Review by Choice Review
Bennett (Arizona State Univ.) provides an overview of the ways in which the term "dignity" has been used, in three official settings, in the late-20th and early-21st centuries. His three case studies are The Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, developed by the second Vatican Council; the United Nation's Universal Declaration of Human Rights; and the reports of the US's President's Council on Bioethics (later The Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues). He sets all of these documents in historical context, and looks at the differing ways that each attempts to justify or define what "dignity" means and how that dignity can be best safeguarded, promoted, or protected. In doing this Bennett provides careful readings of Foucault's work on governmentality and pastoral power. Dignity has been a contested concept in both philosophy and theology, and Bennett's work does much to show the changing nature of the concept and the different ways it has been conceived of and talked about, as demonstrated in three particular settings. The book is dense but worthwhile for its careful analysis. Summing Up: Recommended. Graduate students, researchers, faculty. --Aaron Wesley Klink, Duke University
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
