摘要:

ABSTRACTThe Warnock Report fails to reveal an important underlying principle concerning the donation and transference of gametes and embryos. This principle contrasts sharply with the principle that children are non‐transferable. Consideration of where to place the line between transferable embryos and non‐transferable fetuses, or children, yields a conception of surrogacy that would set it apart from adoption. The paper argues for a coherent system of surrogacy supported by regulative institutions in which surrogacy is seen to facilitate an acceptable form of parenth

ISSN:0264-3758    

DOI:10.1111/j.1468-5930.1985.tb00030.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1985

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

ABSTRACTIf it could be shown that law is, in some sense, a moral system the apparent contradiction between (moral) autonomy and (legal) heteronomy might be challenged. In order to prepare for such a challenge this paper questions the prevailing view that law is not in the business of enforcing morals. That is done primarily by using decisions of the criminal courts to show that the law does not always criminalise conduct merely to prevent harm to others. Paternalism is distinguished from the harm principle in order to show that the law (rightly or wrongly) sometimes seeks to secure that which is (thought to be) morally good, irrespective of the prevention of harm, at least overall harm.If such an insight is well founded there are consequences for legal theory in that neither of the ruling paradigms (naturalism and positivism) seems able adequately to accommodate the view of law which emerges. Consequently, an attempt is made in the essay to develop a middle theory of law, between naturalism and positivism, which is referred to as ‘normative positivism‘. The theory presented has, in turn, consequences for political practice. If law can be seen as community morality rather than as merely the morality of officials, then everyone has a stake in the moral content of law and there may be good moral reasons for disobeying official laws. Civil disobedience is the citizen's ultimate resort against the official morality that has appropriated to itself the eulogistic name of ‘law‘. That law may be seen as community morality also calls into question some ruling paradigms as to the nature of morality but, if the claim can be sustained, then the legal system may be seen as applied moral philosophy in

ISSN:0264-3758    

DOI:10.1111/j.1468-5930.1985.tb00031.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1985

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

ABSTRACTOccasioned by but not pretending to constitute a critique of Julian Le Grand's ‘Equity as an Economic Objective‘, published in the first issue of theJournal of Applied Philosophy, this paper argues that the concept of justice must be distinguished from conceptions thereof. Once this is done it emerges that many of what are both offered and accepted as conceptions of justice really are not. By proceeding next both to enquire what are the incentives to such misrepresentations and to reveal some of their unrecognized costs, this is shown to be by no means a merely trifling and purely verbal matter. In particular, by misrepresenting the imposition of their peculiar and characteristic ideal of equality of outcome as the enforcement of the mandate of justice, Procrusteans unwittingly imply that they are themselves involved in appallingly shabby and discreditable practi

ISSN:0264-3758    

DOI:10.1111/j.1468-5930.1985.tb00032.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1985

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

ABSTRACTTests which predict the sex of a fetus have led to female feticide in India, and hence to demands that such tests be banned. This paper examines the arguments for banning such tests. These will depend partly on one's views regarding the morality of feticide: different views are discussed. However the morality of feticide is not the only relevant consideration, especially since it may become possible to choose the sex of the child at conception. Whether or not parents have the right to freedom of choice and information is analysed. Many non‐western societies have special problems since the strong preference for boys may lead to the neglect of female children and to female infanticide. In heavily populated countries like India and China the need to control population growth is an additional complication. The paper concludes that in these societies the case for banning tests is wea

ISSN:0264-3758    

DOI:10.1111/j.1468-5930.1985.tb00033.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1985

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

ABSTRACTEquality and freedom have been represented as conflicting values. In this paper, I propose to argue that the idea of freedom has clear egalitarian implications.Freedom is commonly represented as being negative or positive, but it has both senses in ordinary usage, and the distinction fails adequately to explain the relationship between views on freedom and poverty. An alternative representation of the concept distinguishes individual freedom, based on the autonomous individual, from social freedom, which sees freedom as a social relationship.Equality implies the elimination of disadvantage. Freedom is a redistributive idea, implying that the freedom of some must be restricted to increase the freedom of others. Although the individual concept of freedom is restrictive, equal treatment and equality of opportunity are largely compatible with it, and even equality of outcome can be reconciled with it to some degree. The social concept of freedom is broader, extending the scope of redistribution to all forms of social disadvantage. This demands a high degree of equality; it also defines the boundaries of the pursuit of equality, which is justifiable in so far as it increases freedom.Freedom is not, therefore, in conflict with equality. Certain egalitarian assumptions are part of its normative base, and it actively requires a degree of redistribution.

ISSN:0264-3758    

DOI:10.1111/j.1468-5930.1985.tb00034.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1985

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

ABSTRACTFeminist writers arguing that women are oppressed have pointed to men as the oppressors. They have, however, directed little attention to the question of the extent to which men are morally responsible for this oppression, a question which is of special concern for male feminists. Seven categories of men potentially responsible for the oppression of women are identified here; four are argued to be individually responsible for oppressing women and three not. The question of whether men are collectively responsible for the oppression of women is addressed, and three main difficulties are revealed in the endeavour to establish that they are. It is argued that one who is in no way responsible on an individual basis for oppressing women cannot be responsible by sole virtue of being a male. The result has implications for the status of men in the feminist movement.

ISSN:0264-3758    

DOI:10.1111/j.1468-5930.1985.tb00035.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1985

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

ABSTRACTThis paper considers the four ways that the concept of ‘irrationality’ has been employed by members of the European peace movement in their evaluation of current bloc tensions. Against Bernard Williams who has recently taken issue with the peace movement's alleged tendency to dismiss political realities, the present author argues that the use of the language of irrationality reveals just the opposite orientation. Finally, it is argued that although the language of irrationality constitutes a powerful descriptive and normative instrument, as an explanation of the Cold War it is a nonstar

ISSN:0264-3758    

DOI:10.1111/j.1468-5930.1985.tb00036.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1985

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

ABSTRACTMany environmental harms are produced by the consequences of too many people doing acts which taken together have collective bad consequences, e.g. overuse of an underground aquifer or acid rain ‘killing’ a lake. If such acts are wrong, what should a conscientious moral agent do in such circumstances? Examples of such harms have the general feature that they are produced by individual acts, which taken by themselves may be innocent and morally permissible, but which have disastrous consequences when too many people perform them. Philosophers once thought that the generalisation argument (GA), “If the consequences of everyone's doing acts of kind a are undesirable, then no one ought to do a,” was the appropriate principle to guide a conscientious moral agent in such circumstances. However, there has been considerable literature discussing the shortcomings of this principle. Nevertheless, a proper understanding of the GA suggests that whole groups of people have collective duties to prevent such harms, which duties then provide clues to individual duties to protect the environment.In this paper I consider some major deficiencies of the generalisation argument, the collective duty which follows from the salvageable part of the argument, and the distribution of individual duties a conscientious moral agent has with regard to such environmental harms as a consequence. These duties turn out to be peculiarly political in nature with the result that conscientious moral agents may have a number of political duties to protect the environment heretofore unr

ISSN:0264-3758    

DOI:10.1111/j.1468-5930.1985.tb00037.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1985

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

ABSTRACTAbortion is a philosophically interesting issue because both sides seem so certain of their conclusions, yet the issue is at the same time clearly a derivative one. It is also highly political, and needs to be seen within the context of the growth of the women's movement. A philosophical overview of the issue in section 1 construes the central claims of the pro‐choice and anti‐abortion positions as moral and conceptual constructions, which extend everyday moral thinking into the area of abortion. It notes the interesting relation between such constructions and other arguments about abortion, and how this is responsible for their social and historical specificity. Section 2 defends the pro‐choice position as a victory of moral sensitivity over linguistic guile. Section 3 situates the argument within the politics of feminism, and recognises the limited contribution which philosophy is able to

ISSN:0264-3758    

DOI:10.1111/j.1468-5930.1985.tb00038.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1985

数据来源: WILEY

ISSN:0264-3758    

DOI:10.1111/j.1468-5930.1985.tb00039.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1985

数据来源: WILEY