Concept Of Abortion

Submitted By nathanisfooky
Words: 5114
Pages: 21

1. Important concepts: * Positive and negative duties (in an abortion case) * Negative duties – avoid actions that inflict harm or injury on other * Positive duties – certain actions that aid or benefit others * Negative duties take precedent over positive duties when in conflict * Obligation (in an abortion case) * Rachels: * Does the third party (doctor) have the right to abort the fetus? * Nobody is morally required to make large sacrifices, of health, of all other interests and concerns, of all other duties and commitments, for nine years, or even for nine months to keep another person alive * Marquis: * Have same moral obligation to fetus as we have to the mother; obligated to let live * Just (in an abortion case) * Doctor is justified in performing an abortion when nothing can be done to save the lives of both child and mother, but the life of the mother can be saved by killing the child * The right to life consists not of the right not to be killed unjustly * If not killing unjustly, then not violating right to life * Active euthanasia and passive euthanasia * Active euthanasia – means taking some positive action designed to kill the patient * Passive euthanasia- means refraining from doing anything to keep the patient alive * Women’s Rights * National Organization for Women Bill of Rights * Equal rights constitutional amendment * Enforce law banning sex discrimination in employment * Maternity leave right in employment and social security benefits * Tax deduction for home and childcare expenses for working parents * Childcare center – unsegregated education * Equal job training opportunities and allowances for women in poverty * Right of women to control their reproductive lives * The tragedy of marriage – for women, marriage and child-bearing are essentially incompatible with their subjectivity and freedom * Does not fail to assure woman the promised happiness * Mutilates her * Dooms her to repetition and routine – bound to a man and child with virtually finished life * The welfare rights of distant people (Negative and positive rights) * Negative right – a right not to be interfered with in some specific manner * Positive right – right to receive some specific goods or services * Lifeboat ethics - * Defensive Gun Uses (DGUs) – private citizens use their guns to scare off trespassers and fend off assaults * A moral approach – approach that issues in prescription such as “do this” and “don’t do that” * Addresses what are acceptable to everyone affected by them * Questions about morality – good and evil, right and wrong, virtue and vice, justice * Understand nature of morality and what it requires of us to understand how we ought to live and why * Sexism (Philosophers against family) * Literal: unfair discrimination * Philosophical: discrimination * Crime and Justice * Crime is difficult to eradicate because it serves the needs of offenders and non-offenders alike; motives of offenders and non-offenders are quite similar * Must find better ways to enable people to realize their goals * Punishment is vengeful response that does not work b/c crume is an illness requiring treatment by psychiatrists and psychologists * Vengeful punishment itself is a crime * Means and end (Kant) * Law obliges one to treat humanity – understood as a rational agency, and represented through oneself as well as others – as an end in itself rather than as means to other ends the individual might hold.Humanity is the end * Difference between us and animals is that humanity is our end * Moral means and ends can be applied to the categorical imperative, that rational beings can pursues