The attention economy — the market where consumers’ attention is exchanged for goods and services — poses a variety of threats to individuals’ autonomy, which, at minimum, involves the ability to set and pursue ends for oneself. It has been argued that the threat wireless mobile devices pose to autonomy gives rise to a duty to oneself to be a digital minimalist, one whose interactions with digital technologies are intentional such that they do not conflict with their ends. In this (...) paper, we argue that there is a corresponding duty to others to be an attention ecologist, one who promotes digital minimalism in others. Although the moral reasons for being an attention ecologist are similar to those that motivate the duty to oneself, the arguments diverge in important ways. We explore the application of this duty in various domains where we have special obligations to promote autonomy in virtue of the different roles we play in the lives of others, such as parents and teachers. We also discuss the consequences of our arguments for employers, software developers, and policy makers. (shrink)

Common sense morality and legislations around the world ascribe normative relevance to biological connections between parents and children. Procreators who meet a modest standard of parental competence are believed to have a right to rear the children they brought into the world. I explore various attempts to justify this belief and find most of these attempts lacking. I distinguish between two kinds of biological connections between parents and children: the genetic link and the gestational link. I argue that the second (...) can better justify a right to rear. (shrink)

Resumen En este artículo se argumenta a favor de la relevancia moral de los lazos biológicos en la parentalidad. En primer lugar, se realiza un estado del arte en base a dos cuestiones: 1) la importancia de hecho que poseen los lazos biológicos en la caracterización de la relación parental; 2) la relevancia moral de estos lazos. Se argumenta que los lazos biológicos son importantes para establecer el paradigma de la parentalidad, que este es condición de posibilidad de la moralidad (...) de la parentalidad, pero que esto no implica superioridad del modelo bionormativo respecto de otros modelos.In this article, we argue in favor of biological ties' moral relevance in the parental relationship. In the first place, we review the state-of-art literature in two respects: 1) the factual importance that biological ties have in the characterization of the parental relationship; 2) the moral relevance of these ties. We argue that biological ties are essential to establish the parenting paradigm. This paradigm is a condition of possibility for parenting morality, but that this does not imply the superiority of the bionormative model over other models. (shrink)

This article employs descriptive and explorative methods concerning father absence and missional parenting. It identifies numerous ramifications caused by father absence and the failing role of men. Father absence has been a serious social issue in South Africa, which has become more tenacious in post-colonial South Africa because of economic reasons, untold fatherhood, refused fatherhood, fatherhood accountability, divorce and dissolution of households. This social issue influenced and affected both family and society dysfunction and created a vicious cycle of poverty in (...) many South African homes. This article aimed to lessen the predicament of fatherlessness by considering the role of missional parenting where the father and mother form a partnership and collaborate for the family’s progress and actualise God’s pre-eminent plan for families in South Africa. The literature review and methodology provided rich insights and considerable knowledge to help support families who do not have a father figure and men in their fatherly role. Missional parenting is gospel-centred and can be a detriment to father absence. Parents follow the example of Jesus Christ as saviour in missional parenting. Contribution: This article employed a descriptive and explorative modus operandi and explored a respective method to effectuate family disharmony in the context of South Africa. It endorses the journal’s focus on church and family in the field of Missiology and Practical Theology. A fatherless South Africa because of the social ill of father absence is a concerning issue. (shrink)

The introduction of in vitro fertilization (IVF) results in a separation of sex and reproduction which has generated enormous ethical debate (Lauritzen 1993). Surrogacy makes this situation more complicated by bringing a surrogate mother into reproduction. A surrogacy case may involve five individuals (in addition to the surrogate child). These are the commissioning couple, the gamete donors, and the surrogate mother. Hence, a surrogate child may have up to five parents, including biological parents, commissioning parents, and a gestational parent. The (...) question is which of these people should undertake parental duty? In terms of the acquisition of parental duty, there are three accounts. They are the biological connection account, the causal account, and the consent account. In this article, I try to argue that only the commissioning parents should undertake the parental duty for the surrogate child based on the latter two accounts. I do not apply the biological connection account because the biological connection account fails to explain one’s parental duty, which I will show in the following sections. (shrink)

Some of the concerns that have been raised in connection to the use of advance directives are of the epistemic variety. Such concerns highlight the possibility that adhering to an advance directive may conflict with what the author of the directive actually wants at the time of treatment. However, at least one objection to the employment of advance directives is metaphysical in nature. The objection to be discussed here, first formulated by Rebecca Dresser and labeled by Allen Buchanan as the (...) slavery argument and David DeGrazia the someone else problem, aims to undermine the legitimacy of certain uses of advance directives by concluding that such uses rest upon an incorrect assumption about the identity over time of those ostensibly governed by the directives. There have been numerous attempts to respond to this objection. This paper aims to assess two strategies that have been pursued to cope with the problem. (shrink)

This paper analyzes the following question: What do women deserve, ethically speaking, when they agree to gestate a fetus on behalf of third parties? I argue for several claims. First, I argue that gestational motherhood’s moral significance has been misunderstood, an oversight I attribute to the focus in family ethics on the conditions of parenthood. Second, I use a less controversial version of James Rachels’s account of desert to argue that gestational mothers deserve a parent-like voice as well as significant (...) care and support, conclusions that have implications for commercial surrogacy. Finally, I argue that we should not make requests of others when fulfilling them will lead others to deserve goods we cannot reasonably expect them to receive, and I conclude based on this thesis, what I call the “strings attached thesis,” that pro-life arguments in support of prohibitions on abortion commit their proponents to policies which they may not be willing to support. (shrink)