In response to questions about the use of the term human dignity in the published reports of the President's Council on Bioethics, the Council commissioned this collection of essays examining the concept from a multitude of disciplinary perspectives, including theology, philosophy, medicine, and the biological sciences, and now republish it through the U. of Notre Dame Press in search of a wider audience. Editors Pellegrino (emeritus, medicine and medical ethics, Georgetown U.), Schulman (a senior research consultant for the President's Council on Bioethics) and Merrill (government, American U.) have arranged the 20 included essays into sections introducing the concept in the context of the history of public bioethics, exploring the relationship between dignity and modern science, discussing human dignity in terms of human nature and the future of human kind, interrogating the meaning of human dignity within modern American culture, investigating the sources and meaning of dignity, reviewing theories of human dignity, and addressing the place of human dignity within the practice of medicine. Annotation ©2009 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)