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Jonathan Glover EssayJonathan Glover (born 1941) is a British philosopher known for his studies on ethics. He was educated at Tonbridge School, later going on to corpus Christi College, Oxford. He was a fellow and tutor in philosophy at New College, Oxford. He currently teaches ethics at Kings College London. Glover is a fellow of the Hastings Center, an independent bioethics research institution in the unite States.Glovers book Causing Death and Saving Lives, first published in 1977, addresses practical moral questions approximately life and death decisions in the areas of abortion, infanticide, suicide, euthanasia, choices between battalion, capital punishment, and war. His approach is broadly consequentialist, though he gives earthshaking weight to questions of individual autonomy, the Kantian notion that we ought to treat other mint as ends in themselves sort of than merely as means.He criticises the idea that mere consciousness or life itself are intrinsically valu able these states matter, he argues, because they are pre-requisites for other things that are valuable and make for a life expenditure living. There is, then, no absolute sanctity of human life. 1 He criticises the principle of double effect2 and the acts and omissions doctrine,3 the notion that in that notice is a huge moral difference between killing some star and intentionally letting them die.In his discussion of real cases of moral decisions about killing he draws on insights from history and literature as well as philosophy. Throughout, the emphasis is on the consequences of moral choices for those affected, rather than on abstract principles applied impersonally. In Humanity A Moral History of the Twentieth Century, published in 1999, Glover considers the psychological factors that predispose us to commit barbaric acts, and suggests how man-made moral traditions and the cultivation of moral imagination shadower work to save us from a ruthlessly selfish treatment of othe rs.Gaining greater down the stairsstanding of the monsters within us, he argues, is fiber of the process of caging and containing them. 4 He examines the various types of atrocity that were perpetrated in the 20th century, including Nazi genocide, communist mass killings under Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot, and more recent slaughter in Bosnia and Rwanda, and examines what sort of bulwarks there could be against them. He allows that godliness has provided bulwarks, which are getting eroded. He identifies three types of bulwark.The two more dependable are sympathy and respect for human dignity. The less dependable third is Moral Identity I belong to a loving of person who would not do that sort of thing. This third is less dependable because notions of moral identity can themselves be warped, as was done by the Nazis. 5 In The End of Faith, Sam Harris quotes Glover as saying Our entanglements with people close to us erode simple self-interest. Husbands, wives, lovers, parents, children and friends all blur the boundaries of selfish concern.Francis Bacon rightly said that people with children have given hostages to fortune. Inescapably, other forms of friendship and love hold us hostage too narrow self-interest is destabilized. citation needed In 1989 the European Commission hired Glover to head a panel on conceptus research in Europe. 6 He is married to Vivette Glover, a prominent neuroscientist. Jonathan is father to three and grandfather to one (father to Ruth, Daniel and David Glover and grandfather to Samuel Glover).