Liezl Van Zyl

Surrogate motherhood is treated as a form of adoption in many countries: the birth mother and her partner are presumed to be the parents of the child, while the intended parents have to adopt the baby once it is born. Other than compensation for expenses related to the pregnancy, payment to surrogates is not permitted. We believe that the failure to compensate surrogate mothers for their labour as well as the significant risks they undertake is both unfair and exploitative. We accept that introducing payment for surrogates would create a significant tension in the adoption model. However, we recommend rejecting the adoption model altogether rather than continuing to prohibit compensation to surrogates

In ‘Against agent-based virtue ethics' (2004) Michael Brady rejects agent-based virtue ethics on the grounds that it fails to capture the commonsense distinction between an agent's doing the right thing, and her doing it for the right reason. In his view, the failure to account for this distinction has paradoxical results, making it unable to explain why an agent has a duty to perform a given action. I argue that Brady's objection relies on the assumption that an agent-based account is committed to defining obligations in terms of actual motives. If we reject this view, and instead provide a version of agent-basing that determines obligations in terms of the motives of the hypothetical virtuous agent, the paradox disappears

In this paper I outline a motive-based virtue account of right action, according to which an action is right if it expresses or exhibits virtuous motive, and which defines virtue in terms of human flourishing. I indicate how this account allows us to deal with the problem of consequential luck. By applying this account to the question of whether it is ever morally right or accept able to assist in someone's death, I demonstrate how it also allows us to deal with the problem of circumstantial luck, which arises when an agent finds himself in a situation where he is forced to choose between two reprehensible acts. S. Afr. J. Philos. Vol.23(1) 2004: 20–33

According to qualified-agent virtue ethics, an action is right if and only if it is what a virtuous agent would characteristically do in the circumstances. I discuss two closely related objections to this view, both of which concern the actions of the non-virtuous. The first is that this criterion sometimes gives the wrong result, for in some cases a non-virtuous agent should not do what a virtuous person would characteristically do. A second objection is it altogether fails to apply whenever the agent, through previous wrongdoing, finds herself in circumstances that a virtuous person cannot be in. I focus on Rosalind Hursthouse's account of right action, and argue that it can provide a satisfactory response to both these objections. I do so by drawing attention to the distinction between action guidance and action assessment, and arguing that while the above criterion is adequate as a means of action assessment, we should turn to the virtue- and vice-rules (v-rules) for action guidance.

Agent-based accounts of virtue ethics, such as the one provided by Michael Slote, base the rightness of action in the motive from which it proceeds. A frequent objection to agent-basing is that it does not allow us to draw the commonsense distinction between doing the right thing and doing it for the right reasons, that is, between act-evaluation and agent-appraisal. I defend agent-basing against this objection, but argue that a more fundamental problem for this account is its apparent failure to provide adequate argue action guidance. I then show that this problem can be solved by supplementing an agent-based criterion of right action with a hypothetical-agent criterion of action guidance

Some philosophers believe that a change in motive alone is sometimes sufficient to bring about a change in the deontic status (rightness or wrongness) of an action. I refer to this position as ‘weak motivism’, and distinguish it from ‘strong’ and ‘partial motivism’. I examine a number of cases where our intuitive judgements appear to support the weak motivist’s thesis, and argue that in each case an alternative explanation can be given for why a change in motive brings about (or, in some cases, appears to bring about) a change in deontic status.

In recent years, a number of writers dealingwith questions over parenthood that arisein the context of reproductive technologies andsurrogate motherhood, have appealed to thenotion of ``intentional parenthood''. Basingtheir argument on liberal values such asindividual autonomy, the freedom to entercontracts, the right to privacy, and individualself-fulfilment, they argue that contractuallystated intentions, rather than genetic orgestational relationships, should form thebasis of parental rights. Against this I arguethat parental rights do not derive fromcontractual agreements, but are based in theirobligations towards the child. I then examinethe nature of the obligations that the variousparties have towards the child both pre- andpostnatally

Reproductive techniques and practices, ranging from ordinary birth-control measures and artificial insemination to embryo transfer and surrogate motherhood, have greatly enhanced our range of reproductive choices. As a consequence, they pose a number of difficult moral and legal questions with regard to the formation of a family and our conception of parenthood. A view that is becoming increasingly common is that parental rights and responsibilities should not be based on genetic relationships but should instead be seen as arising from agreements or contracts between individuals. Accordingly, a man who consents to his wife's artificial insemination by donor (AID) and not the sperm donor, is the legal father of the child; in surrogacy agreements, the intending mother, and not the surrogate, has the right to raise the resulting child. While agreeing that biology should not form the basis for assigning legal parenthood, I argue that the theory of intentional parenthood, despite being put forward as a liberal theory, is geared toward or will have the function of protecting the nuclear family and inhibiting the formation of alternative family forms