S. Matthew Liao

It is quite likely that parents will soon be able to use genetic engineering to select the sex of their child by directly manipulating the sex of an embryo. Some might think that this method would be a more ethical method of sex selection than present technologies such as preimplantation genetic diagnosis because, unlike PGD, it does not need to create and destroy “wrong gendered” embryos. This paper argues that those who object to present technologies on the grounds that the embryo is a person are unlikely to be persuaded by this proposal, though for different reasons.

The concept of right or fit is an important element entailed, but not fully articulated, in the concept of action or practice in Aristotle's theory of virtue; which, however, turns to be of the utmost importance in later Western ethics. Right is concerned with both feelings and actions, and is not the same for all individuals. It lies in between the two extremes of the spectrum of practical affairs, yet by no means equidistant from them. This account of the concept of fitness or right is derived from the categories of quantity, relationship, and quality rather than from that of substance. Thus, it seems that virtue is relative to vice or error within a continuous existence. If, however, the right of passion and action is environmental and concrete, is it multiple and not singular? To this question, Aristotle gives his reply on two levels: On the level of concrete practitioners, what is right and fit to one man might not be so to another man, and hence the right of practice is not singular but multiple; whereas on the level concerned with the only right choice compared with the two extremes or errors, the right of practice will always be singular. /// "正确"是隐含于亚里士多德的德性学说中的一个重要而未充分展开的，在 后来的西方伦理学中却变成极为重要的关于行为或实践的概念。"正确"与感情和 行为都相关。"正确"并不是对所有人同样的。它是两端间的那个中间，但井不始 终与两端距离相等。对适度或正确的这种说明基本上是从数量、关系与性质范畴引 出，而不是从实体范畴引出的述说。所以，德性似乎始终是在一种有连续性的存在 中相对于恶或错误而言的。感情与行为的正确如果是环境的、具体的，它是否是多 而不是一?亚里士多德在两个层面上回答这个问题。在相对于具体实践者的层面， 对我而言的适度或正确很可能不同于对你而言的，实践的正确不是一而是多:在相 对于两端或错误唯有一个正确的选择而言，实践的正确始终只是一。.

Philosophers today are inclined to propose virtues are either something subjective or something universal. However, Confucius and Aristotle, who made the most profound investigations into virtues, did not develop such theses. The deep-seated reason lies in their belief that there is always a possibility for a human being to become a man of practice, which cancels the need of proposing subjectivity thesis. The reason for their not raising the universality thesis of virtues is that they do not think that virtues are directly universal to all contemporarily existing minds. Rather, in their view, virtues involve a possible universality that may present in a virtuous mind. We can summarize Aristotle’s view into the concept of possible universality of virtue understood in terms of the perfect state of mind, since he explains the perfect state of mind in terms of perfect state of activity, and makes his investigations with an eye to the interactions between people with similar states of virtues. The view of Confucius can be summarized into the concept of possible universality of virtue understood in terms of the history of mind, since his investigations are made from the point of view of the states of mind reached through virtuous practices, i.e., a historical process of human life in which one’s pre-dispositions and feelings gradually reach some state of natural harmony and gains continual enrichment, and with an eye to the interactions between virtuous people and common people. From that similarly expressed view we can reasonably infer that virtues do possess the character called by today’s philosophers as universality, but it is a possible universality whose possibility is based on practice and on the development of virtuous minds.

The concept of right or fit is an important element entailed, but not fully articulated, in the concept of action or practice in Aristotle’s theory of virtue; which, however, turns to be of the utmost importance in later Western ethics. Right is concerned with both feelings and actions, and is not the same for all individuals. It lies in between the two extremes of the spectrum of practical affairs, yet by no means equidistant from them. This account of the concept of fitness or right is derived from the categories of quantity, relationship, and quality rather than from that of substance. Thus, it seems that virtue is relative to vice or error within a continuous existence. If, however, the right of passion and action is environmental and concrete, is it multiple and not singular? To this question, Aristotle gives his reply on two levels: On the level of concrete practitioners, what is right and fit to one man might not be so to another man, and hence the right of practice is not singular but multiple; whereas on the level concerned with the only right choice compared with the two extremes or errors, the right of practice will always be singular.

This chapter first considers how the right to be loved should be prioritized. It argues that even if children’s being loved is not as urgent as, for instance, being fed, it is still very urgent; that governments do not give absolute priority to whatever is most necessary for action; and that to develop institutional arrangements that can adequately provide for children’s various fundamental conditions, it is important to take into account all of their fundamental conditions, including their need for love. This chapter then draws the book to a close by pointing out that the proclamation that children have a right to be loved is not merely empty rhetoric and that in fact this right can be justified in the same way as other rights.

This chapter argues that there is a duty to adopt many of the children without adequate parents, and that we can derive this duty straightforwardly from the right of children to be loved. It first considers and rejects the Easy Rescue view, according to which those who want to have children have a duty to adopt rather than have biological children, because, among other things, the cost of adoption will not be much more than the cost of having a biological child. It then defends the Human Right view, according to which the duty to adopt belongs to every able person in appropriate circumstances. This chapter concludes by proposing a potential way of encouraging more people who are motivated to adopt actually to adopt.

This chapter explores the topic of whether we should institute some kind of parental licensing scheme, that is, require biological parents to demonstrate certain competence and character before they are permitted to parent their biological children. Existing concerns regarding parental licensing tend to be practical concerns such as whether there can be a reliable way of determining who is a competent parent and whether the parental licensing scheme can be enforced. These practical concerns leave open the possibility that parental licensing is theoretically correct. This chapter presents a new, theoretical case against parental licensing. In particular, it is argued that biological parenting should not be licensed because biological parenting is a fundamental right and fundamental rights should not be licensed.

This chapter examines the issue of who has the duty to love a child, supposing that there is a right to be loved. It makes the striking claim that everyone has this duty, even when the biological parents are available. It explains that everyone’s having this duty does not mean that everyone has to do the same thing, and that biological parents should be given the status of primary dutybearers while others have associate duties to assist the primary dutybearers in carrying out this duty. This chapter also considers how demanding the duty to love a child should be and it argues that while there are limits as to how much we are required to sacrifice to fulfill this duty, we may be required to sacrifice more than what common sense morality supposes.

This chapter addresses a number of objections against the possibility of a duty to love. Some people believe that a duty to love is an absurdity because duty requires that one can command the action required by the duty, but love is an emotion and is therefore not commandable. This chapter argues that in fact love is commandable even if it is an emotion. This chapter also responds to the concern that really to love a person, we must be motivated to do so for the person’s sake, but to have a duty to love a person means that we would not be motivated to love the person for the person’s sake but for the sake of the duty; and the concern that someone may behave as if he loves a child when in fact he does not in order to satisfy the duty to love.

That children need to be loved is a claim that many people would find intuitive and obvious. However, some people have questioned this claimed. Psychologists have long theorized about the importance of early relationships for all aspects of children’s later development. Drawing on their theories, this chapter offers some theoretical explanations of why being loved is a fundamental condition for children to pursue a good life—that is, why children need to be loved. In addition, there is a vast array of ongoing scientific research devoted toward understanding why children need to be loved, both at the psychological level and at the biological level. To further support the claim that children need to be loved, this chapter presents some of the key findings and details some of the latest results from this research.

To a lay audience, it might seem surprising that it has to be shown that children are rightholders, since, for instance, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights explicitly states that “all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights,” which would seem to include children as rightholders. However, the claim that all human beings are rightholders is in fact surprisingly difficult to defend. When philosophers try to explain how all human beings are rightholders, they end up adopting what Peter Singer calls a “speciesist” position, where speciesism is defined as morally favoring a particular species—in this case, human beings—over others without sufficient justification. This chapter develops the “genetic basis for moral agency” account of rightholding and explains how this account can allow all human beings, including very young children, to be rightholders without being speciesist.

The book’s introduction points out that many international declarations claim that children have a right to be loved, but that philosophically speaking, there are a number of reasons to question whether there is in fact such a right. The introduction then lays out a plan to show that children have a right to be loved by answering questions such as whether children can have rights, what grounds the right to be loved, whether love is an appropriate object of a right, who has the corresponding duty to love a child, how demanding the duty to love should be, whether biological parenting should be licensed, and whether there is a duty to adopt those children who do not have adequate parents.

Judith Jarvis Thomson's Loop Case is particularly significant in normative ethics because it questions the validity of the intuitively plausible Doctrine of Double Effect, according to which there is a significant difference between harm that is intended and harm that is merely foreseen and not intended. Recently, Frances Kamm has argued that what she calls the Doctrine of Triple Effect, which draws a distinction between acting because-of and acting in-order-to, can account for our judgment about the Loop Case. In this paper, I first argue that even if the distinction drawn by DTE can be sustained, it does not seem to apply to the Loop Case. Moreover, I question whether this distinction has any normative significance. The upshot is that I am skeptical that DTE can explain our judgment about the Loop Case.

T. M. Scanlon's buck-passing account of value (BPA) has been subjected to a barrage of criticisms. Recently, to be helpful to BPA, Roger Crisp has suggested that a number of these criticisms can be met if one makes some revisions to BPA. In this paper, I argue that if advocates of the buck-passing account accepted these revisions, they would effectively be giving up the buck-passing account as it is typically understood, that is, as an account concerned with the conceptual priority of reasons or the right vis-à-vis value or the good. I conclude by addressing some of the broader implications of my arguments for the current debate about the buckpassing account of value

A number of prominent bioethicists such as Mike Parker, Anneke Lucassen, and Bartha Maria Knoppers have called for the adoption of a system in which by default, genetic information is shared among family members. In this paper, I suggest that a main reason given in support of this call to share genetic information among family members is the idea that genetic information is essentially familial in nature. Upon examining this ‘familial nature of genetics’ argument, I show that most genetic information are only shared in a weaker way among family members and do not necessarily lead to the actual manifestation of particular diseases. The upshot is that the idea that genetic information is familial in nature does not provide a sufficient ground for why we should move towards a system in which by default, genetic information is shared among family members.

_ Source: _Volume 13, Issue 6, pp 652 - 668 Do biological parents have the right to parent their own biological children? It might seem obvious that the answer is yes, but the philosophical justification for this right is uncertain. In recent years, there has been a flurry of philosophical activity aimed at providing fresh justifications for this right. In this paper, I shall propose a new answer, namely, the right to parent one’s own biological children is a human right. I call this the human rights account of parental rights and I shall explain how this account is better than these other alternatives.

In recent years, many non-consequentialists such as Frances Kamm and Thomas Scanlon have been puzzling over what has come to be known as the Number Problem, which is how to show that the greater number in a rescue situation should be saved without aggregating the claims of the many, a typical kind of consequentialist move that seems to violate the separateness of persons. In this article, I argue that these non-consequentialists may be making the task more difficult than necessary, because allowing aggregation does not prevent one from being a non-consequentialist. I shall explain how a non-consequentialist can still respect the separateness of persons while allowing for aggregation.

Despite the therapeutic potential of human embryonic stem (HES) cells, many people believe that HES cell research should be banned. The reason is that the present method of extracting HES cells involves the destruction of the embryo, which for many is the beginning of a person. This paper examines a number of compromise solutions such as parthenogenesis, the use of defective embryos, genetically creating a "pseudo embryo" that can never form a placenta, and determining embryo death, and argues that none of these proposals are likely to satisfy embryoists, that is, those who regard the embryo as a person. This paper then proposes a method of extracting HES cells, what might be called the Blastocyst Transfer Method, that meets the ethical requirements of embryoists, and it considers some possible concerns regarding this method. It concludes by encouraging future HES cell research to investigate this method.

abstract   In this paper, we examine issues raised by the possibility of regulating emotions through pharmacological means. We argue that emotions induced through these means can be authentic phenomenologically, and that the manner of inducing them need not make them any less our own than emotions arising 'naturally'. We recognize that in taking drugs to induce emotions, one may lose opportunities for self-knowledge; act narcissistically; or treat oneself as a mere means. But we propose that there are circumstances in which none of these concerns arise. Finally, we consider how the possibility of drug-regulation might affect duties to feel emotions.

What grounds human rights? How do we determine that something is a human right? James Griffin has persuasively argued that the notion of agency should determine the content of human rights. However, Griffin's agency account faces the question of why agency should be the sole ground for human rights. For example, can Griffin's notion of agency by itself adequately explain such human rights as that against torture? Or, has Griffin offered a plausible explanation as to why one should not broaden the ground for human rights to include other elements of a good life such as freedom from great pain, understanding, deep personal relations, and so on? These concerns have been raised regarding Griffin's agency account, but in his new book, On Human Rights , Griffin has offered new arguments in support of his view that agency is the sole ground for human rights. In this paper, I examine these new arguments, and I argue that Griffin's arguments are ultimately unsuccessful.

What are you and I essentially? When do you and I come into and go out of existence? A common response is that we are essentially organisms, that is, we come into existence as organisms and go out of existence when we cease to be organisms. Jeff McMahan has put forward two arguments against the Organism View: the case of dicephalus and a special case of hemispheric commissurotomy. In this paper, I defend the Organism View against these two cases. Because it is possible to devise more McMahanian-type cases, I also provide a more general solution to these kinds of cases.

When philosophers consider what moral status human beings have, they tend to find themselves either supporting the idea that not all human beings are rightholders or adopting what Peter Singer calls a 'speciesist' position, where speciesism is defined as morally favoring a particular species—in this case, human beings—over others without sufficient justification. In this paper, I develop what I call the 'genetic basis for moral agency' account of rightholding, and I propose that this account can allow all human beings to be rightholders without being speciesist. While my aim is to set out this account clearly rather than to defend it, I explain how this account is different from a potentiality account and I argue that it is preferable to an actual moral agency account of human moral status

In the last fifteen years, there has been significant interest in studying the brain structures involved in moral judgments using novel techniques from neuroscience such as functional magnetic resonance imaging. Many people, including a number of philosophers, believe that results from neuroscience have the potential to settle seemingly intractable debates concerning the nature, practice, and reliability of moral judgments. This has led to a flurry of scientific and philosophical activities, resulting in the rapid growth of the new field of moral neuroscience. There is now a vast array of ongoing scientific research devoted towards understanding the neural correlates of moral judgments, accompanied by a large philosophical literature aimed at interpreting and examining the methodology and the results of this research. This is the first volume to take stock of fifteen years of research of this fast-growing field of moral neuroscience and to recommend future directions for research. It features the most up-to-date research in this area, and it presents a wide variety of perspectives on this topic.

Mitochondrial replacement techniques, known in the popular media as 'three-parent' or 'three-person' IVFs, have the potential to enable women with mitochondrial diseases to have children who are genetically related to them but without such diseases. In the debate regarding whether MRTs should be made available, an issue that has garnered considerable attention is whether MRTs affect the characteristics of an existing individual or whether they result in the creation of a new individual, given that MRTs involve the genetic manipulation of the germline. In other words, do MRTs affect the qualitative identity or the numerical identity of the resulting child? For instance, a group of panelists on behalf of the UK Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority has claimed that MRTs affect only the qualitative identity of the resulting child, while the Working Group of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics has argued that MRTs would create a numerically distinct individual. In this article, I shall argue that MRTs do create a new and numerically distinct individual. Since my explanation is different from the NCOB's explanation, I shall also offer reasons why my explanation is preferable to the NCOB's explanation.