Thou Shalt Not Kill A Political and Theological Dialogue

In this fascinating and rare little book, a leading Italian feminist philosopher and the Archbishop of Milan face off over the contemporary meaning of the biblical commandment not to kill.

The result is a series of erudite and wide-ranging arguments that move from murder and suicide to just war and drone strikes, from bioethics and biopolitics to hermeneutics and philology, from Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer to Hannah Arendt and Michel Foucault, from Torah and Scripture to art and literature, from the essence of human dignity and the paradoxes of fratricide to engagements with Levinasian ethics.

Less a direct debate than a disputation in the classical sense, Thou Shalt Not Kill proves to be a searching meditation on one of the unstated moral premises shared by otherwise bitterly opposed political factions. It will stimulate the mind of the novice while also reminding more advanced readers of the necessity and desirability of thinking in the present.

Adriana Cavarero is Professor of Political Philosophy at the University of Verona. A number of her books have been translated into English, including Horrorism: Naming Contemporary Violence, For More than One Voice: Toward a Philosophy of Vocal Expression, and Relating Narratives: Storytelling and Selfhood.

Angelo Scola is the Archbishop of Milan.

Margaret Adams Groesbeck has been a reference librarian, bibliographer, and Head of Public Services in the Amherst College Library. She and Adam Sitze have translated essays by Carlo Galli and Robert Esposito.

Adam Sitze is Associate Professor of Law, Jurisprudence and Social Thought at Amherst College. He is editor of Carlo Galli's The Janus Gaze: Essays on Carl Schmitt. With Timothy Campbell, he is co-editor of Biopolitics: A Reader.