Contingent future persons : on the ethics of deciding who will live, or not, in the future / edited by Nick Fotion and Jan C. Heller.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Fotion, N.

Heller, Jan Christian.

Series:

Theology and medicine ; v. 8 i.e. 9.

Theology and medicine ; v. 8 [i.e. 9]

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Life and death, Power over.

Future contingents (Logic).

Medical ethics.

Christian ethics.

Physical Description:

vii, 216 pages ; 25 cm.

Place of Publication:

Dordrecht ; Boston : Kluwer Academic Publishers, [1997]

Summary:

This volume is concerned with how we ought to evaluate the individual and collective actions on which the existence, numbers and identities of future people depend - discussed here as the problem of contingent future persons'. For it seems that those future persons who are brought into existence by such actions cannot benefit from or be harmed by them in any conventional sense. This is a relatively novel problem in ethics and as yet there is simply no consensus on how we ought to evaluate such actions or, indeed, on whether we can. However, the pursuit of a solution to the problem has been interestingly employed by moral philosophers to press the limits of ethics and to urge a reconsideration of the nature and source of value at its most fundamental level. Intended for professional ethicists, policy researchers, and graduate students, this volume explores the theological implications of the problem and advances the investigation of it both in philosophical and in theological terms.

Contents:

When Does Potentiality Count? A Comment on Lockwood / R. M. Hare 9

Hare on Potentiality: A Rejoinder / Michael Lockwood 19

The Morality of Knowingly Conceiving Children with Serious Conditions: An Expanded "Wrongful Life" Standard / Cynthia B. Cohen 27

Person-Affecting Principles and Beyond / Ingmar Persson 41

Divine Creation and Human Procreation: Reflections on Genesis in the Light of Genesis / David Heyd 57

Deciding the Timing of Children: An Ethical Challenge Only Indirectly Addressed by the Christian Tradition / Jan C. Heller 71

Repugnant Thoughts about the Repugnant Conclusion Argument / Nick Fotion 85

Person-Affecting Utilitarianism and Population Policy; Or, Sissy Jupe's Theory of Social Choice / Clark Wolf 99

Down to Earth Environmentalism: Sustainability and Future Persons / Avner de-Shalit 123

More Than They Have a Right to: Future People and Our Future Oriented Projects / Lukas H. Meyer 137

Contingency, Community and Intergenerational Justice / Robert Elliot 157

Bringing Embryos into Existence for Research Purposes / Carol A. Tauer 171

Anticipating Posterity: A Lonerganian Approach to the Problem of Contingent Future Persons / William P. George 191.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

0792347072

OCLC:

37331504