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1	Moral Liability to Self-Defense: Challenging Jeff McMahan's Fact-Relative Account Jeffrey, KORY 02 October 2012 (has links) The focus of this thesis is the normative base of moral liability to defensive harm. Many argue that liability is what makes it morally permissible to seriously injure or kill in self-defense or in the defense of others. Authors such as Jonathan Quong and Jeff McMahan argue that liability not only has important implications for the individual morality of self-defense, but that it plays a major role in the principles of just war conduct. How you determine when someone is liable will have a significant impact on when someone can be harmed. In this paper, I focus on the question of what a person must do to be morally liable to defensive harm. More specifically, I take a close look at Jeff McMahan’s moral responsibility account of liability and argue that it is unsatisfying as an explanation of when and why a person is liable. I then argue that an evidence-based account of liability better captures our moral intuitions surrounding liability. I end by considering an argument put forward by Quong on why we should not support an evidence-based account of liability. / Thesis (Master, Philosophy) -- Queen's University, 2012-09-30 12:44:32.85 just war defensive harm McMahan moral responsibility fact-relative account moral liability evidence-relative self-defence liability
2	The Moral Reality of War: Defensive Force and Just War Theory Underwood III, Maj Robert E. 22 April 2009 (has links) The permissible use of defensive force is a central tenet of the traditional legal and philosophical justification for war and its practice. Just War Theory holds a nation’s right to resist aggressive attack with defensive force as the clearest example of a just cause for war. Just War Theory also stipulates norms for warfare derived from a conception of defensive force asserted to be consistent with the moral reality of war. Recently, these aspects of Just War Theory have been criticized. David Rodin has challenged the status of national defense as an uncontroversial just cause. Jeff McMahan has charged that Just War Theory’s norms that govern warfare are inconsistent with the norms of permissive defensive force. In this thesis I defend the status of national defense as a clear case of a just cause. However, my defense may require revision of Just War Theory’s norms that govern warfare. Self-defense National-defense Combatant Noncombatant Michael Walzer Jeff McMahan David Rodin Andrew Altman Jus ad bellum Jus in bello Just War Theory Warfare War Philosophy
3	Embryo Adoption: Implications of Personhood, Marriage, and Parenthood McMillen, Brooke Marie 14 April 2008 (has links) Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / One’s personal claims regarding personhood will influence his moral belief regarding embryo adoption. In Chapter One, I consider the personhood of the human embryo. If the human embryo is a person, we are morally obligated to permit the practice of embryo adoption as an ethical means to save human persons. However, for those who do not claim that an embryo is a person at conception, embryo adoption is not a necessary practice because we have no moral obligation to protect them. There are still others who claim that personhood is gained at some point during gestation when certain mental capacities develop. I offer my own claim that consciousness and sentience as well as the potential to be self-conscious mark the beginning of personhood. Embryo adoption raises several questions surrounding the institution of marriage. Due to its untraditional method of procreation, embryo adoption calls into question the role of procreation within marriage. In Chapter Two, I explore the nature of the marriage relationship by offering Lisa Cahill’s definition of marriage which involves both a spiritual and physical dimension, and then I describe the concept of marriage from different perspectives including a social, religious, and a personal perspective. From a personal perspective, I explore the relationship between marriage and friendship. Finally, I describe how the concept of marriage is understood today and explore the advantages to being married as opposed to the advantages of being single. Embryo adoption changes the way we customarily think about procreation within a family because in embryo adoption, couples are seeking an embryo from another union to be implanted into the woman. This prompts some philosophers to argue that embryo adoption violates the marriage relationship. In Chapter Three, I further consider the impact of embryo adoption on the family as an extension of the marital relationship as well as the impact of embryo adoption on the traditional roles of motherhood and fatherhood. I examine motherhood by looking at how some philosophers define motherhood and when these philosophers claim a woman becomes a mother. After considering these issues regarding motherhood, I examine the same issues surrounding fatherhood. Peg Brand, PhD., Chair Embryo adoption Embryo rescue Embryo Adoption Rescue Motherhood Fatherhood Marriage Personhood Gestation Conception Reproductive technology Reproduction Surrogacy Conscious Consciousness Sentience Person Self-conscious Self-consciousness Procreation Conjugal union Marriage relationship Procreate Pregnancy Genetic motherhood Gestational motherhood Social motherhood Genetic father Social father Mother Motherhood Father Fatherhood IVF In vitro In vitro fertilization Pregnancy Postnatal adoption Althaus Aquinas Conee Crosby DeGrazia Finnis Ford Locke Lovering McMahan Parfit Quinn Singer Sumner Thomson Tooley Warren Cahill Moller Landau Mill Catholic Lutheran Calvinist Calvinism Aristotle Catholicism Kant Parsons Primoratz Feldman Firestone Tonti-Filippini Watt Geach Human embryo -- Transplantation Adoption -- Religious aspects Motherhood Fatherhood Marriage

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