In consideration of the ethical uses of science and technology the phenomenon of life, especially human life, has repeatedly played significant roles in both progressive and conservative arguments. In modern philosophy notions of life have also made repeated appearances, from Thomas Hobbes's claim that the fundamental aim of politics is to replace the insecurity of life in the state of nature with a more secure life by means, in part, of technology, to Friedrich Nietzsche's appeal to a life ideal that transcends concerns of personal security. Contemporary debates about the limits of biomedical interventions in terms of whether or not human life begins at conception and feminist criticisms of cultural tendencies to disembody life thus reflect and advance long-standing concerns. Indeed, at the beginning of philosophy in Europe, one of Socrates's fundamental theses was that "The unexamined life [bios] is not worth living for humans" (Apology 38a); and...