An examination and defence of the concept of personality, long central to Western moral culture but now increasingly under attack. Robert Spaemann tackles urgent practical questions, such as our treatment of the severely disabled human and the moral status of intelligent non-human animals. Until recently relatively unknown outside Germany, the owrk of the Christian moral philosopher Robert Spaemann is now commanding the attention of English readers; this elegant translation of his work on personhood will do much to further his reputation as a thinker of uncommon breadth and penetration...It is a work of a remarkably poised and fully realized intelligence, full of passages of breathtaking perception, all the more striking for their calm modest simplicity.