhuman. Ignoring our animal nature, . . . . Continue Reading »

Events of recent months”in particular, the execution of Timothy McVeigh and, just prior to it, public airing for the first time of audio tapes of executions in Georgia”have focused attention on the morality of the death penalty, even if administered fairly and equitably. For better or . . . . Continue Reading »

In one of the classic early discussions about the possible uses of advancing genetic knowledge to control and reshape human life, Paul Ramsey, more than thirty years ago, wrote the following: I . . . raise the question whether a scientist has not an entirely “frivolous conscience” who, faced . . . . Continue Reading »

In 1986 H. Tristram Engelhardt published his widely read book, The Foundations of Bioethics . A second edition followed in 1996. Both editions carried the stamp of Engelhardt’s proudly displayed “Texian” (as in the “Republic of Texas”) commitment to liberty and his contention that in a . . . . Continue Reading »

Sexuality and the Christian Body By Eugene F. Rogers, Jr. Blackwell. 303 pp. $62.95. The blurbs on the back cover of this book create in the potential reader an expectation of something new”a creative, original approach to the morality of homosexual acts, not just a rehashing of standard . . . . Continue Reading »

Dependent Rational Animals: Why Human Beings Need the Virtues By Alasdair MacIntyre. Open Court. 166 pp. $26.95 The MacIntyre Reader Edited by Kelvin Knight.University of Notre Dame Press. 300 pp. $40 It would be hard to think of any book of moral philosophy written in the last fifty years that has . . . . Continue Reading »

C. S. Lewis: Memories and Reflections.By John Lawlor.Spence. 132 pp. $22.95. When John Lawlor became a student at Magdalen College of Oxford University in October of 1936, he found that C. S. Lewis was to be his tutor. At that time, of course, he knew nothing in particular of Lewis, but over the . . . . Continue Reading »

The Last Word.By Thomas Nagel.Oxford University Press.  147 pp. $19.95. How refreshing and intellectually stimulating it is to read a philosopher––and one as smart as Thomas Nagel––say a favorable word on behalf of Descartes. In a time when “Cartesian” has almost become a pejorative . . . . Continue Reading »

Among the “first things” of life in the classical world of Greece and Rome was friendship. As an intimate, affectionate, and loyal bond between two (or a few) persons, a bond unlike those of kin or tribe in that it is not simply given with birth, friendship will always have about it something a . . . . Continue Reading »

Patience: How We Wait Upon the World.By David Baily Harned.Cowley. 191 pp. $12.95 Over the past several decades both philosophers and theologians within the academy have participated in a revival of interest in what is generally called “virtue ethics”–an ethic that focuses not so much upon . . . . Continue Reading »