Moral Status and Human Life

The Case for Children's Superiority

James G. Dwyer (Autor)

Buch | Hardcover

220 Seiten

2010
Cambridge University Press (Verlag)
978-0-521-76691-3 (ISBN)

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Are children of equal, lesser, or perhaps even greater moral importance than adults? This work of applied moral philosophy develops a comprehensive account of how adults as moral agents ascribe moral status to beings - ourselves and others - and on the basis of that account identifies multiple criteria for having moral status. It argues that proper application of those criteria should lead us to treat children as of greater moral importance than adults. This conclusion presents a basis for critiquing existing social practices, many of which implicitly presuppose that children occupy an inferior status, and for suggesting how government policy, law, and social life might be different if it reflected an assumption that children are actually of superior status.

James Dwyer is a Professor of Law at the College of William and Mary. He previously taught at the University of Wyoming and Chicago-Kent. He received a Ph.D. in philosophy from Stanford University in 1995 and a J.D. from Yale University in 1987. Dwyer has written three other monographs on the rights of children and parents in connection with child rearing, as well as numerous law journal articles on child welfare issues. He serves on the board of several child advocacy organizations and has advocated for children in court proceedings.

1. What is moral status and why does it matter?; 2. How is moral status determined?; 3. Selecting criteria of moral status; 4. Problems in applying a multi-criterial approach; 5. Applying a multi-criteria moral status test to adults and children; 6. Legal, policy, and moral implications of children's superiority.

Erscheint lt. Verlag	21.10.2010
Verlagsort	Cambridge
Sprache	englisch
Maße	159 x 234 mm
Gewicht	430 g
Themenwelt	Geisteswissenschaften ► Philosophie ► Ethik
	Recht / Steuern ► Allgemeines / Lexika
	Recht / Steuern ► EU / Internationales Recht
	Recht / Steuern ► Privatrecht / Bürgerliches Recht ► Familienrecht
	Sozialwissenschaften ► Soziologie
ISBN-10	0-521-76691-5 / 0521766915
ISBN-13	978-0-521-76691-3 / 9780521766913
Zustand	Neuware