Thou Shalt Not Kill: A Political and Theological Dialogue

Description

In this fascinating and rare little book, a leading Italian feminist philosopher and the Archbishop of Milan face off over the contemporary meaning of the biblical commandment not to kill. The result is a series of erudite and wide-ranging arguments that move from murder and suicide to just war and drone strikes, from bioethics and biopolitics to hermeneutics and philology, from Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer to Hannah Arendt and Michel Foucault, from Torah and Scripture to art and literature, from the essence of human dignity and the paradoxes of fratricide to engagements with Levinasian ethics. Less a direct debate than a disputation in the classical sense, Thou Shalt Not Kill proves to be a searching meditation on one of the unstated moral premises shared by otherwise bitterly opposed political factions. It will stimulate the mind of the novice while also reminding more advanced readers of the necessity and desirability of thinking in the present. Cover......Page 1 Contents......Page 6 Translators’ Note......Page 8 Part I: The Irrepressible Face of the Other......Page 10 Point of Departure......Page 12 Commandments and Covenant......Page 21 Christianity and Rational, Universal Morals......Page 27 You Shall Not Kill......Page 32 Responsibilities and Challenges: Burning Issues......Page 46 Part II: The Archaeology of Homicide......Page 56 A Special Law......Page 58 Brief Philological Note......Page 63 Crime and Punishment......Page 65 When Killing Is Lawful and Just......Page 72 To Cut Life Short......Page 76 A Weak Commandment......Page 87 In the Beginning......Page 89 Homo Necans......Page 100 You Shall Never Kill......Page 106 The Sex of Cain......Page 112 Notes......Page 120 V......Page 140 M......Page 141 Z......Page 142