American Enterprise Institute (AEI) president Arthur C. Brooks has announced that AEI scholar Leon R. Kass, M.D., is the recipient of AEI’s 2012 Irving Kristol Award. Dr. Kass will receive the award and deliver the Irving Kristol Lecture at AEI’s annual dinner on Wednesday, May 2, 2012, at the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C.

Leon Kass of AEI and University of Chicago delivered the February Bradley Lecture.

In our new world of biotechnology, gathering powers to intervene in human bodies and minds raise profound challenges to the meaning of our humanity. Crucial to meeting those challenges is a robust notion of human dignity—the special...

In his recent book Life, Liberty, and the Defense of Dignity: The Challenge for Bioethics (Encounter Books, 2002), Leon Kass gives a report on the status of biotechnology and the perils of ignoring human dignity as it relates to scientific advancements.

Trained...

Medically and ethically, reprogramming of human somatic cellsto pluripotency is anenormously significant achievement.

In 2001, President George W. Bush created the President's Council on Bioethics to address the ethical ramifications of biomedical innovation. For six months, the council--a team of leading scientists, physicians, ethicists, lawyers, humanists, and theologians--debated the pros and cons of cloning, both for creating babies and for...

Athletic steroid use sends the wrong message: while we should be valuing ourselves, we are instead valuing performance.

Unlike the many devout readers who approach the Bible to find salvation,the authorcomes to Genesis in pursuit of philosophical wisdom.

Where is biotechnology taking us? What might life be like in a world in which we can try to satisfy our desires for better children, superior performance, ageless bodies, and happy souls with the aid of powerful biotechnologies? How shall we use our growing powers to screen genes, select the...