The Ethics of Choosing Children

This book takes the contentious issue of designer babies and argues against the liberal eugenic current of bioethics that commends the logic and choice regimes of selective reproduction. Against conceptions of Procreative Beneficence that trade on a disregard for the gifts of maternal bodies, it seeks to recover a thought of maternal giving and a more hospitable ethic of generational beneficence. Exploring themes of responsibility, gift and natality, the book refigures the experience of reproduction as the site of an ethical response to future generations, where refusal to choose one's children is one virtuous response. The book will appeal to anyone with an interest in reproductive ethics, feminist thought and those seeking principled grounds for resisting the technologies of choosing children.

List of contents

1.Bioethical Burdens of Proof.- 2. Gift and Beneficence.- 3. Creation Lottery and Mother Trouble.- 4. The Maternal Gift of Life.- 5. Natality and Generations.- Index.

About the author

Simon A. Reader is an Honorary Research Fellow in the School of Politics, Philosophy, International Relations and Environment (SPIRE) at Keele University, UK, where he also teaches. Simon has also held the position of Research Associate at Lancaster University, where he completed his doctorate.

Summary

Considers reservations about the ethics of choosing children
Draws on ethicists outside the scope of  orthodox bioethical thought
Explores the implications of the idea of procreative beneficience

Product details

• Authors: Simon Reader
• Publisher: Springer, Berlin
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 01.01.2018
• EAN: 9783319867212
• ISBN: 978-3-31-986721-2
• No. of pages: 140
• Dimensions: 148 mm x 8 mm x 210 mm
• Weight: 207 g
• Illustrations: IX, 140 p.
• Series: Palgrave Studies in Ethics and Public Policy
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Philosophy > General, dictionaries; Non-fiction book > Philosophy, religion > Philosophy: general, reference works; C, Philosophie des Geistes, Feminism, Feminismus und feministische Theorie, Ethics, Ethik und Moralphilosophie, Philosophy, humanism, Ethics & moral philosophy, Bioethics, Feminism & feminist theory, Feminist Theory, Feminism and feminist theory, Religion and Philosophy, Moral Philosophy and Applied Ethics, Moral Philosophy, Humanist philosophy