David Archard

abstract Martha Nussbaum's concern is to limit the role that emotions can legitimately play in the definition of the criminal law. She would allow nuisance laws to curtail the occasioning of disgust but only disgust of a certain kind. Problems arise for her account when she extends this analysis to the prevention of offensiveness. Unavoidable is an evaluation of those beliefs subscription to which explains the taking of offence. Hence the principal problem for a liberalism of the kind Nussbaum defends is how to combine Mill's harm principle with a Rawlsian understanding of the reasonableness of belief.

A moral compromise is a compromise on moral matters; it is agreement in the face of moral disagreement but where there is agreement on the importance of consensus -namely that it secures a morally desirable outcome. It is distinguishable from other forms of agreement, and an important distinction between moral compromise with public agreement and moral compromise with public disagreement is also made. Circumstances in which the former might be permissible are outlined, and the sense in which it is allowed all things considered to agree is made clear. The relevant discussions of Dan Brock and Mary Warnock on the role of the philosopher to public policy are critically reviewed. Finally, a brief list is offered of the considerations relevant to an estimation of whether and, if so, when such compromise is allowed

For many contemporary liberal political philosophers the appropriate response to the facts of pluralism is the requirement of public reasonableness, namely that individuals should be able to offer to their fellow citizens reasons for their political actions that can generally be accepted.This article finds wanting two possible arguments for such a requirement: one from a liberal principle of legitimacy and the other from a natural duty of political civility. A respect in which conversational restraint in the face of political agreement involves incivility is sketched.The proceduralist view which commends substantive disagreement within agreement on procedures is briefly outlined, as is the possible role for civic virtue on this view.

Given that in our view the child has a fundamental right to be heard in all collective deliberative processes determining his or her future, we set out, firstly, what is required of such processes to respect this right – namely that the child's authentic voice is heard and makes a difference – and, secondly, the distance between this ideal and practice exemplified in the work of child welfare and child protection workers in Norway and the UK, chiefly in their display of an instrumental attitude to children's views.

This book undertakes a systematic comparative analysis of the political philosophies of Sartre and mealeau-Ponty between 1929 and 1960. It critically explores their pre-war discovery of Husserl, Hegel and Heidegger; It records the impact of the second world war and the subsequent founding of Les Temps Modernes. It also reviews their post-war writing, both journalistic and philosophical. Their eventual divergence of views is hows as developing, against the background of world events, from their initial philosophical outlooks. The book sheds new light on the work of both writers, and sets the question of Marxism's relation to existentialism in historical context.

This title was first published in 2003. This book critically examines the moral and political status of the child by a consideration of three interrelated questions: What rights if any does the child have? What rights over and duties in respect of a child do parents have? What rights over and duties in respect of a child does the state have? David Archard adopts three areas for particular discussion on the practical implications of the general theoretical issues: education, child protection policy, and the medical treatment of children. Providing a clear legal context and a sharper, contemporary discussion of the question of rights, this book presents a clear introduction to the key issues in the moral and political status of children.

Children: Rights and Childhood is widely regarded as the first book to offer a detailed philosophical examination of children’s rights. David Archard provides a clear and accessible introduction to a topic that has assumed increasing relevance since the book’s first publication. The third edition has been fully revised and updated throughout with a new chapter providing an in-depth analysis of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) and Part 2 has been restructured to move the reader from general theoretical considerations of children’s rights through to practical issues. This volume is ideal reading for advanced studies across Philosophy, Social Work, Law, Childhood Studies, Politics, and Social Policy.

abstract I consider the putative originality of applied philosophy and seek to defend a version of it often called 'bottom up'. I review ways in which imagined cases may cause us to reconsider our normative commitments, and endorse a general attentiveness to the matter of how the world is and how it might reasonably be imagined. This is important if practical philosophers want to form the correct normative judgements, to be able to recognize the sui generis character of some moral theorising in particular domains, practically to enact their considered judgments, and properly to acknowledge how the real world, in the form of institutions, practices and a cultural framework, constrains, or facilitates, practical enactment. Throughout I illustrate my abstract claims by reference to the moral judgement and legal regulation of sexual behaviour.

According to Stephen Macedo, ‘[liberal], democratic politics is not only about individual rights and limited government, it is also about justification … political justification … understood politically.’ ‘Political justification,’ he asserts, ‘is a core liberal goal.’ Gerald Gaus, similarly, writes that the ‘idea of public justification is at the heart of a contractual liberalism.’ Very many other contemporary political philosophers believe that the politics of a liberal polity must be justifiable to its citizens. In what follows I shall seek to understand the basis for such a belief and, in particular, to expose two possible sources in the views of Locke and Kant. Neither source, I shall argue, provides any warrant for the demand in question. First the bald claim—that the politics of a polity needs justifying—must be unpacked. By way of initial clarification I shall say something about, respectively, ‘justification’ and ‘politics.’

This article examines a particular debate between Eamonn Callan and William Galston concerning the need for a civic education which counters the divisive pull of pluralism by uniting the citizenry in patriotic allegiance to a single national identity. The article offers a preliminary understanding of nationalism and patriotism before setting out the terms of the debate. It then critically evaluates the central idea of Callan that one might be under an obligation morally to improve one''s own patriotic inheritance, pointing to the ineliminable tension between the valuation of one''s own patria by its own terms and a detached critical reason. It concludes by suggesting that we are, in advance of our education, members of a particular patria and that any education must be particularistic. Finally, the danger is noted of presuming that, in each case, there is a single, determinate national tradition.

Prolonging neonatal lifeThe paradox that medicine’s success breeds medicine’s problems is well known to readers of the Journal of Medical Ethics. Advances in neonatal medicine have worked wonders. Not long ago, extremely premature birth babies, or those born with very serious health problems, would inevitably have died. Today, neonatologists can resuscitate babies born at ever-earlier stages of gestation. And very ill babies also benefit from advances in neonatal intensive care. Infant lives can be prolonged. Unfortunately, several such babies will not survive for long whatever is done for them. Others will live to leave hospital, but face severe health problems. Doctors have gained the ability to prolong neonatal life. But should they always do so? This question is central to the recent report of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics, Critical care decisions in fetal and neonatal medicine.1 In many quarters, the report received a very positive response, commended in The Lancet as “thoughtful, sensitive and sensible” and welcomed by the premature baby charity BLISS. Critics attacked on both flanks. The report goes too far—ushering in a culture of “throw away babies”. Or it does not go far enough—failing to endorse the Dutch precedent to sanction active neonatal euthanasia.TOO FAR?One of the key recommendations of the report is that guidelines be developed in relation to the institution of intensive neonatal care. It is these guidelines, which have been savaged by some parts of the media. The BMA called them “blanket rules” smothering clinical discretion. The guidelines on resuscitation at birth apply to babies born at the borderline of viability, that is, at or before a gestational age of 25 weeks 6 days. The earlier the baby is born, the lower are the chances that he/she will survive to leave hospital. Before 21 weeks 6 days, none of …

Mary Midgley asserts that my argument concerning the problem of child-abuse was inappropriately framed in the language of rights, and neglected certain pertinent natural facts. I defend the view that the use of rights-talk was both apposite and did not misrepresent the moral problem in question. I assess the status and character of the natural facts Midgley adduces in criticism of my case, concluding that they do not obviously establish the conclusions she believes they do. Finally I briefly respond to the charge that my suggestions were illiberal