Leon Kass Quotes

Shallow are the souls that have forgotten how to shudder.

The repetitive phases of cooking leave plenty of mental space for reflection, and as I chopped and minced and sliced I thought about the rhythms of cooking, one of which involves destroying the order of the things we bring from nature into our kitchens, only to then create from them a new order. We butcher, grind, chop, grate, mince, and liquefy raw ingredients, breaking down formerly living things so that we might recombine them in new, more cultivated forms. When you think about it, this is the same rhythm, once removed, that governs all eating in nature, which invariably entails the destruction of certain living things, by chewing and then digestion, in order to sustain other living things. In The Hungry Soul Leon Kass calls this the great paradox of eating: 'that to preserve their life and form living things necessarily destroy life and form.' If there is any shame in that destruction, only we humans seem to feel it, and then only on occasion. But cooking doesn't only distance us from our destructiveness, turning the pile of blood and guts into a savory salami, it also symbolically redeems it, making good our karmic debts: Look what good, what beauty, can come of this! Putting a great dish on the table is our way of celebrating the wonders of form we humans can create from this matter--this quantity of sacrificed life--just before the body takes its first destructive bite.

Why does the benefactor love the recipient more than the recipient loves the benefactor? Because the benefactor lives in the recipient, the way in which the poet lives in the poem.

Although not all flesh is forbidden, everything that is forbidden is flesh.

Human life without death would be something other than human; consciousness of mortality gives rise to our deepest longings and greatest accomplishments. —LEON KASS, CHAIR OF THE PRESIDENTIAL COMMISSION ON BIOETHICS, 2003

E soprattutto, non dobbiamo ingannare noi stessi: non dobbiamo mai cercare di alleviare le nostre frustrazioni e amarezze per una morte che tarda ad arrivare illudendoci di uccidere qualcuno per difendere la sua dignità.

Ours is the age of atomic power but also of nuclear proliferation, of globalized trade but also worldwide terrorism, of instant communication but also fragmented communities, of free association but also marital failure, of limitless mobility but also homogenized destinations, of open borders but also confused identities, of astounding medical advances but also greater worries about health, of longer and more vigorous lives but also protracted and more miserable deaths, of unprecedented freedom and prosperity but also remarkable anxiety about our future, both personal and national. In our age of heightened expectations

The philosopher Leon Kass is among the foremost spokesmen for Shweder’s ethic of divinity, and for the Sanctity foundation on which it is based. Writing in 1997, the year after Dolly the sheep became the first cloned mammal, Kass lamented the way that technology often erases moral boundaries and brings people ever closer to the dangerous belief that they can do anything they want to do. In an essay titled “The Wisdom of Repugnance,” Kass argued that our feelings of disgust can sometimes provide us with a valuable warning that we are going too far, even when we are morally dumbfounded and can’t justify those feelings by pointing to victims:

In quest'epoca in cui tutto è ritenuto lecito purché sia fatto in piena libertà, e in cui il corpo è considerato un semplice strumento della volontà razionale e autonoma, la repulsione potrebbe essere l'unica voce rimasta in difesa del nucleo centrale della nostra umanità. Le anime che hanno dimenticato come si fa a rabbrividire sono superficiali.

To be at table means that one has removed oneself from business and motion and made a commitment to spend some time over one's meal. One commits oneself not only to time but also to an implicit plan of eating: We sit to eat and not just to feed, and to do so both according to a plan and with others. A decision to have a sit-down meal must precede its preparation, and the preparation is in turn guided by the particular plan that is the menu. Further, to be at table means, whether we know it or not, to make a commitment to form and formality. We agree, tacitly to be sure, to a code of conduct that does not apply when we privately raid the refrigerator or eat on the run or in our cards, or even when we munch sandwiches in front of the television with our buddies who have gathered to watch the Super Bowl. There we eat (or, more accurately, feed) side by side, as at a trough; in contrast, at table we all face not our food but one another. Thus we silently acknowledge our mutual commitment to share not only some food but also commensurate forms of commensal behavior. To be sure, the forms will vary depending on the occasion; the guests, a banquet table at a testimonial dinner, and a picnic table in the park have different degrees and (in part) different kinds of formality, as do also the family breakfast and the family dinner. But in all cases there are forms that operate, regulate, and inform our behavior and that signify our peculiarly human way of meeting necessity.

Life, as has been observed, is not just a bowl of cherries; it is also necessarily filled with disappointment, pain, and suffering. The chase is not always successful and, when it is, another animal pays with its life. Human intelligence and reason only compound the paradoxes and dangers of life; greed, vanity, and the will to dominate, no less than awe and wonder, are also passions native to the human soul. Only the rational animal can be perverse, only the rational animal can play the tyrant, only the rational animal destroys the conditions for his own flourishing and that of his fellow creatures. The highly omnivorous rational animal thus stands in need of perfection through the guiding institutions of law, morality, and custom. We have explored here the direction such guidance should take if we are to realize the higher pointings and deeper yearnings of our peculiarly upright nature: pointings toward community and friendship (encouraged by hospitality and shared meals); pointings toward beauty and nobility (encouraged by gracious manners and the adornments of the table); pointings toward discernment and understanding (encouraged by tasteful dining and lively conversation); and yearnings for a relation to the divine (encouraged by a ritual sanctification of the meal).

in some crucial cases … repugnance is the emotional expression of deep wisdom, beyond reason’s power completely to articulate it.” Our instinctive revulsion toward incest, for instance, goes beyond a rational critique of the genetic dangers of inbreeding; we see it not as a mere error but in terms of “horror” and “defilement.” If cloning provokes a similar repulsion in most people, Kass writes, that proves it involves a “violation of things that we rightfully hold dear.

bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh” strikes us as the verbalization of sexual desire; the man looks upon the woman as if she were his missing half, to which he now feels powerfully drawn in a desire for fusion. At the very least, one must admit that his delight in her leads him to exaggerate the degree to which she is “his own,” more same than other, and to see her as an exteriorized portion of himself. This is not the voice of pure reason naming; and the name, born of his desire, has consequences for their relationship.

Later, a different passion will lead the man to rename the woman, this time without reference to himself. Hearing that the woman will bear children, the only good news in God’s grim prophecy of the dismal human future (sorrow, sweat, toil, and death), he grasps at this straw of hope, renaming the woman Eve (Chavah), because she is the mother of all living (chai). From Adam’s hopefulness, Eve gets the first genuinely proper name in the Bible.

The first gift from parents to a child, after the gift of life itself, is a name. The given name is a gift for a lifetime – indeed, for more than a lifetime. When we are gone, our name carved in stone and the memories it evokes will be, for nearly all of us, all that remains. Here is a gift that is not only permanent but possibly life-shaping. Here is a gift that cannot be refused; here is a gift that cannot easily be put aside; here is a gift that must be worn and that straightaway not only marks but constitutes one’s identity.

. . .We have from the start been singing the virtues of necessity -- our bodily neediness -- can not only be humanized; meeting it knowingly and deliberately can also be humanizing. For those who understand both the meaning of eating and their own hungry soul, necessity becomes the mother of the specifically human virtues: freedom, sympathy, moderation, beautification, taste, liberality, tact, grace, wit, gratitude, and finally, reverence. The perfections of our nature are multiple. Accordingly, one should not expect that a single form of humanized eating will embody and nourish them all. Indeed, we have in this book visited a variety of dining forms that manifest in different ways the elevated faces of our humanity: feeding the stranger at our hearth; the well-mannered family supper; the convivial and witty dinner party; the inspiriting feast of the genius Babette; the wisdom-seeking symposium of Plato; the reverent ritual meal. Some forms of dining accentuate the just, others the noble, still others the playful, the artistic, the philosophic, or the pious. Yet each one reveals a common dignified humanity, differently accented and highlighted. Each displays what it means to be the truly upright and thoughtful animal.

In some crucial cases ... repugnance is the emotional expression of deep wisdom, beyond reason’s power completely to articulate it.

I sostenitori dell'eutanasia non sanno cosa sia la dignità umana e, nella migliore delle ipotesi, la confondono con la compassione.

Poiché non conosciamo davvero la loro vita interiore - cosa provano e percepiscono - corriamo il rischio di privarle della loro dignità trattandole come se non ne avessero. Il solo fatto che noi non vorremmo mai essere al loro posto non significa che in loro non sia rimasto niente che meriti rispetto.

La maledizione dell'uomo è di scoprire i mali nascosti in ciò che desidera solo quando è troppo tardi.

In alcuni casi cruciali, però, il disgusto è l'espressione emotiva di una saggezza profonda, cui la ragione non è in grado di dar voce.

Le persone che riescono a tenere tra le mani una vita nascente con freddezza e senza timore reverenziale hanno ucciso qualcosa nella propria anima.

È inutile, inoltre, imbarcarsi in una potenziale follia solo per evitare di essere gli ultimi a compierla.

Nessun amante dell'umanità può rallegrarsi di un futuro postumano.

Fazele repetitive ale gătitului îți lasă mult spațiu mintal pentru reflecție și, în timp ce tăiam, tocam și făceam felii, m-am gândit la ritmurile gătitului, care implică să fie distrusă ordinea lucrurilor aduse din natură în bucătărie numai spre a crea din ele o nouă ordine. Măcelărim, măcinăm, tăiem, tocăm și lichefiem ingrediente brute, făcând bucăți ființe anterior vii ca să le recombinăm în forme noi, mai cultivate. Când te gândești la asta, este același ritm imemorial care guvernează toate procesele de hrănire din natură, care implică invariabil distrugerea anumitor ființe vii, prin masticație și apoi digestie, pentru a susține alte vietăți. În „The Hungry Soul” - „Sufletul flămând” -, Leon Kass numește acest proces marele paradox al consumului de hrană: „Ca să își conserve viața și forma, vietățile distrug cu necesitate viață și formă”. Dacă există o urmă de rușine în această distrugere, se pare că numai noi, oamenii, o simțim, și numai câteodată. Dar gătitul nu ne îndepărtează doar de distructivitatea noastră, transformând grămada de sânge și mațe într-un salam delicios, ci o și izbăvește, echilibrând datoriile noastre karmice: Uite ce bunătate, ce frumusețe poate ieși de aici! A pune o mâncare grozavă pe masă este modul nostru de a cinsti formele minunate pe care noi, oamenii, le putem crea din această materie - această cantitate de viață jertfită - înainte ca trupul nostru să muște prima sa înghițitură distrugătoare.

EVERYDAY ADVENTURE: LIVING THE MYSTERY OF MARRIAGE “See marriage as the high risk, even heroic, adventure that it is, in which one risks one's all in a partnership, filled with hope, 'till death do us part.” Leon R. Kass, Wing to Wing and Oar to Oar Every marriage, family, church and community needs to have a conversation about the future of marriage. This conference is the place to begin to prepare yourself for these crucial conversations.