Many contemporary ethical debates turn on claims about the nature and extent of our alleged procreative moral rights: moral rights to procreate or not to procreate as we choose. In this article, I argue that there are no procreative moral rights, in that generally we do not have a distinctive moral right to procreate or not to procreate as we choose. However, interference with our procreative choices usually violates our nonprocreative moral rights, such (...) as our moral rights to bodily autonomy or to privacy. My argument presents hypothetical cases in which a state interferes with a person's procreative choices in order to promote aggregate social welfare, but this interference does not violate any of the person's nonprocreative moral rights. These cases not only undermine frequently made claims that widely recognized nonprocreative moral rights entail procreative moral rights, they also challenge the intuitively plausible claim that interference with our procreative choices as such violates our moral rights. What at first appear to be substantive moral rights are in fact a kind of illusion created by the frequent overlap of other rights, but lacking in substance beyond that overlap. While this argument against the existence of procreative moral rights has substantive implications for ongoing debates in reproductive ethics, I ultimately suggest that it is consistent with a progressive approach to reproductive justice. (shrink)

edited by Doris Schroeder, welcomes contributions on all areas outlined below. Submitted papers are peer-reviewed. To submit a paper or to discuss suitable topics, please e-mail Doris Schroeder at [email protected].

This paper reconsiders Tommie Shelby's (2016) analysis of procreation in poor black communities. I identify three conceptual frames within which Shelby situates his analysis—feminization, choice-as-control, and moralization. I argue that these frames should be rejected on conceptual, empirical, and moral grounds. As I show, this framing engenders a flawed understanding of poor black women's procreative lives. I propose an alternative framework for reconceiving the relationship between poverty and procreative justice, one oriented around reproductive flourishing instead of reproductive responsibility. (...) More generally, the paper develops a methodological challenge for nonideal moral and political philosophy, especially concerning the obligations of the oppressed. Specifically, I argue that in the absence of descriptive and conceptual accountability, the moral gaze of the philosopher risks preserving, rather than destabilizing, oppressive ideologies. (shrink)

In their article, Romanis and Adkins delineate pregnancy loss and procreative loss to show that the former is possible without the latter, as in the case of artificial amnion and placenta technology.1 Here, we are interested in examining the reverse—procreative loss without pregnancy loss—to further tease apart these two types of loss. We discuss two cases: being forced to continue a pregnancy despite fetal demise due to abortion restrictions and choosing to selectively reduce a multifetal pregnancy. Our analysis (...) buttresses the authors’ conclusion: due to our fetal-centric conception of pregnancy, we are only able to value pregnancy instrumentally (ie, for the fetus), not intrinsically. Understanding pregnancy as an embodied state rather than a process that not only acknowledges the intrinsic value of pregnancy for pregnant people but also encourages society to intrinsically value pregnant people is important. In 2022, the Supreme Court of the United States removed the constitutional right to an abortion in Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization, shifting the responsibility of determining abortion regulations to individual US states.2 Due to the Dobbs decision, there …. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to scrutinize a contemporary standoff in the American debate over the moral permissibility of human reproductive cloning in its prospective use as a eugenic enhancement technology. I shall argue that there is some significant and under-appreciated common ground between the defenders and opponents of human cloning. Champions of the moral and legal permissibility of cloning support the technology based on the right to procreative liberty provided it were to become as safe as in (...) vitro fertilization and that it be used only by adults who seek to rear their clone children. However, even champions of procreative liberty oppose the commodification of cloned embryos, and, by extension, the resulting commodification of the cloned children who would be produced via such embryos. I suggest that a Kantian moral argument against the use of cloning as an enhancement technology can be shown to be already implicitly accepted to some extent by champions of procreative liberty on the matter of commodification of cloned embryos. It is in this argument against commodification that the most vocal critics of cloning such as Leon Kass and defenders of cloning such as John Robertson can find greater common ground. Thus, I endeavor to advance the debate by revealing a greater degree of moral agreement on some fundamental premises than hitherto recognized. (shrink)

Advances in reproductive technologies – in particular in genetic screening and selection – have occasioned renewed interest in the moral justifiability of the reasons that motivate the decision to have a child. The capacity to select for desired blood and tissue compatibilities has led to the much discussed 'saviour sibling' cases in which parents seek to 'have one child to save another'. Heightened interest in procreative reasons is to be welcomed, since it prompts a more general philosophical interrogation of (...) the grounds for moral appraisal of reasons-to-parent, and of the extent to which such reasons are relevant to the moral assessment of procreation itself. I start by rejecting the idea that we can use a distinction between 'other-regarding' and 'future-child-regarding' reasons as a basis on which to distinguish good from bad procreative reasons. I then offer and evaluate three potential grounds for elucidating and establishing a relationship between procreative motivation and the rightness/wrongness of procreative conduct: the predictiveness, the verdictiveness, and the expressiveness of procreative reasons. (shrink)

The question I address in this paper is whether and under what conditions it is morally right to bring a person into existence. I defend the commonsensical thesis that, other things being equal, it is morally wrong to create a person who will be below some threshold of quality of life, even if the life of this potential person, once created, will nevertheless be worth living. However commonsensical this view might seem, it has shown to be problematic because of the (...) so-called 'Non-Identity Problem'. Both utilitarian and rights-based approaches have been unable to provide a solution to this problem. I rest my thesis on two premises: that causing a disability or impairment in a future person is prima facie wrong, so long as we can avoid causing such a disability to that very person; and that reproduction, under normal conditions, is prima facie morally indifferent. From these two premises, I conclude that it is prima facie wrong to bring into existence a person with a non-trivial disability or impairment (which might be, nonetheless, compatible with a worthwhile life), even if the only available alternative is to remain childless. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Procreative Liberty, Biological Connections, and MotherhoodMargaret Olivia Little (bio)Given the complex and dramatic array of issues currently facing us in reproductive ethics, bioethicists working on the topic might be forgiven feelings of trepidation when they cast their minds toward the next century. Currently, technologies such as artificial insemination by donor (AID), once the source of intense controversy, are used on a routine basis; mainstream newspapers carry advertisements offering (...) “excellent compensation” to ova “donors;” courts are arguing whether women who serve as gestational or “surrogate” mothers have any parental rights; and proposals resurface to jail pregnant women who take street drugs. Sorting out which developments are to be welcomed and which are to be resisted—and why—will require us not only to clarify some of our most basic value commitments, but also to reflect on our understanding of concepts, such as motherhood, that we previously had the luxury of thinking obvious. Let me highlight two issues I think we will be forced to confront as we try to navigate the ethics of reproduction into the twenty-first century—namely, the value of biological connection and the meaning of motherhood.Procreative Liberty and the Value of Biological ReproductionPeople who are unable to conceive a child or to carry one to term now face a variety of extraordinary means of procreative assistance: they can buy sperm and ova, undergo in vitro fertilization, or contract another woman to gestate and give birth to the baby. Those who are enthusiastic about these new technologies [End Page 392] and arrangements often explain their support in terms of many people’s deep desire or even right to bear children biologically related to them; those who are suspicious of the techniques often explain their resistance by criticizing our culture’s “pronatalist” emphasis on biological rather than social relations with children. Focusing on such clear-cut positions, though, undersells the complexity and difficulty of the issues involved. Few want to dismiss altogether the importance of biological connection; but the question remains, what measure of importance should it be granted? Or again, while most agree that procreative liberty is one of our most fundamental rights, the question remains, whose procreation, in what context, and by which means? The truly difficult questions, that is, pertain to how we are to value biological relatedness and how we are to draw the contours of procreative liberty.One perspective emerging in current debates urges an expansive answer to these questions, arguing that the new reproductive technologies and arrangements deserve constitutional protection. Procreative liberty is deeply important, it is urged, given how fundamental the decision to have or to refrain from having children is to our sense of dignity, identity, and meaning of life. But if we recognize a right to reproduce coitally, it is claimed, we should also recognize a right to reproduce noncoitally: people with infertile partners should no more be barred from exercising their right to “beget, bear, and raise” children biologically linked to them by using surrogate arrangements or AID than those who are blind should be barred from exercising their right to written information by using Braille texts. 1The fundamental question is whether the value of biological reproduction persists when pursued outside of the intimacies of marriage and family that form its traditional home. The new reproductive technologies and arrangements, after all, represent a departure not simply because they are noncoital but because they involve reproduction with strangers, under contract, and for pay. One question that demands our reflection, then, is whether the procreative liberty we value attaches to individuals atomistically, as it were, or to individuals only insofar as they are in relationships of an intimate and ongoing nature.Other developments on the horizon sound a restrictive note about procreative liberty. Many IVF clinics, for instance, have denied services to would-be single parents or to gay or lesbian couples. Some legislators have proposed making certain welfare payments for women conditional upon their use of contraceptives such as Norplant—an odd view if one regards procreative liberty as a fundamental right. After all, we do not usually make the receipt of public aid contingent on waiving a constitutional right. (Imagine the government stipulating that... (shrink)

Herjeet Kaur Marway recently proposed the Principle of Procreative Justice, which says that reproducers have a strong moral obligation to avoid completing race and colour injustices through their selection choices. In this article, we analyze this principle and argue, appealing to a series of counterexamples, that some of the implications of Marway's Principle of Procreative Justice are difficult to accept. This casts doubt on whether the principle should be adopted. Also, we show that there are some more principled (...) worries regarding Marway's idea of a strong pro tanto duty not to complete injustices through one's procreative choices. Nonetheless, we believe Marway's arguments point in the right general direction regarding duties and structural injustice. Thus, in the final part, we suggest a positive proposal on how it would be possible to respond to the cases we raise. More specifically, we explore the suggestion that agents have a pro tanto duty to participate in eliminating structural injustice. Importantly, this duty can be satisfied, not only in procreation choices but in multiple ways. (shrink)

My dissertation investigates the requirements of procreative justice. The procreative justice problem is that parents' interest in procreation conflicts with children's interest in optimal birth conditions. Intergenerational reciprocity is the principle that adjudicates this conflict: reciprocity dictates that children demand no more of their parents' procreative practices than they themselves are willing to abide by as adults and dig parents only procreate in accordance with principles dig they would have wanted their own parents to have followed. I (...) develop a Rawlsian Contractualist theory, grounded in the view of justice as the principles that would result from self-interested rational choice under fair bargaining conditions, i.e. unbiased rational prudence over the course of a lifetime by agents who know that they will be born children and grow into adults who may want to procreate. ;This deliberation yields three principles: The Obvious Principle bans procreation that undermines the interests of both prospective parents and prospective children or involves risking/sustaining a major burden for the sake of a minor benefit. The Balance Principle permits procreation only when it would not be irrational for the prospective parent to accept for herself the very same risk her procreation imposes on her prospective child, in exchange for permission to procreate under these circumstances. The Motivation Restriction requires that procreation be at least partially, yet still prominently, motivated by a desire to raise, nurture, love, and care for one's future child once it is born. These principles are defended against rival principles and applied to a wide variety of cases. ;Stymied by metaphysical paradoxes and confusion about persons and existence, contemporary ethicists have struggled to formulate a sound theory of procreative justice that provides more than bare-bones consideration of children's interests. I argue that these efforts have failed. Whereas procreative liberty principles, including Feinberg's Birth Rights and Parfit's Non-Identity Problem principles, neglect children's interests, strictly paternalistic principles, e.g. Benatar's Asymmetry principle, neglect parental interests. My theory of procreative justice provides a much needed middle-ground position which promotes and protects the interests of prospective parents and children. (shrink)

With the recent report of a live birth after use of Mitochondrial replacement therapy, sometimes called ‘Three-parent IVF’, the clinical application of the technique is fast becoming a reality. While the United Kingdom allows the procedure under regulatory scrutiny, it remains effectively outlawed in many other countries. We argue that such prohibitions may violate individuals’ procreative rights, grounded in individuals’ interest in genetic affinity. The interest in genetic affinity was recently endorsed by Singapore’s highest court, reflecting an emphasis (...) on the importance of biological ties found across the globe. We apply that reasoning to make the case for a right to ‘Three-parent IVF’. (shrink)

In this paper I analyse how procreative freedom poses a challenge for rule-consequentialism. First, I reconstruct the rule-consequentialist case for procreative freedom. Second, I argue that population scenarios resulting from very low fertility pose a problem for rule-consequentialism since such scenarios cannot secure population growth or even avoid human extinction in the long run. Third, I argue that population scenarios resulting from excessive procreation also pose a problem for rule-consequentialism since they are incompatible with the promotion of optimific (...) consequences in various ways. Were the rule-consequentialist to avoid these types of scenarios, the challenge would consist in doing so while retaining the liberal approach to individual rights and freedoms that made rule-consequentialism an advantageous competitor against moral theories like act-consequentialism. These population scenarios raise more general questions about how rule-consequentialism ought to conceptualise the application of universal rules in the long-term, intergenerational context. This is an important place for inquiry given that rule-consequentialism is originally conceived as a forward-looking theory. (shrink)

This paper investigates connections between procreative ethics and the ethics of suicide and euthanasia. While there are good reasons for distinguishing between lives worth starting and lives worth continuing, I argue that those reasons provide no reason for denying that there is a relationship between procreative and end of life ethics. Regarding euthanasia/assisted suicide, we might think it too demanding to ask parents to help euthanize their terminally ill, suffering child, but had the parents not procreated, thereby exposing (...) their child to life's risks, their child wouldn't need euthanizing. If you need help killing yourself, shouldn't your parents, who got you into life in the first place – without your consent – help you out of it? Yet knowing that your parents would help you kill yourself may increase your desire to die. A conundrum. Regarding suicide, the fact that we are forced into life should bolster the right to suicide, even for reasons that others might find wanting. The ways in which we are brought into life have moral implications for the ways in which we are entitled to get out of it. (shrink)

Pfeiffer, Kimberley We've heard it happening more than once. A couple uses IVF to fall pregnant then later down the track they conceive naturally. Confusing, right? Aren't they supposed to be infertile? Isn't that why people request this invasive and expensive procedure in the first place? Well, a recent study shows that more than 40% of women aged between 28 and 36 years that report having a history of infertility achieved subsequent births without using any form of reproductive assistance1. Which (...) raises the question, what does it mean to be infertile? (shrink)

The U.S. Supreme Court declared procreation to be a fundamental right in the early twentieth century in a case involving Oklahoma's Habitual Criminal Sterilization Act, an act that permitted unconsented sterilization of individuals convicted of certain crimes. The right that the Court articulated in that case is a negative right: it requires that the government not place unjustified roadblocks in the way of people seeking to procreate, but it does not require the government to take positive steps to help people (...) procreate if they wish to. I argue that a positive legal right is morally necessary in the United States, given the profound significance of procreation, the current barriers to access to care, and the related issues of individual and societal justice. I assume at the outset that the right to procreate should be expansive enough to include a right to noncoital reproduction. The absence of a positive right to procreate reflects not just constitutional tradition but also a governmental and societal commitment to a longstanding set of reproductive hierarchies by which those who fall outside of the traditional framing of family too frequently find their procreative dreams hindered. Reconceiving procreative rights to include a positive right would create greater opportunities to argue and lobby for increased access to technologies that are out of reach for many. (shrink)

In The New Eugenics: Selective Breeding in an Era of Reproductive Technologies, Judith Daar advocates for increased access to assisted reproductive technologies and minimizes concerns about the potential “eugenic logic” of some procreative choices. Although Daar’s goal of expanded access is laudable, her argument suggests an unresolved tension between the moral equality of persons and individual reproductive freedom. Exploring that tension, this paper argues that efforts to expand access to ART must still grapple with the “eugenic mentality” of quality (...) control that some forms of reproductive and genetic technologies enable. (shrink)

Individual decisions about how to exercise the legal right to procreative liberty may generate either positive or negative externalities. From within a resource egalitarian perspective, such as that of Ronald Dworkin, it can be argued that procreative justice is asymmetric in the following respect. Justice need not require that parents be subsidised if they produce a public good, yet its ideal achievement may require their activities be taxed if they threaten to produce a public bad.

_Procreation, Parenthood, and Educational Rights_ explores important issues at the nexus of two burgeoning areas within moral and social philosophy: procreative ethics and parental rights. Surprisingly, there has been comparatively little scholarly engagement across these subdisciplinary boundaries, despite the fact that parental rights are paradigmatically ascribed to individuals responsible for procreating particular children. This collection thus aims to bring expert practitioners from these literatures into fruitful and innovative dialogue around questions at the intersection of procreation and parenthood. (...) Among these questions are: Must individuals be found competent in order to have the right to procreate or to parent? What, if anything, can justify parents' special authority over, or special obligations toward, their children, particularly children they biologically procreate? How is the relationship between the right to procreate and the right to parent best understood? How ought liberal societies understand the parent-child relationship and the rights and claims it gives rise to? A distinguishing feature of the collection is that several of its chapters address these issues by drawing on philosophical work in the realm of education, one of the most controversial areas in the ethics of parenthood. This book represents a distinctive synthesis of topics and literatures likely to appeal to scholars and advanced students working across a wide range of disciplines. (shrink)

Orr and Siegler have recently defended a restrictive view concerning posthumous sperm retrieval and conception, which would limit insemination to those cases where the deceased man has provided explicit consent for such a procedure. The restrictive view dominates current law and practice. A permissible view, in contrast, would allow insemination and conception in all but those cases where the posthumous procedure has been explicitly refused, or where there is no reasonable evidence that the deceased person desired children. I describe a (...) phenomenology of procreative desires which supports the permissible view, and which is compatible with requirements concerning the interests of the decedent, concepts of medical infertility, and the welfare of the future child. The account illustrates how our current obsession with individual rights and autonomy can be self-defeating and repressive. (shrink)

It is often acknowledged that public policies can constrain people's procreative opportunities, in some cases even infringing their procreative rights. However, a topic that is not often discussed is how the procreative choices of one generation can affect the procreative opportunities of later generations. In this article, we argue that the demographic fact that childbearing above the replacement fertility level is eventually unsustainable supports two constraints on universal procreation rights: a compossibility constraint and an (...) egalitarian constraint. We explore the implications of these two constraints and suggest that there are reasons to think of procreative opportunity as a finite resource that can be distributed more or less equally across generations. We also briefly discuss possible ways of meeting demands of intergenerational justice with respect to procreative opportunity. (shrink)

There exists a derived negative right to procreative freedom, including a right to in vitro fertilisation (IVF) and to the exercise of selective techniques such as preimplantation genetic diagnosis. This is an extensive freedom, including not only the right to the exercise of a responsible parenthood, but also, in rare cases, to wrong decisions. It includes also a right for less than perfect parents to the use of IVF, and for IVF doctors to assist them, if they want and (...) can agree about the terms. (shrink)

Philosophical defenses of parents’ rights typically appeal to the interests of parents, the interests of children, or some combination of these. Here I propose that at least in the case of biological, non-adoptive parents, these rights have a different normative basis: namely, these rights should be accorded to biological parents because of the compensatory duties such parents owe their children by virtue of having brought them into existence. Inspried by Seana Shiffrin, I argue that procreation inevitably encumbers (...) the wills of children in otherwise morally objectionable ways. Such subjection generates duties to compensate children, even if the child’s life is on balance a benefit to her. The right to procreate is thus conditioned on prospective parent’s willingness to compensate for the harms of procreation. And because parents bear such compensatory duties, they must be accorded permissions (i.e., rights) to fulfill these duties. These rights include familiar exclusionary rights to promote children’s welfare, etc. Moreover, because subjecting children to harms or the risks thereof violates their autonomy, parental duties (and rights) include the provision of education and other goods that enable their subsequent autonomy as adults. Grounding parental rights in compensatory procreative duties avoids problems associated with appeals to the interests of children (e.g., that these interests do not seem to generate exclusive parental rights) or to the interests of parents (e.g., that these interests do not appear strong enough to permit the creation of a new, vulnerable human individual). (shrink)

Recently a child’s right to a father was invoked to justify the prevention of single women from obtaining access to IVF. This article explores the conceptual and normative issues about the nature of the right and its conflict with a woman’s right to procreative autonomy. The discussion relates the conceptual issues to those raised in the context of ‘wrongful life’ tort cases. It concludes that the right to be born with a father, although conceptually sound, does not justify the (...) restriction on the procreative right of single women. (shrink)

In this paper I examine the prevailing assumption that there is a right to procreate and question whether there exists a coherent notion of such a right. I argue that we should question any and all procreative activities, not just alternative procreative means and contexts. I suggest that clinging to the assumption of a right to procreate prevents serious scrutiny of reproductive behavior and that, instead of continuing to embrace this assumption, attempts should be made to provide a (...) proper foundation for it. I argue that the focus of procreative activities and discourse on reproductive ethics should be on obligations instead of rights, as rights talk tends to obfuscate recognition of obligations toward others, particularly those who bear the most significant burdens of the procreative process. I examine some possible foundations of a right to procreate as well as John Robertson’s thoughtful account of “procreative liberty” but conclude that at the present time there exists no compelling account of a right to procreate. Finally, I conclude that in the absence of a satisfactory account of a right to procreate, we should refrain from grounding practices or polices on the assumption that there is such a right. (shrink)

Questions about the dignity of the human person give rise to many of the most central and hotly disputed topics in bioethics. In _A Defense of Dignity: Creating Life, Destroying Life, and Protecting the Rights of Conscience_, Christopher Kaczor investigates whether each human being has intrinsic dignity and whether the very concept of "dignity" has a useful place in contemporary ethical debates. Kaczor explores a broad range of issues addressed in contemporary bioethics, including whether there is a duty of (...) "procreative beneficence," the ethics of ectopic pregnancy, and the possibility of "rescuing" human embryos with human wombs or artificial wombs. _A Defense of Dignity_ also treats issues relevant to the end of life, including physician-assisted suicide, provision of food and water to patients in a persistent vegetative state, and how to proceed with organ donation following death. Finally, what are the duties and prerogatives of health care professionals who refuse in conscience to take part in activities that they regard as degrading to human dignity? Should they be forced to do what they consider to be violations of the patient's well being, or does patient autonomy always trump the conscience of a health care professional? Grounded in the Catholic intellectual and moral tradition, _A Defense of Dignity_ argues that all human beings from the beginning to the end of their lives should be treated with respect and considers how this belief should be applied in controversial cases. "_A Defense of Dignity_ provides a skillful, informed, and clear philosophical analysis, from a natural law perspective, of a range of controversial, and sometimes complex, bioethical questions concerning the beginning and end of life. Few authors approach bioethics from a natural law perspective, and few do it as well as Christopher Kaczor. The book should be of interest not only to natural law philosophers and their students, but also to anyone interested in bioethics." —_John Keown, Georgetown University__ "Moral questions at the beginning and ending of life and controversies over liberty of conscience are among the most vexing and important issues of our day. Christopher Kaczor brings his characteristic moral seriousness and philosophical good sense to his treatment of these issues, all of which implicate the key concept of human dignity. This eminently readable collection will provide an invaluable resource for educators and students alike." — Christopher Tollefsen, University of South Carolina_ “Indispensable. Kaczor untangles the various meanings of human dignity to undertake a reexamination of the most serious and difficult issues in medical ethics. The book combines clarity with philosophical precision, faithfulness to Catholic teaching with a thorough engagement with critics." —_J. Budziszewski, University of Texas at Austin_. (shrink)

ABSTRACT: In written work and a lecture at the 2008 Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences that was co-sponsored by the Canadian Philosophical Association, Margaret Somerville has claimed that allowing same-sex marriage is unethical because doing so violates the inherently procreative function of marriage and thereby undermines the rights and duties that exist between children and their biological parents. In my paper, I offer five reasons for thinking that Somerville’s argument for this conclusion is unpersuasive. In each (...) case her argument either begs important questions about same-sex marriage or else relies on insufficient evidence to justify excluding a vulnerable minority group from participating in a state-sponsored social institution. RÉSUMÉ: Dans ses écrits ainsi que dans une conférence prononcée en 2008 au Congrès de la Fédération canadienne des sciences humaines, coparainnée par l’Association Canadienne de Philosophie, Margaret Somerville a prétendu que les mariages entre personnes de même sexe sont éthiquement inacceptables parce qu’ils violent la fonction primordiale du mariage, à savoir la procréation, et qu’ainsi ils portent atteinte aux droits et responsabilités qui lient les enfants et leurs parents biologiques. La présente communication se propose d’offrir cinq raisons pour lesquelles le point de vue de Margaret Somerville ne saurait convaincre. Dans chaque cas, sa pensée soit ne tient pas compte d’importantes questions soulevées par le mariage entre personnes de même sexe soit se fonde sur des prémisses inadéquates dans le but de faire interdire à une minorité vulnérable l’accès à une institution sociale garantie par l’État. (shrink)

Sarah Conly's One Child is a substantive treatment of the extent to which procreative freedom is curtailed by rising global population and the environmental problems to which it contributes. This review provides an overview of the book's content and closes with a few critical remarks. The book is highly recommended for those interested in the intersection between environmental ethics and the ethics of procreation.

"An important contribution to contemporary jurisprudential debate and to legal thought more generally, Just Interpretations is far ahead of currently available work."--Peter Goodrich, author of Oedipus Lex "I was struck repeatedly by the clarity of expression throughout the book. Rosenfeld's description and criticism of the recent work of leading thinkers distinguishes his work within the legal theory genre. Furthermore, his own theory is quite original and provocative."--Aviam Soifer, author of Law and the Company We Keep.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Index to Volume Fifty-SixArticlesBernier, Bernard, National Communion: Watsuji Tetsurō's Conception of Ethics, Power, and the Japanese Imperial State, 1 : 84-105Between Principle and Situation: Contrasting Styles in the Japanese and Korean Traditions of Moral Culture, Chai-sik Chung, 2 : 253-280Buxton, Nicholas, The Crow and the Coconut: Accident, Coincidence, and Causation in the Yogavāiṣṭha, 3 : 392-408Chan, Sin Yee, The Confucian Notion of Jing (Respect), Sin Yee Chan, 2 : (...) 229-252Chong, Kim-chong, Zhuangzi and the Nature of Metaphor, 3 : 370-391Chung, Chai-sik, Between Principle and Situation: Contrasting Styles in the Japanese and Korean Traditions of Moral Culture, 2 : 253-280The Confucian Ideal of Harmony, Chenyang Li, 4 : 583-603The Confucian Notion of Jing.(Respect), Sin Yee Chan, 2 : 229-252The Conventional Status of Reflexive Awareness: What's at Stake in a Tibetan Debate? Jay L. Garfield, 2 : 201-228The Crisis of Knowledge in Islam (I): The Case of al-'āmirī, Paul L. Heck, 1 : 106-135The Crow and the Coconut: Accident, Coincidence, and Causation in the Yogavāiṣṭha, Nicholas Buxton, 3 : 392-408De Reu, Wim, Right Words Seem Wrong: Neglected Paradoxes in Early Chinese Philosophical Texts, 2 : 281-300The Desire You Are Required to Get Rid of: A Functionalist Analysis of Desire in the Bhaga-vadgītā, Christopher Framarin, 4 : 604-617Framarin, Christopher, The Desire You Are Required to Get Rid of: A Functionalist Analysis of Desire in the Bhagavadgītā, 4 : 604-617Garfield, Jay L., The Conventional Status of Reflexive Awareness: What's at Stake in a Tibetan Debate? 2 : 201-228Heck, Paul L., The Crisis of Knowledge in Islam (I): The Case of al-'ā mirī, 1 : 106-135Heidegger's Comportment toward East-West Dialogue, Lin Ma and Jaap van Brakel, 4 : 519-566Ho, Chien-hsing, Saying the Unsayable, 3 : 409-427Kantor, Hans-Rudolf, Ontological Indeterminacy and Its Soteriological Relevance: An Assessment of Mou Zongsan's (1909-1995) Interpretation of Zhiyi's (538-597) Tiantai Buddhism, 1 : 16-68Lai, Karyn, Li in the Analects: Training in Moral Competence and the Question of Flexibility, 1 : 69-83Li, Chenyang, The Confucian Ideal of Harmony, 4 : 583-603Li in the Analects: Training in Moral Competence and the Question of Flexibility, Karyn Lai, 1 : 69-83Ma, Lin, and Jaap van Brakel, Heidegger's Comportment toward East-West Dialogue, 4 : 519-566National Communion: Watsuji Tetsurō's Conception of Ethics, Power, and the Japanese Imperial State, Bernard Bernier, 1 : 84-105Ontological Indeterminacy and Its Soteriological Relevance: An Assessment of Mou Zongsan's (1909-1995) Interpretation of Zhiyi's (538- 597) Tiantai Buddhism, Hans-Rudolf Kantor, 1 : 16-68Right Words Seem Wrong: Neglected Paradoxes in Early Chinese Philosophical Texts, Wim De Reu, 2 : 281-300The Role of Time in the Structure of Chinese Logic, Jinmei Yuan, 1 : 136-152Sakya Pandita and the Status of Concepts, Jonathan Stoltz, 4 : 567-582Saying the Unsayable, Chien-hsing Ho, 3 : 409-427Schiltz, Elizabeth, Two Chariots: The Justification of the Best Life in the Katha Upanishad and Plato's Phaedrus, 3 : 451-468Spackman, John, The Tiantai Roots of Dōgen's Philosophy of Language and Thought, 3 : 428-450Stevenson, Frank W., Zhuangzi's Dao as Background Noise, 2 : 301-331Stoltz, Jonathan, Sakya Pandita and the Status of Concepts, 4 : 567-582The Tiantai Roots of Dōgen's Philosophy of Language and Thought, John Spackman, 3 : 428-450 [End Page 709]Two Chariots: The Justification of the Best Life in the Katha Upanishad and Plato's Phaedrus, Elizabeth Schiltz, 3 : 451-468van Brakel, Jaap, and Lin Ma, Heidegger's Comportment toward East-West Dialogue, 4 : 519-566Yuan, Jinmei, The Role of Time in the Structure of Chinese Logic, 1 : 136-152Zhuangzi and the Nature of Metaphor, Kim-chong Chong, 3 : 370-391Zhuangzi's Dao as Background Noise, Frank W. Stevenson, 2 : 301-331Book NotesFenner, David E. W., Introducing Aesthetics (note by James McRae), 3 : 515-516Introducing Aesthetics, by David E. W. Fenner (note by James McRae), 3 : 515-516McRae, James, a book... (shrink)