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Despite its immense personal significance, procreation is an inherently other-regarding endeavor. By its very nature, the decision to procreate is the decision to bring into existence another morally considerable being, one who will be exposed to the full range of harms, benefits, and risks that accompany a typical human life, and one who cannot by its nature ever consent to being born. Moreover, when this decision is undertaken in a community of persons, it is also a decision to affect the lives of others in a host of profound (if often underappreciated) ways, from its effects on population size and environmental sustainability, to its consequences for a community's distribution of resources. In many cases, of course, these interests coincide: adults need children for their parenting projects, societies need citizens for the maintenance of their institutions, and children themselves are often happy to have been brought into existence. However, as a burgeoning literature is beginning to demonstrate, the various interests that are implicated by procreative decision-making can also come into conflict as well, and in ways that raise basic questions of justice. This thesis explores five of these questions, and in so doing, seeks to contribute to our understanding of the normative significance of procreation. Chapter One considers the relationship between procreation and child welfare, asking what role (if any) prospective children's interests play in limiting the scope of the right to procreate. Chapters Two and Three consider the relationship between procreation and parenthood, asking whether the act of creating a child generates special rights and/or obligations to parent that child. Chapter Four considers how the significant costs of procreation and parenting ought to be distributed through society, asking whether parents are responsible for paying the full cost of their childrearing projects, or whether childrearing costs should be shared in some way among parents and non-parents alike. Finally, Chapter Five considers our moral obligations to orphaned children, asking whether it is permissible to create new children in conditions where there are already existing children in need of parental care. While numerous positions are defended on each of these interrelated questions, one general conclusion runs through all of them: rather than being viewed as something that is immune from moral scrutiny, or as something that individuals have an unqualified right to do, procreation ought to be viewed as the site of potentially conflicting interests that must be carefully balanced against one another.

This dissertation aims to defend an egalitarian conception of global distributive justice. Many hold that the scope of egalitarian justice should be defined by membership of a single political community but my dissertation will challenge this view. I begin by considering three distinctive arguments against the ideal of global equality. They maintain that egalitarian obligations of justice apply only to those people who are subject to the same sovereign authority which coerces them to abide by its rules; or to those who contribute to the preservation of each other’s autonomy through collectively sustaining a state; or to those who belong to the same nation. The first three chapters deal with these arguments respectively. Central to these arguments is the assumption that the domestic and the global contexts are different in some morally relevant way so egalitarian principles of justice apply to the former but not the latter. After rebutting these anti-egalitarian arguments I turn to the more constructive task of developing a form of global egalitarianism that is grounded in the value of equality as a normative ideal of how human relations should be conducted. I argue in Chapter 4 that relational equality—that is, standing in relations of equality to one another (rather than relations characterized by domination or exploitation)—is a demand of justice in the global context. This ideal of relational equality has distributive implications. In Chapter 5 I try to spell out these implications by defending a set of principles of global distributive justice that would follow from our commitment to global relational equality. In the sixth and final chapter, I discuss what responsibilities we have in relation to global injustice, how to distribute the burdens associated with these responsibilities, and whether they are excessively demanding on complying agents.

This thesis evaluates David Hume&rsquo / s notion of justice by examining the coherence in his legal, moral, and political philosophy. It is argued that on the whole, Hume&rsquo / s use of the concept justice is coherent in his theories of law, ethics, and politics. To this end, firstly, Hume&rsquo / s moral thought is examined in detail. Secondly, his legal theory and his position in legal philosophy are considered with references to its moral aspects. Next, Hume&rsquo / s notion of justice is examined in its relation with the state. It is observed that Hume&rsquo / s conception of justice has moral, legal, and political foundations, and that all of these subjects depend on the same principles. It is shown that the laws of justice constitute an ethical, legal, and political issue in Hume&rsquo / s philosophy. According to Hume, although obeying the rules of justice is a moral topic, the laws of justice are guaranteed by the state in large societies.

Thesis -- Departmental honors in Philosophy. / Bibliography: ℓ. 84-88.

The aim of this thesis was to examine if the ethics of care could replace the ethics of justice, and what the advantages of replacing it would be. To determine if the replacement could be successful, the European Union (EU) goals was used as a measurement. The EU could, by replacing the ethics of justice with ethics of care, successfully reach its goals. By redefining the values and adjust the approach towards the goals according to the ethics of justice, the EU goals could be achieved.  To examine the issue a qualitative approach was chosen and, due to theoretical reasons, a postpositivist and normative method were applied. Firstly, the redefinition of the values presented, and secondly the approach towards the goals. Based on the empirical findings the advantages were discussed. The results shows that the EU could achieve its goals with the ethics of care as a moral framework, and that the EU should consider the ethics of care. A caring ethics would allow them to prioritize the well-being of inhabitants rather than the growth and competitiveness of the market. Moreover, basing the work on caring qualities instead of on universal values would make the European identity less exclusive and invite people of all population groups into the community. A feminist ethics allows the Union to care, not only about working life, but for people in all spheres, making people trust the EU when they are vulnerable.