Leading a Worthy Life

Leon R. Kass is the Madden-Jewett Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and Professor Emeritus in the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago. Originally trained in medicine and biochemistry, he has been engaged for decades with ethical and philosophical issues raised by biomedical advance, and, more recently, with broader moral and cultural issues. He taught at St. John’s College (Annapolis) and Georgetown University before returning to the University of Chicago, where for thirty-four years he was an award-winning teacher deeply involved in undergraduate education and committed to the “big questions” and the study of classic texts. His books include: The Hungry Soul: Eating and the Perfecting of Our Nature; Wing to Wing, Oar to Oar: Readings on Courting and Marrying (with Amy A. Kass); Life, Liberty, and the Defense of Dignity: The Challenge for Bioethics; The Beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis; and What So Proudly We Hail: The American Soul in Story, Speech, and Song (with Amy A. Kass and Diana Schaub). Dr. Kass served on the National Council on the Humanities and as chairman of the President’s Council on Bioethics. He was an inaugural recipient of the Bradley Prize in 2003. In 2009 he delivered the Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities.

Leon Kass's new book is a gift so great that one feels any expression of thanks to be inadequate. Kass deals with fundamental subjects with an extraordinary combination of grace and depth; he shows us how a life of penetrating questioning can lead to a deep and powerful understanding of the human things.William KristolAs a scientist, humanist and teacher of the young, Leon Kass has studied the ills of late 20th century American culture as closely as anyone, never failing to ask the big questions: what is a worthy life and how can one live it? In these sobering but hopeful essays, Kass ponders the challenges and the prospects for finding meaning in family life, work, public service and the quest for knowledge under present circumstances. Each essay is a treasure, to read, ponder, and read again. Mary Ann GlendonLearned Hand Professor of Law, Harvard UniversityLeon Kass presents the attractions of morality in subtle detail and graceful prose. His essays, most of them done with his late wife Amy Kass, seek to grasp what is permanent rather than charge or drift into restless, unmeaning change. Neither grouch nor censor, Kass earns his readers’ respect for argument, utility, and wisdom.Harvey MansfieldProfessor of Government, HarvardSenior Fellow, Hoover Institution