Ethics, Law and the Business of Being Human

This book presents an inquiry into the sort of creatures we are. If we don’t know what we are, we can have no idea how to behave or thrive either as individuals or as a society. This book, in a series of short essays, addresses the most fundamental question facing each of us: We are not here long: how then should we live – as individuals and as members of society? Philosophers and lawyers have long asked the question, but their answers are often garbled, and they have not learned a language in which to talk to one another. The Academy, which should lead the debate, is often too riddled with presumption and systemic dysfunction to be either useful or interesting. Foster surveys the academic and legal landscape critically, and suggests how some of the ills can be remedied.

Charles Foster is a Fellow of Exeter College, Oxford; a member of the Oxford Law Faculty; and a practicing barrister. His books include the New York Times bestseller, Being a Beast. He has been involved as a barrister in many of the crucial cases in medical law, including the assisted suicide litigation in the U.K. Supreme Court and the European Court of Human Rights.