Update

Volume 13, Number 1 (March 1997)
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Some bioethicists are skilled at using complex philosophical and historical analysis. Other bioethicists are adept at identifying the core values involved in a contemporary issue. Still others write readable prose. Rare is the bioethicist who can do all of these well, and still rarer one who can do them all well in the same place. James Walters' recently released book, What Is A Person: An Ethical Exploration (1997, University of Illinois Press), may be an example of such rare scholarship.

At first, this may seem a bit overblown. That is what I thought when I read Lawrence Schneiderman's forward to Walters' book. He called this book "lucidly written," a book with "subtlety and detail," an example of "civilized discourse," which was both "gracious" and "fair," and provided "unexpected discoveries" throughout. A bit much, I thought, to say about a book on bioethics. Most of the books in this field leave a lot to be desired. Popularity often outpaces scholarship and quality in biomedical ethics. It is rare to find a well-researched book that is not just faddish. And when good scholarship does show up at the bookstore it is often wrapped in sleepy prose. Walters' book is a welcome exception, readable and well thought out.

Walters starts out where most good books should: with a simple but meaningful question. Better a well-nuanced question than a boring answer. The question, "What is a person?" carries the reader. Each subsequent chapter provides enough discoveries to clarify the issues and a few of the answers to this question, but leads the reader with more questions. This vehicle keeps Walters' book flowing.

The mechanics of the book are simple. Walters posits two approaches to answering the question, "what is a person?" He calls one "physicalism" and the other "personalism," giving historical antecedents and contemporary examples for both. He then stakes his tent in the personalism camp, and nuances its strengths and a few of its weaknesses in comparison to the physicalist camp. He then revisits his earlier work on the moral claims of anencephalic infants and ties this previous theoretical work to this religious-historical discussion. He then attempts to extend his personalism arguments into new territory, such as other issues in the end-of-life discussion, and even talks about animal rights. In all of this, Walters remains readable.

There is much in this book to appeal to a variety of readers--a little history, a bit of theology, some well- crafted philosophy, and even some social science and explanations of medical protocols. A small section is devoted to findings from his social science survey of professional views on the use of anencephalic infants in organ transplantation.

Available through your local bookstore or to order, call 1-800-545-4703. Price: $23.95. *

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