Suchergebnisse

According to its simplest definition, supererogation means freely and intentionally doing good beyond the requirements of duty. A more complicated definition involves the responses of third parties: the supererogatory act is one that is praiseworthy if performed, but not blameworthy if omitted, as long as one does one's duty. These definitions lead to a broad range of philosophical problems with long historical roots. How can something be good and yet not required? How relevant is the agent's motivation to our assessment of that agent's sacrifice? What is the difference between supererogation and virtue? Is supererogation essential to friendship and love? Do all of us have the genuine capacity to be saints and heroes? --- From back cover

"The big issues of medical ethics are more in the news than ever before. And yet they remain as stubborn and often as incendiary as ever. This book claims that in an effort to deal with the issues, mainstream philosophers have arbitrarily omitted many ethically relevant features in order to reduce the central problems to more tractable technical puzzles. The most gratuitous omissions have been the patient's point of view on the problem; the patient's ordinary life, which provides the wider context for his point of view; and the ordinary language and concepts by which the patient tries to make sense of the problem

AbstractHealthcare and social work would seem to have a lot in common. Both of them involve professional care, even if the methods and the targeted needs are different. However, they differ strikingly in the place accorded to conscientious objection (CO). The right of healthcare professionals to refuse to perform or authorise certain lawful services is well protected by the law of most Western jurisdictions. In addition, these conscience rights have been subject to a good deal of discussion in the medical ethics and medical law literature. In contrast, there seems to be very little scope for CO among social workers and very little discussion about CO in the social work literature. I examine the possible reasons for this difference, and then investigate the sort of things that a social worker might plausibly object to. In the end, I defend the position that social workers should not be permitted to express a CO, although I accept that they have other avenues for expressing legitimate dissent.

Cover -- Contents -- Introduction -- 1 Family autonomy and its limits -- 2 Parents, love and duty -- 3 Dilemmas of care -- 4 Identity, the past and the future -- 5 The meaning of biology -- 6 Adoption, surrogacy and assisted reproduction -- 7 Family history and fertility fraud: A case study -- 8 Marriage and commitment -- 9 Domestic abuse -- Closing remarks -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index.