Samuel Kerstein
Dr. Samuel Kerstein (PhD, Columbia University) is Associate Professor of philosophy at the University of Maryland, College Park. In several articles and a book, Kant’s Search for the Supreme Principle of Morality (Cambridge, 2002), he has examined the foundations of Kantian ethics. He is currently working on an elaboration and defense of the Kantian principle that persons must never be treated merely as means, but always as ends in themselves. Reflection on issues in medical ethics such as proper uses of clinical data and the moral permissibility of offers to purchase organs for transplantation informs Kerstein’s efforts to reconstruct this principle. He is also investigating the principle’s implications for issues such as the moral permissibility of abortion, embryonic stem cell research, and physician-assisted dying. Contact: kerstein@umd.edu