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Examines and deconstructs the highly interrelated biological, social, legal and moral concepts and practices that make up parenthood today.
Almost everyone grows up in a family, and family ties play an important role in daily life. But what exactly is a ‘family’? What is a ‘family tie’? We use the general concept of ‘family’ in many contexts – in fiction, in talk shows, in law, in politics – and yet one person's family may be strikingly different from another's. This introductory guide sets out to examine the multiple meanings of the family and related concepts. It explores the different roles played by these concepts in our attempts to understand who we are, where we belong, and what we owe to whom, and the relationships between individual, family, and society. Grounded in philosophy and ethics, the book also draws extensively from other disciplines such as law and sociology, discussing the concrete implications of these ideas for issues such as parental love, marriage and divorce, family autonomy, and assisted reproduction.
Our understanding of what it means to be a parent in any given context is shaped by our biological, social, legal, and moral concepts of parenthood. These are themselves subject to the influence of changing expectations, as new technologies are produced, cultural views of the family are transformed, and laws shift in response. In this book Teresa Baron provides a detailed and incisive overview of the key questions, widespread presuppositions, and dominant approaches in the field of philosophy of parenthood. Baron examines paradigm cases and problem cases alike through an interdisciplinary lens, bringing philosophy of parenthood into dialogue with research on family-making and childrearing from across the social sciences and humanities. Her book aims to answer old questions, draw out new questions, and interrogate notions that we often take for granted in this field, including the very concept of parenthood itself.
Amanda thinks about Duncan, her dead twin brother, every day. A traffic accident brings her face to face with deeper childhood memories, forcing her to wonder not just about Duncan's death but also about the death of her college mentor and lover, Sarah Moore. Can her exploration of family secrets set her free from her traumatic past?
Offering a for-and-against look at surrogacy, this book focuses on questions which bear on its justifiability: Is providing gestational services a permissible way of employing a woman's body? Indeed, is it a legitimate form of work? Are the children born out of surrogacy in any way wronged by surrogacy agreements?
Almost everyone grows up in a family, and family ties play an important role in daily life. But what exactly is a 'family'? What is a 'family tie'? We use the general concept of 'family' in many contexts in fiction, in talk shows, in law, in politics and yet one person's family may be strikingly different from another's. This introductory guide sets out to examine the multiple meanings of the family and related concepts. It explores the different roles played by these concepts in our attempts to understand who we are, where we belong, and what we owe to whom, and the relationships between individual, family, and society. Grounded in philosophy and ethics, the book also draws extensively from other disciplines such as law and sociology, discussing the concrete implications of these ideas for issues such as parental love, marriage and divorce, family autonomy, and assisted reproduction.
What gives someone a moral right to parent? What role should the liberal state play in the creation of families? Are prospective parents allowed to create a child in a world facing a changing climate and full of parentless children? In this book, Luara Ferracioli defends a new theory of the moral right to parent by focusing on the special role of parents in creating the conditions for the flourishing of their children irrespective of whether there is a biological connection between them, and by explaining why the parent-child relationship remains valuable even after the child reaches the age of majority. Ferracioli also argues that although procreative and adoptive parenting enjoy equal moral standing, justice towards children requires that the liberal state make adoption more desirable and feasible for its citizens. Finally, the book provides a partial theory of childrearing which focuses on the goods of childhood that parents are primarily responsible for fostering: carefreeness, enjoyment-driven or curiosity-driven achievement, and friendship.