Karen Stohr

Christine Overall’s book, Why Have Children?: The Ethical Debate, begins with what would seem like an obvious point—that there are better and worse reasons to have a child. Given that that the well-being of a vulnerable and dependent creature hangs on the choice, it surely requires justification. And yet, as she illustrates, philosophers have been comparatively silent about what that justification could or should look like. In this lucid and comprehensive book, Overall sets out to remedy that situation and offer what in the end is a moral justification for having (no more than two) children.The overarching aim of the book is to explore the moral landscape around the choice to have children. Quite reasonably ..

What do we do when a loved one is seriously messing up her life? While Kantianism describes the predicament nicely as a tension between love and respect, it is not well-suited to resolving it. Kantian respect prevents minding another’s business in cases where love demands it. Virtue ethics can readily explain the predicament as a tension between the virtues of sympathy and humility. Moreover, by changing the focus away from the other as a setter of ends and toward the would-be-benefactor’s own degree of practical wisdom, virtue ethics permits a more nuanced set of loving responses to self-destructive people.