There is no issue more central to the abortion debate than the controversial issue of whether the fetus is a moral person. Abortion-rights opponents almost universally claim that abortion is murder and should be legally prohibited because the fetus is a moral person at the moment of conception. Abortion-rights proponents almost universally deny the crucial assumption that the fetus is a person; on their view, whatever moral disvalue abortion involves does not rise to the level of murder and hence does (...) not rise to the level of something that should be legally prohibited.In this essay, I argue that, under dualist assumptions about the nature of mind, the fetus is not a person until brain activity has begun.i First, I argue it is a necessary condition for a thing to be a moral person that it is a self. Second, I argue it is a necessary condition for a fetus to be a self, under dualist assumptions, that there has been some electrical activity in the brain. I conclude that a dualist can take the position that abortion ought to be legally permitted at least until the beginning of brain activity in the fetus. (shrink)

Whether or not intellectual property rights ought, as a matter of political morality, to be protected by the law surely depends on what kinds of interests the various parties have in intellectual content. Although theorists disagree on the limits of morally legitimate lawmaking authority, this much seems obvious: the coercive power of the law should be employed only to protect interests that rise to a certain level of moral importance. We have such a significant interest in not being lied to, (...) for example, that ordinary unilateral lies are morally wrong, but the wrongness of lying does not rise to the level of something the state should protect against by coercive criminal prohibition. Indeed, it would clearly be wrong for the law to coercively restrict behaviors in which no one has any morally significant interests whatsoever. Using the coercive power of the law to restrict freedom is not justified unless the moral benefits of restricting the behavior outweigh the moral costs involved in using force to restrict human autonomy and freedom. (shrink)

The Fair-Start Defense justifies affirmative action preferences as a response to harms caused by race- and sex-based discrimination. Rather than base a justification for preferences on the traditional appeal to self-esteem, I argue they are justified in virtue of the effects institutional discrimination has on the goals and aspirations of its victims. In particular, I argue that institutional discrimination puts women and blacks at an unfair competitive disadvantage by causing academic disidentification. Affirmative action is justified as a means of negating (...) this unfair disadvantage. (shrink)

K. E. Boxer explores moral responsibility, and whether it is compatible with causal determinism. She suggests that to answer this question we must focus on responsibility in the sense of liability, and that an incompatibilist view may only be preserved on an understanding of the moral desert of punishment that many find morally problematic.

Art and Authority explores the sources, nature, and limits of artistic freedom. K. E. Gover draws upon real-world cases and controversies in contemporary visual art to offer a better understanding of artistic authorship and authority. Each chapter focuses on a case of dispute over the rights of an artist with respect to his or her artwork.

The purpose of the study was to find out the adequacy of upper basic Social Studies curriculum content for sustainable development in Nigeria as assessed by Social Studies teachers. 306 Social Studies teachers from 341 upper basic schools in Kwara State participated in the study. A researcher-designed questionnaire was used to collect data that were analysed using descriptive statistics and chi-square. The results showed that the content of upper basic Social Studies was not adequate, as assessed by teachers. It was (...) also revealed that teachers’ assessment was significantly influenced by teaching experience, qualification and school type. However, the research showed that gender did not significantly influence Social Studies teachers’ assessment. Based on the findings, it was suggested that upper basic Social Studies curriculum should be reviewed and taught so as to ensure sustainable development in Nigeria. (shrink)

The Danish theologian-philosopher K. E. Løgstrup is second in reputation in his homeland only to Søren Kierkegaard. He is best known outside Europe for his _The Ethical Demand_, first published in Danish in 1956 and published in an expanded English translation in 1997. _Beyond the Ethical Demand_ contains excerpts, translated into English for the first time, from the numerous books and essays Løgstrup continued to write throughout his life. In the first essay, he engages the critical response to _The Ethical (...) Demand,_ clarifying, elaborating, or defending his original positions. In the next three essays, he extends his contention that human ethics “demands” that we are concerned for the other by introducing the crucial concept of “sovereign expressions of life.” Like Levinas, Løgstrup saw in the phenomenon of “the other” the ground for his ethics. In his later works he developed this concept of “the sovereign expressions of life,” spontaneous phenomena such as trust, mercy, and sincerity that are inherently other-regarding. The last two essays connect his ethics with political life. Interest in Løgstrup in the English-speaking academic community continues to grow, and these important original sources will be essential tools for scholars exploring the further implications of his ethics and phenomenology. “K. E. Løgstrup’s work undoubtedly made in his time an original contribution to the field of moral philosophy and philosophy of religion. This translation makes extracts from his later publications on moral philosophy accessible to an English-speaking audience. I am again impressed by the depth of his ideas, which are certainly not outdated and still relevant for contemporary debates in moral philosophy.” —_Bert Musschenga, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam _ “Making a large part of Knud Løgstrup’s legacy accessible to the English-speaking public is an event of enormous cultural, philosophical and political importance—and we are all in debt to his disciple, Kies van Kooten Niekerk, and the University Press of Notre Dame, for making it happen. Løgstrup, alongside few other giants of 20th Century ethical thought, like Emmanuel Levinas or Hans Jonas, anticipated and articulated all the major challenges and urgent tasks with which the coming century is likely to confront the moral self. Our ethical discourse was all the poorer so far for being barred access to his findings and proposition. This will no longer be the case.” —_Zygmunt Bauman, emeritus, University of Leeds_ “The publication of an English translation of Knut Eljert Løgstrup's later works in ethics provides a wider readership with the opportunity to better understand his important contribution to ethics in the second half of the last century. With his notion of the _Sovereign Expressions of Life_ Løgstrup articulates his rejection of moral atomism that has become influential in recent times. The introduction and annotation by Kees van Kooten Niekerk are very helpful to see how Løgstrup's thought developed beyond _The Ethical Demand.” —__Hans S. Reinders, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam_. (shrink)

Over one hundred genes have been isolated from the human genome and shown to be causally related to specific human genetic diseases. Studies with gene‐specific probes have demonstrated that the mutations resulting in a particular phenotype are highly heterogeneous as a group, ranging from alterations in transcription or RNA processing in the nucleus, through to errors in mRNA translation in the cytoplasm. Even where the gene‐specific probe is not available, defects have been localized to chromosomal regions by family studies. Recently (...) developed methods for moving along the chromosome from a linked marker to the mutation are resulting in rapid advances in the understanding of many monogenic disorders. (shrink)

This is first English edition of Ethical Concepts and Problems (1971) by the great Danish philosopher and theologian K. E. Løgstrup (1905-81). Løgstrup presents key elements of his ethical and political thinking, on topics from duty, responsibility, will, and choice to cultural policy, democracy, and the right of resistance.

The 1990 Visual Artists Rights Act (VARA) is a provision of U.S. copyright law that seeks to protect the noneconomic rights of artists, called "moral rights." These rights are due to the "presumed intimate bond between artists and their works."1 In the United States it protects rights of artistic attribution and integrity: the artwork cannot be claimed as the work of another, and it cannot be distorted. In some cases VARA protects artworks from destruction. But what is the nature of (...) this intimate bond? The underlying principle behind the legal construct of artistic moral rights is that the artwork is an extension of its creator such that any harm to the work is a violation of the personhood of the artist.2 Another .. (shrink)