Suicide

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Medea Benjamin

Weeks after the 2002 American invasion of Afghanistan, Medea Benjamin visited that country. There, on the ground, talking with victims of the strikes, she learned the reality behind the "precision bombs" on which U.S. forces were becoming increasingly reliant. Now, with the use of drones escalating at a meteoric pace, Benjamin has written this book as a call to action: "It is meant to wake a sleeping public," she writes, "lulled into thinking that drones are good, that targeted killings are making us safer." Drone Warfare is a comprehensive look at the growing menace of robotic warfare, with an extensive analysis of who is producing the drones, where they are being used, who "pilots" these unmanned planes, who are the victims and what are the legal and moral implications. In vivid, readable style, the book also looks at what activists, lawyers and scientists are doing to ground the drones, and ways to move forward. In reality, writes Benjamin, the assassinations we are carrying out via drones will come back to haunt us when others start doing the same thing-to us.

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Gavin J. Fairbairn

Suicide is devastating. It is an assault on our ideas of what living is about. In Contemplating Suicide, Gavin Fairbairn takes a fresh look at suicidal self harm. His view is distinctive in emphasising the intentions that a person has in acting, rather than external facts. Fairbairn constructs a natural history of suicidal self harm and examines some of the ethical issues it raises. He sets his philosophical reflections against a background of experience in the caring professions and uses a storytelling approach in offering a critique of the current language of self harm. He offers cogent reasons for abandoning the mindless use of terms such as attempted suicide and parasuicide, and introduces a number of new terms including cosmic roulette, which he uses to describe a family of human acts in which people gamble with their lives. By elaborating a richer model of suicidal self harm than most philosophers and practitioners of caring professions currently inhabit, Fairbairn makes a significant contribution to the development of understanding in this area.

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Allen Buchanan

"This book examines the ethical controversy surrounding biomedical enhancement: the use of biotechnologies to improve normal human capacities and characteristics. It deflates the heated rhetoric of the debate and, unlike other treatment of the topic, is informed by an understanding of evolutionary biology. The book debunks the idea that the natural is always good, and explains why and how we might need to change human nature"--Publisher description.

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James M. Humber and Robert F. Almeder

A panel of philosophers, ethicists, feminists, and historians examine the moral issues posed by stem cell research, and introduce the principle arguments for and against such research. The book attempts to offer both a balanced presentation and thoughtful critiques of the main arguments in the debate.