Bioenhancement Technologies and the

Vulnerable Body

A Theological Engagement

edited by Devan Stahl

What Is the Good Life?

Perspectives from Religion, Philosophy, and Psychology edited by

Drew Collins and Matthew Croasmun

The field of biomedical technology has experienced rapid growth in recent years. New technologies promise to diagnose, treat, and prevent human diseases. Increasingly, however, the ability of these technologies to “enhance” normal human functioning beyond what is necessary to restore or sustain health has raised considerable debate about the proper limits of biotechnology. Any moral assessment of technology must consider its effects on all people, principally those who have not benefited equally from technological advancements. From the premise that minority perspectives yield new insights into biomedical enhancements, this volume centers the bodies of persons who are vulnerable to health disparities—particularly persons with disabilities and persons of color. Contributors critically examine bioenhancement technologies with two key questions in mind: What does it mean to be human? and What does it mean to be vulnerable? Each chapter uses distinct Christian theological methods and ontological suppositions to reflect on the distinctiveness of human creatureliness in relation to technology and what difference bioenhancement might make for our conceptions of vulnerability. Bioenhancement Technologies and the Vulnerable Body is aimed primarily at Christian scholars and graduate students already conversant in bioethics but will also appeal to contextual theologians and others not well-versed in these debates.

DEVAN STAHL is Associate Professor of Religion at Baylor University.

ISBN 978-1-4813-1827-3 / $54.99 / Paperback / 230 pages / 6 x 9 / November 1, 2023

We have more options and choices to make about how we want to live than ever before. But where do we turn for guidance as we choose how to live? Are we so focused on choosing what we want for our lives that we have forgotten to ask ourselves what is a good life and what is worth wanting? In What Is the Good Life?: Perspectives from Religion, Philosophy, and Psychology, leading scholar-practitioners from nine different traditions religious and secular—each offer an account of the good life. These accounts explore the distinct visions construed by their respective traditions from within a shared threefold heuristic schema of agency, circumstance, and affect. Presented in this way, the existential concern and normative force of these traditions are brought to the fore, inviting readers to explore the commonality of this central question across a variety of traditions alongside their unique and distinct responses. What Is the Good Life? offers readers a conceptual guide for navigating our pluralistic world and specific examples of the visions of the good life they might encounter.

“We live in an era dominated by the material, by getting what you want as quickly as possible. This text gathers wisdom from a diverse array of world religions and philosophical traditions on a far more important question: what’s worth wanting. It nourished my soul.”

EBOO PATEL, Founder and President of Interfaith America

DREW COLLINS is Associate Research Scholar at Yale Divinity School.

MATTHEW CROASMUN is Associate Research Scholar and Director of the Life Worth Living Program at the Yale Center for Faith and Culture and Lecturer of Divinity & Humanities at Yale University.

ISBN 978-1-4813-1801-3 / $49.99 / Paperback / 250 pages / 6 x 9 / October 15, 2023

T. LAINE SCALES is Professor of Social Work and advisor for part-time instructors at Baylor University.

JOÃO B. CHAVES is Assistant Professor of the History of Religion in the Américas at Baylor University. He is also the author of Migrational Religion: Context and Creativity in the Latinx Diaspora.

Contributors

David Bebbington

Seidel Abel Boanerges

Ryan J. Butler

Meghan Byerly

Terry G. Carter

Ivan Dias da Silva

Paul S. Fiddes

Rebecca Anne Hilton

Myra Ann Houser

Aidan Luke

Jeanette Mathews

Stephanie Peek

Skylar Ray

Joshua T. Searle

Karen E. Smith

Nicole Starling

Roger Ward

Michael S. Whiting