摘要:

ABSTRACTThere is a growing acceptance of user rights models with regard to dependent populations such as nursing home residents, but classic theories of rights presuppose levels of human rationality and human agency often lacking in the case of highly dependent populations. While user rights models have strong advantages at a rhetorical level, the reduced capacity for dependent groups to assert their rights constitutes a significant structural limitation. Policies, practices and regulatory strategies developed on the assumption that very dependent groups can indeed assert such rights thus proceed on a premise which is fatally flawed.

ISSN:0264-3758    

DOI:10.1111/j.1468-5930.1995.tb00115.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1995

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

ABSTRACTBiomedical experimentation on animals is justified, researchers say, because of its enormous benefits to human beings. Sure, animals suffer and die, but that is morally insignificant since the benefits of researchincalculablyoutweigh the evils. Although this utilitarian claim appears straightforward and relatively uncontroversial, it is neither straightforward nor uncontroversial. This defence of animal experimentation is likely to succeed only by rejecting three widely held moral presumptions. We identify these assumptions and explain their relevance to the justification of animal experimentation. We argue that, even if non‐human animals have considerably less moral worth than humans, experimentation is justified only if the benefits are overwhelming. By building on and expanding on arguments offered in earlier papers, we show that researchers cannot substantiate their claims on behalf of animal research. We conclude that there is currently no acceptable utilitarian defence of animal experimentation. Moreover, it is unlikely that there could be one. Since most apologists of animal experimentation rely on utilitarian justifications of their practice, it appears that biomedical experimentation on animals is not morally justifie

ISSN:0264-3758    

DOI:10.1111/j.1468-5930.1995.tb00116.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1995

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

ABSTRACTAutonomy may be used to justify free speech claims where the right is raised against the state but also to justify state intervention intended to promote autonomy which may entail restraints on others' speech. The appeal to diversity and autonomy may be used by both sides of the pornography and censorship debate. Although autonomy may be invoked in defence of pornography as part of the general defence of free speech, it is argued that autonomy favours the regulation of pornography. The ‘free speech’defence of pornography is critically examined here and an alternative argument advanced for regulat

ISSN:0264-3758    

DOI:10.1111/j.1468-5930.1995.tb00117.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1995

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

ABSTRACTI argue, counter‐intuitively, that under certain conditions many people are under some moral requirement to attempt to bring children into being (in order to raise them). There is only rarely a strict obligation to have children, but more moderate, inclining moral considerations in favour of having children, have a place in our moral world. I begin by considering a large number of arguments in favour and against the possibility of an obligation to have children. Then I examine when the weight of one set of arguments is greater. And I conclude by pointing out some general lessons from the discussio

ISSN:0264-3758    

DOI:10.1111/j.1468-5930.1995.tb00118.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1995

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

ABSTRACTThe nature of two influential theories on the moral status of abortion logically commits them to welcoming the advent of ectogenesis (the gestation of human beings outside the womb) as a solution to the abortion conflict. However, qualitative research into women's response to ectogenesis reveals that both women in favour and women opposed to abortion rights reject the technology on surprisingly similar grounds. The abortion framework which led women to reject ectogenesis as an ethical resolution to unwanted pregnancy is contrasted with the moral framework which shapes formal ethical discussions of abortion. It is argued that the need for ethical relevance requires the views of ethicists to move closer to those of women [1].

ISSN:0264-3758    

DOI:10.1111/j.1468-5930.1995.tb00119.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1995

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

ABSTRACTEthical thinking about social science research is dominated by a biomedical model whose salient features are the assumption that only potential harms to subjects of research are relevant in the ethical evaluation of that research, and in the emphasis on securing informed consent in order to establish ethical probity. A number of counter‐examples are considered to the assumption, a number of defences against these counter‐examples are examined, and an alternative model is proposed for the ethical evaluation of social science research: a model which can cope with the systemic harms (harms other than those to participants as participants) which have been identified. This model is based on John Rawls's idea of original position reasoning and treats social science research as an institutional feature of the basic structure of soci

ISSN:0264-3758    

DOI:10.1111/j.1468-5930.1995.tb00120.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1995

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

ABSTRACTThis paper [1] is a defence of a modified version of Jane English's model of filial obligations based on adult children's friendship with their parents. (I) Unlike the more traditional view that filial obligations are arepaymentfor parental sacrifices, the friendship model puts filial duties in the appealing context of voluntary, loving relationships. (II) Contrary to English's original statement of this view, which is open to the charge of tolerating filial ingratitude, the friendship modelcangenerate obligations to help our parents even if we are no longer friendly with them. (III) Joseph Kupfer has pointed out several ways in which parent‐child relationships differ from peer friendships; but his arguments do not preclude our enjoying atypeof friendship with our parents. (IV) In response to Christina Hoff Sommers, who objects that feelings of friendship toward our parents are too flimsy a ground for filial duties, the friendship model can provide a plausible, robust account of filial obligations. (V) As for adult children who have never formed friendships with their loving, caring parents, and refuse to give them much‐needed assistance, they can be criticised by moral considerations independent of but compatible with the friendship mo

ISSN:0264-3758    

DOI:10.1111/j.1468-5930.1995.tb00121.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1995

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

ABSTRACTThis paper is a reply to three objections raised by Seumas Miller against a ‘forced‐choice’account of the morality of self‐defence. It is argued that Miller's first objection rests on a misconception of how the forced‐choice account is supposed to work; that his second objection is simply mistaken; and that his third objection overlooks how the forced‐choice account explicitly accommodates the moral difference between self‐defence and ‘other‐defence.’Finally, it is suggested that Miller's entire approach is defective in its failure to examine the principle of justice which underlies the forced‐choice account, and whether it applies to standard se

ISSN:0264-3758    

DOI:10.1111/j.1468-5930.1995.tb00122.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1995

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

ABSTRACTIn the course of her defence of German protesters against Peter Singer's lectures, Jenny Teichman claims that the right to make use of a public platform is not covered by the principle of freedom of expression. I argue that this view is mistaken, and that she is also wrong to focus on whether Singer deserved a public platform. Instead I suggest that what matters is whether there was an attempt to prevent communication between a speaker and willing hearers. But I agree with Teichman that there are some relevant differences between speaking from a public platform and speaking privately. In particular I argue that protesters have a right, though not one based on freedom of expression, to interrupt a public speaker. Such a right is on a par with the speaker's freedom to draw public attention to the fact that she has opinions which she thinks worthy of a hearing, and in exercising it a protester must not prevent those who wish to hear the speech from doing so. Finally I offer an argument against the view that disrupting Singer's lectures could be seen as a justified interference with freedom of expression.

ISSN:0264-3758    

DOI:10.1111/j.1468-5930.1995.tb00123.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1995

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

ABSTRACTThose who wish to refute the view that it is worse to kill than to let die sometimes produce examples of cases in which an agent lets someone die but would be generally agreed to be no less reprehensible than if he had killed. It is argued that the examples produced typically possess a feature which makes their use in this context illegitimate, and that when modified to remove this feature, they provide support for the view which they were designed to undermine.

ISSN:0264-3758    

DOI:10.1111/j.1468-5930.1995.tb00124.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1995

数据来源: WILEY