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Forbidden Knowledge

from Prometheus to pornography
Pages
369
Published
1996
Language
English

Synopsis

Roger Shattuck asks whether there is knowledge human beings are better off not pursuing, and refuses the comfortable answer in either direction. The first half reads the question through Western literature: Adam and Eve, Prometheus, Milton's Paradise Lost, Goethe's Faust, Frankenstein, Billy Budd, Emily Dickinson, Jekyll and Hyde, Camus.

The second half turns to cases where the stakes stopped being literary, among them the Manhattan Project, DNA research and genetic engineering, the crimes of Ted Bundy and the Moors murderers, and the writings of the Marquis de Sade. The argument runs against moral relativism and toward the claim that some limits are worth keeping.

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