Persons

Robert Spaemann is Emeritus Professor at the University of Munich and Honorary Professor of the University of Salzburg. His research focuses on Christian ethics with particular attention to bioethics, ecology, and human rights.Oliver O'Donovan is Professor Emeritus of Christian Ethics and Practical Theology at the University of Edinburgh. He is the Series Editor of the Oxford Studies in Theological Ethics series and a past President of the Society for the Study of Christian Ethics. His publications include The Desire of the Nations (Cambridge University Press, 1996), Common Objects of Love (Eerdmans, 2002), and The Ways of Judgment (2005).

• Introduction1: Why we Speak of Persons2: Why we call Persons `Persons'3: How we Identify Persons4: The Negative5: Intentionality6: Transcendence7: Fiction8: Religion9: Time10: Death and the Future Perfect Tense11: Independence of Context12: Subjects13: Souls14: Conscience15: Recognition16: Freedom17: Promise and Forgiveness18: Are All Human Beings Persons?

Spaemann provides substantive analysis about what persons are by distinguishing what persons do from what nonpersons do. But this is no mere case of positing-in good Sartrean fashion-that human existence precedes essence. No, this is a sophisticated investigation into what makes persons unique among all other existing entities through a focus on those activities, primarily of the mind, that enable one to understand human beings as persons.