The socio-ethical concerns regarding exploitation in commercial surrogacy are premised on asymmetric vulnerability and the commercialization of women’s reproductive capacity to suit individualistic motives. In examining the exploitation argument, this article reviews the social contract theory that describes an individual as an ‘economic man’ with moral and/or political motivations to satisfy individual desires. This study considers the critique by feminists, who argue that patriarchal and medical control prevails in the surrogacy contracts. It also explores the exploitative dynamics amongst actors in (...) the light of Baier’s conceptualization of trust and human relationship, within which both justice and exploitation thrive, and Foucault’s concept of bio-power. Drawing on these concepts, this paper aims to investigate the manifestations of exploitation in commercial surrogacy in the context of trust, power and experiences of actors, using a case study of one clinic in India. The actors’ experiences are evaluated at different stages of the surrogacy process: recruitment, medical procedures, living in the surrogate home, bonding with the child and amongst actors, financial dealings, relinquishment and post-relinquishment. (shrink)

This article surveys recent feminist contributions to moral philosophy with an emphasis on those works which engage with debates within mainstream ethics. The article begins by examining a tension said to arise from the two criteria a theory must meet if it is to count as feminist moral theory: the women's experience requirement and the feminist conclusion requirement. Subsequent sections deal with feminist relational theories of rights, feminist work on responsibility and feminist contractarian approaches to ethics. A final section looks (...) at the application of some feminist moral theories to the problem of abortion. (shrink)

This paper comments on the conflict between ethical relativism and anthropologists’ concerns with rights, and tries to show that neither scientific objectivity nor respect for cultural diversity require denying an extracultural stance for ethical judgments.

Drawing upon the practice of caregiving and the insights of feminist care ethics, I offer a phenomenology of caregiving through the work of Eva Feder Kittay and Emmanuel Lévinas. I argue that caregiving is a material dialectic of embodied response involving moments of leveling, attention, and interruption. In this light, the Levinasian opposition between responding to another's singularity and leveling it via parity-based principles is belied in the experience of care. Contra much of response ethics’ and care ethics’ respective literatures, (...) this dialectic suggests that they are complementary in ways that productively illuminate themes of each. I conclude by suggesting that when response and care ethics are thought together through the experience of caregiving, such labors produce finite responsibility with infinite hope. (shrink)

In The Ethics of Care, Virginia Held explores what values of care might fulfil normative criteria for evaluating the moral worth of relations. Held identifies seven potential values: attentiveness, empathy, mutual concern, sensitivity, responsiveness, taking responsibility, and trustworthiness. Though Held’s work is helpful as a starting point for conceptualizing some normative criteria, two problems need addressing. First, Held does not provide sufficient justification for why these potential values ought to be considered genuine values in the care ethical framework. Second, Held (...) overlooks two other potential values cited in the care literature: competence and respect. This paper builds upon Held’s work to offer a more coherent understanding of the values of care. It does so by scrutinizing and conceptually organizing the above nine potential values. Of these nine, only four are considered genuine values: attentiveness, mutual concern, responsiveness, and trustworthiness. It is concluded that good caring relations are those that exemplify the four values of care in their deliverance of caring practices. (shrink)

The new idea of a 'parenting contract', explicitly taking as its point of reference the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, is meant primarily to protect children's rights, and specifically the right to a proper upbringing. The nature of the parent-child relationship is thus drawn into the discourse of rights and duties. Although there is much to be said for parents explicitly attending to their children's upbringing, something of the uniqueness of the parent-child relationship seems to be (...) occluded by the language of rights and duties as that relationship becomes narrowed down to the confines of a contractual agreement. What comes to be foregrounded in the parent-child relationship is a defence of the various parties'—the parents' and the child's—interests. By drawing on the work of Annette Baier, we argue that this has considerable consequences in terms of trust and distrust, and parental engagement. It is questioned whether the concept of the parenting contract brings about the positive climate of engagement which it is meant to promote. (shrink)

Both moral and legal theory feature prominent talk about rights. Yet there is very little agreement about what rights are, about why we use rights in our moral or legal theories, or about what to do when there is a conflict between rights. This article surveys many of the popular theory for analysing rights and explaining their scope.

Naturalist views of persons, such as those of the philosophers Annette Baier and Marjorie Grene, emphasize that human persons are cultural animals: We are living, embodied, organic beings, embedded in nature, the product of Darwinian evolution, but dependent on culture. Such naturalist views of persons typically eschew science fiction and look askance at the philosophical fantasies and thought experiments that often populate philosophical treatments of personal identity. Marge Piercy’s dystopian, cyberpunk, science fiction novel He, She and It weaves a complex (...) tale around the debate over the status of its central character Yod, a cyborg created in a lab but humanized through the efforts of two women, Malkah Shipman and her granddaughter Shira Shipman. Is Yod a person, despite having been engineered in a lab for a specific purpose? Piercy’s tale both challenges and ultimately supports a naturalist view of persons while simultaneously forewarning us of possible new styles of persons to come. (shrink)

Most twenty-first century ethicists conceive of character as a stable, enduring state that is internal to the agent who possesses it. This paper argues that writers in the 17th and 18th centuries did not share this conception: as they conceived it, character is fragile and has a social ontology. The paper goes on to show that Hume’s conception of character was more like his contemporaries than like ours. It concludes with a look at the significance of such a conception for (...) current debates about the place of character in ethics. (shrink)

Explorations of a trust approach for nursing ethicsTrust has long been acknowledged as central to nurse–patient relationships. It, however, has not been fully explored nor‐matively. That is, trust must be examined from a perspective that encompasses not only reliability and competence, but also good will within nursing relationships. In this paper, we explore how a trust approach, based on Annette Baier’s work on trust in feminist ethics, could help inform future developments in nursing ethics. We discuss the limitations of other (...) approaches such as those based on contracts, paternalism, and care. By drawing out central features of Baier’s theory, we demonstrate how it can help overcome the problems of these previous models. In doing so, we emphasise the importance of combining the ethics of care and justice, acknowledging vulnerability and the potential for evil in nursing relationships, and politically situating the ethical concerns of nursing. (shrink)

This paper examines the relative strengths of two conceptions of teaching. The thinner conception, which underpins a report of the Ministerial Committee on Teacher Education in South Africa, takes the definitive purpose of teaching as the organization of systematic learning. The thicker conception draws on work by Martha Nussbaum and Bernard Williams and comes from my ongoing thinking about the conditions for trustworthy practice. I propose that educative teaching is a practice whose definitive purpose is to enable people’s flourishing by (...) developing their capabilities as these are connected to what Williams calls ‘the virtues of truth’—‘Accuracy’ and ‘Sincerity’. I consider the case for claiming that the purpose of educative teaching is to enable learners to develop the virtues of truth and that trustworthy practice depends on teachers having these virtues themselves. En route I challenge MacIntyre’s grounds for refusing to admit teaching as a practice. (shrink)

The ethics of care, adopted in much of the nursing literature, is usually framed in opposition to the Kantian ethics of principle. Irrespective of whether the ethics of care is grounded in gender, as with Gilligan and Noddings, or inscribed on Heidegger's ontology, as with Benner, Kant remains the philosophical adversary, honouring reason rather than emotion, universality rather than context, and individual autonomy rather than interdependence. During the past decade, however, a great deal of Kantian scholarship – including feminist scholarship (...) – has rendered this series of oppositions questionable, challenging the view that an ethics of care and Kant's moral law are irreconcilable. This paper therefore re‐examines Kant's writings, drawing on recent scholarship, and argues both that they provide the care ethicists with everything they require, and that they offer something beyond an ethics of care, something that repairs the deficits in philosophies of caring. It concludes by suggesting that a Kantian ethics of care has significant implications for the construction of nursing knowledge. (shrink)

This paper explores early Australasian philosophy in some detail. Two approaches have dominated Western philosophy in Australia: idealism and materialism. Idealism was prevalent between the 1880s and the 1930s, but dissipated thereafter. Idealism in Australia often reflected Kantian themes, but it also reflected the revival of interest in Hegel through the work of ‘absolute idealists’ such as T. H. Green, F. H. Bradley, and Henry Jones. A number of the early New Zealand philosophers were also educated in the idealist tradition (...) and were influential in their communities, but produced relatively little. In Australia, materialism gained prominence through the work of John Anderson, who arrived in Australia in 1927, and continues to be influential. John Anderson had been a student of Henry Jones, who might therefore be said to have influenced both main strands of Australian philosophical thought. (shrink)

In this paper, we contextualize Claudia Card's work on forgiveness within wider literatures on forgiveness. With Card, we emphasize the costs of forgiveness and the sufferings of victims, and suggest alternatives to forgiving evils. Women who live in particularly unsafe contexts require recognition more than reconciliation. We conclude that those who forgive evil also require recognition that respects the choices of forgiving agents, seeing their decisions as relevant to conceptual analysis about forgiveness.

Trust should be able to explain cooperation, and its failure should help explain the emergence of cooperation-enabling institutions. This proposed methodological constraint on theorizing about trust, when satisfied, can then be used to differentiate theories of trust with some being able to explain cooperation more generally and effectively than others. Unrestricted views of trust, which take trust to be no more than the disposition to rely on others, fare well compared to restrictive views, which require the trusting person to have (...) some further attitude in addition to this disposition. The same methodological constraint also favours some restrictive views over others. (shrink)

Virginia Held's Feminist Morality defends the idea that it is possible to transform the “public” sphere by remaking it on the model of existing “private” relationships such as families. This paper challenges Held's optimism. It is argued that feminist moral inquiry can aid in transforming the public sphere only by showing just how much the allegedly “private” realms of families and personal relationships are shaped—and often misshapen—by public demands and concerns.

Resource development takes place through the transformation of social institutions. The moral dimension is of crucial importance in the evolution of associated management regimes. More than just a code of ethics, moralities are predicated on what is understood to be 'the good'. Recognition of the good requires a rhetoric beyond those of power and interest. This paper proposes a rhetoric of love. Within this conception of morality, the management of human relationships becomes understood as an unfolding cycle of choice among (...) tragic choices and management of the non-human environment is accomplished through the realisation of the gift relationship. (shrink)

Resource development takes place through the transformation of social institutions. The moral dimension is of crucial importance in the evolution of associated management regimes. More than just a code of ethics, moralities are predicated on what is understood to be ‘the good’. Recognition of the good requires a rhetoric beyond those of power and interest. This paper proposes a rhetoric of love. Within this conception of morality, the management of human relationships becomes understood as an unfolding cycle of choice among (...) tragic choices and management of the non‐human environment is accomplished through the realisation of the gift relationship. (shrink)

Virginia Held's Feminist Morality defends the idea that it is possible to transform the "public" sphere by remaking it on the model of existing "private" relationships such as families. This paper challenges Held's optimism. It is argued that feminist moral inquiry can aid in transforming the public sphere only by showing just how much the allegedly "private" realms of families and personal relationships are shaped-and often misshapen-by public demands and concerns.

The food sector and health sector become more and more intertwined. This raises many possibilities, but also questions. One of them is the question of what the implication is for public trust in food and health issues. In this article, I argue that the products on the interface between food and health entails some serious questions of trust. Trust in food products and medical products is often based upon a long history of rather clear patterns of mutual expectations, yet these (...) expectations are not similar in both sectors. As long as the food sector and health sector remain distinct, these differences will not lead to problems of trust, yet when new products are introduced, like functional foods or personalized dietary advices, trust can be threatened. To prevent this, we need clarity with regard to what we can expect of these new products and of whom to expect what in this situation. This requires not␣only adequate information on operating procedures, but also a profound debate␣on responsibilities and the explication and interpretation of moral values and norms. (shrink)

This paper offers an analysis of the nature of epistemic trust. With increased philosophical attention to social epistemology in general and testimony in particular, the role for an epistemic or intellectual version of trust has loomed large in recent debates. But, too often, epistemologists talk about trust without really providing a sustained examination of the concept. After some introductory comments, I begin by addressing various components key to trust simpliciter. In particular, I examine what we might think of when we (...) consider what it means to place trust in someone. Once we have examined trust in general, we can modify this discussion to derive an epistemic version of trust—placing trust in someone for an epistemic reason. I argue that ET includes four components: belief, communication, reliance, and confidence. The first two sets are distinctively epistemic and the second set of conditions form the core of any kind of trust. Put together,.. (shrink)

In an earlier article, it was found that the terms of preference utilitarianism are insufficiently sound for guiding nursing activity in general, including in relation to nursing involvement in euthanasia. In this article, I shall examine the terms of a more traditional philosophical approach in order to determine the moral legitimacy, or otherwise, of nursing engagement in measures intended to end the lives of patients. In attempting this task, nursing practice is considered in light of what I shall call a (...) ‘nursing‐as‐healing‐praxis’ approach which includes an account of the moral purpose of nursing and the virtues necessary for realizing that purpose. Ultimately, it is concluded that the terms of this approach rule out the involvement of nurses in euthanasia such that if euthanasia can be justified at all, those outside the nursing profession must provide for its administration. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: One Model of Care Ethics An Overview of Care Ethics Care and Other Moral Perspectives Care and Bioethics Conclusion References Further reading.

A new ethics of human finitude developed through three experimental essays. As ethical beings, we strive for lives that are meaningful and praiseworthy. But we are finite. We do not know, so we hope. We need, so we trust. We err, so we forgive. In this book, philosopher John T. Lysaker draws our attention to the ways in which these three capacities—hope, trust, and forgiveness—contend with human limits. Each experience is vital to human flourishing, yet each also poses significant personal (...) and institutional challenges as well as opportunities for growth. Hope, Trust, and Forgiveness explores these challenges and opportunities and proposes ways to best meet them. In so doing, Lysaker experiments with the essay as a form and advances an improvisational perfectionism to deepen and expand our ethical horizons. (shrink)

In “Robots, Trust and War” Simpson claims that victory in counter-insurgency conflicts requires that military forces and their governing body win the ‘hearts and minds’ of civilians. Consequently, forces made up primarily of autonomous robots would be ineffective in these conflicts for two reasons. Firstly, because civilians cannot rationally trust them because they cannot act from a motive based on good character. If they ever did develop this capacity then the purpose of sending them to war in our stead would (...) be lost because there would be no moral saving. Secondly, because if robot forces did offer a moral saving then this would signal that the deploying government could not be trusted to be committed to the conflict. I disagree with both claims. I argue firstly that there are less demanding grounds that could allow robot forces to be trusted sufficiently to be effective whilst still achieving a moral saving over the deployment of human ones. Secondly, that this moral saving would not necessarily signal that the deploying body lacked commitment because its interpretation would be highly context-dependent. I conclude therefore, contra-Simpson, that robot forces could plausibly be effective in counter-insurgency engagements in the foreseeable future. I suggest therefore that there may be a case for developing a more finely grained understanding of the opportunities for, and challenges of, their use. (shrink)

Politics, Philosophy & Economics, Volume 21, Issue 3, Page 291-312, August 2022. Across North America, Europe and Latin America, multiple sub-state jurisdictions have declared themselves to be migrant “sanctuaries”. By adopting sanctuary status, sub-state jurisdictions signal their welcoming attitude towards migrants as well their opposition to the state-level policies that target them for exclusion. In this article, I examine the place of sanctuary in the broader literature of political resistance and opposition in democratic states, and then whether it can be (...) justified all things considered. I locate my examination in the political theory of federalism, to identify an expectation of cooperation – which, it appears, sanctuary jurisdictions are refusing to accept, usually with respect to immigration enforcement efforts. I refer to this form of opposition as “democratic non-cooperation” and identify its key features. I describe a “cooperation continuum”, to suggest that non-cooperation takes four main forms – evasion, non-engagement, disruption and obstruction – which I describe both in general terms and in relation to sanctuary practices in particular. Finally, I observe that the form of opposition that sanctuary is, is not limited to sanctuary: that is, there are other cases of this form of opposition in other policy domains, and moreover, not all of the objectives taken by those who deploy this form of opposition are progressive. Ultimately, this article's central contribution is to fleshing out modes of opposition in democratic spaces in general, by examining the morality of sanctuary actions taken around the world. (shrink)

Politics, Philosophy & Economics, Volume 21, Issue 3, Page 291-312, August 2022. Across North America, Europe and Latin America, multiple sub-state jurisdictions have declared themselves to be migrant “sanctuaries”. By adopting sanctuary status, sub-state jurisdictions signal their welcoming attitude towards migrants as well their opposition to the state-level policies that target them for exclusion. In this article, I examine the place of sanctuary in the broader literature of political resistance and opposition in democratic states, and then whether it can be (...) justified all things considered. I locate my examination in the political theory of federalism, to identify an expectation of cooperation – which, it appears, sanctuary jurisdictions are refusing to accept, usually with respect to immigration enforcement efforts. I refer to this form of opposition as “democratic non-cooperation” and identify its key features. I describe a “cooperation continuum”, to suggest that non-cooperation takes four main forms – evasion, non-engagement, disruption and obstruction – which I describe both in general terms and in relation to sanctuary practices in particular. Finally, I observe that the form of opposition that sanctuary is, is not limited to sanctuary: that is, there are other cases of this form of opposition in other policy domains, and moreover, not all of the objectives taken by those who deploy this form of opposition are progressive. Ultimately, this article's central contribution is to fleshing out modes of opposition in democratic spaces in general, by examining the morality of sanctuary actions taken around the world. (shrink)

Due to the progress being made in the neurosciences, higher expectations for the use of medication, even against the patient’s will, are arising in mental hospitals. In this article, we will discuss whether the neurosciences and new psychopharmacological solutions really support patients who suffer from mental illnesses. To answer this question, we will focus on the perspective of patients and their experiences with psychiatric (coercive) treatments. The analysis of one person’s story shows that other issues besides appropriate medication are important (...) for recovery from a mental illness. In daily life, issues such as coping, rehabilitation and social support are of major importance for a patient suffering from psychiatric disease. Thus, although progress in the neurosciences is a positive development for clinical practice, it does not mean that (coercive) medication alone will carry a patient into recovery. A patient’s recovery is dependent, not only upon the process of finding the appropriate medication and trust between the psychiatrist and the patient, but also upon relational aspects, such as being recognised as a person, belonging, accepting responsibilities, developing friendships and trusting others. These findings lead to the conclusion that dealing with psychiatric diseases is more complex than what the biomedical model of neuroscience suggests and that one should include the social context of the patient in the recovery process. (shrink)

This article examines questions of trust in cinema through the lens of Shutter Island (Martin Scorsese, 2010). With its self-referential allusion to the mechanical “eye” of a camera, a stage-managed fantasy embedded within its plot and image of a dark lighthouse, Shutter Island explores its spectators' and its own cinematic sense of suspicion. The plot revolves around a protagonist who has locked himself out of certain memories and into a fantasy world. The article links pathological and therapeutic aspects of trust (...) with interpersonal and institutional trust issues in ways that blur distinctions between trusting others and trusting oneself, and shows how reliant each is on the other. Construing trust as a type of participant attitude and highlighting techniques used to render it cinematically, the article tracks its emergence and erosion, both in terms of the diegesis and its bearing on film spectatorship. As a post-classical commentary on film-making, Shutter Island is viewed as intricately exemplifying what Robert Sinnerbrink (2016) describes as an action-driven film with “a highly reflective consciousness of cinematic spectatorship” (p. 70), as well as what Thomas Elsaesser (2009) describes as a “mind-game film”. To make sense of its ending, which may strike viewers as baffling and unnerving, and show how the protagonist's seemingly irrational decision is part of its film-philosophical point, traumatic disturbances in subjectivity and “monstrosities” depicted in the film are linked to Jean Epstein's notion of “something monstrous” in cinematic imagery. The protagonist's deliberately chosen fate is interpreted as a reparative gesture, expressing a desire for psychological healing and a way of helping him to marshal and recover a semblance of moral order and integrity under demoralizing circumstances. (shrink)

Accounts of human beings as essentially social have had a long history in philosophy as reflected in the Ancient Greeks; in African and Asian philosophy; in Modern European thinkers such as Mary Wo...

The clinical relationship has been underexplored in dementia care. This is in part due to the way that the clinical relationship has been articulated and understood in bioethics. Robert Veatch’s social contract model is representative of a standard view of the clinical relationship in bioethics. But dementia presents formidable challenges to the standard clinical relationship, including ambiguity about when the clinical relationship begins, how it weathers changes in narrative identity of patients with dementia, and how the intimate involvement of family (...) fits alongside a paradigmatically dyadic relationship. Drawing on work in recent feminist theory, a critique is offered of the standard clinical relationship in bioethics as underwritten by an individualistic conception of autonomy. An alternative view of the clinical relationship in dementia, one that embraces a relational account of autonomy, is put forward. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to examine the role that trustworthiness plays in the ability of teachers to function as moral role models. Through exploration of Muriel Spark’s novel, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, I explain some of the central features of trustworthiness as a moral virtue and suggest how these features are critical to developing moral relationships between teachers and students. I show how and why the character of Miss Jean Brodie fails to embody trustworthiness, and how (...) moral philosophy and psychological insight are bound up with teachers’ efforts to treat students well and to behave in ways that morally warrant the trust most of us typically grant them. Finally, I propose some of the important implications this analysis has for teacher education. (shrink)

The question of how well we need to be known, to be loved, is considered. A ‘second-person’ model is argued for, on which love requires that the beloved’s demands to be known be respected. This puts pressure on the idea that lovers need to make a beloved’s interests their own, taking that to require comprehension of the beloved’s interests: a lover would have to appreciate the normative intelligibility and motivating force of an interest. The possibility of love with failure of (...) comprehension is defended, using illustrations from Marilynne Robinson’s novel Gilead. (shrink)

Throughout the development of an "ethic of care" different from an "ethic of justice," the relationship between the two has been problematic. Are they theories between which one must choose? Are they complementary? Are they domain-specific? In support of my view that neither is adequate by itself, I here examine the private domain of care of the dying by intimates, and find there important issues both of care and of justice.

While care ethics has frequently been criticized for lacking an account of autonomy, this paper argues that care ethics' relational model of moral agency provides the basis for criticizing the philosophical tradition's model of autonomy and for rethinking autonomy in relational terms. Using Diana Meyers's account of autonomy competency as a basis, a dialogical model of autonomy is developed that can respond to internal and external critiques of care ethics.

. Morality is often dismissed as irrelevant in what is seen as the global anarchy of rival states each pursuing its national interest. When morality is invoked, it is usually the morality of justice with its associated moral conceptions of individual rights, equality, and universal law. In the area of moral theory, an alternative moral approach, the ethics of care, has been developed in recent years. It is beginning to influence how some see their global responsibilities.

The efficiency of engineering applied to civilian projects sometimes threatens to run away with the social agenda, but in military applications, engineering often adds a devastating sleekness to the inevitable destruction of life. The relative crudeness of terrorism (e.g., 9/11) leaves a stark after-image, which belies the comparative insignificance of random (as opposed to orchestrated) belligerence. Just as engineering dwarfs the bricolage of vernacular design—moving us past the appreciation of brush-strokes, so to speak—the scale of engineered destruction makes it difficult (...) to focus on the charred remains of individual lives. Engineers need to guard against the inappropriate military subsumption of their effort. Fortunately, the ethics of warfare has been an ongoing topic of discussion for millennia. This paper will examine the university core class I’ve developed (The Moral Dimensions of Technology) to meet accreditation requirements in engineering ethics, and the discussion with engineering and non-engineering students focused by the life of electrical engineer Vannevar Bush, with selected readings in moral philosophy from the Dao de Jing, Lao Tze, Cicero, Aurelius Augustinus, Kant, Annette Baier, Peter Singer, Elizabeth Anscombe, Philippa Foot, and Judith Thomson. (shrink)

Analytic feminists are philosophers who believe that both philosophy and feminism are well served by using some of the concepts, theories and methods of analytic philosophy modified by feminist values and insights. By using ‘ analytic feminist’ to characterize their style of feminist philosophizing, these philosophers acknowledge their dual feminist and analytic roots and their intention to participate in the ongoing conversations within both traditions. In addition, the use of ‘ analytic feminist’ attempts to rebut two frequently made presumptions: that (...) feminist philosophy. (shrink)

O presente artigo propõe uma abordagem dos direitos humanos a partir da perspectiva de Hume acerca dos sentimentos morais, ao mesmo tempo em que descarta a tese dos programas racionalistas de fundamentação dos direitos que chegam ao ponto de afirmar a existência de direitos naturais que todos possuiriam em razão de sua própria natureza humana. Contra esses programas, a postura cética e naturalista de Hume pode nos auxiliar a explicar o modo como os direitos humanos são enunciados por ativistas e (...) defensores, pois essa enunciação é motivada por paixões, assim como os juízos morais, que são formulados mediante a empatia compassiva que um homem nutre pelo próximo. Os direitos humanos são reivindicados a partir de exigências formuladas dentro de pequenos grupos e desde o contexto das obrigações específicas e, mesmo ao serem reivindicados contra um destinatário específico, os direitos humanos são enunciados como se fossem universais e inatos à espécie humana. Essa enunciação é sempre motivada por sentimentos que não nos permitem permanecer insensíveis às necessidades básicas sofridas por outras pessoas. (shrink)