Welfare means relationality, virtue and altruism

Legal Studies

Volumn 32, Issue 3, 2012, Pages 480-498

  Herring, Jonathan ^a   Foster, Charles ^a  

^a EXETER COLLEGE   (United Kingdom)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 84865351520     PISSN: 02613875     EISSN: 1748121X     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/j.1748-121X.2012.00232.x     Document Type: Article

References (77)

1. Adoption and Children Act s 1 similarly provides that when a court or adoption agency is coming to a decision relating to the adoption of a child, '[T]he paramount consideration. must be the child's welfare, throughout his life,' s 1(2). This changed the previous position under the Adoption Act 1976, s 6, by which the child's welfare was the first, but not the paramount, consideration.2002
2. As has the meaning of best interests in the law governing adults lacking mental capacity, now found in the Mental Capacity Act 2005. For a summary of the current law see J Herring Medical Law and Ethics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 3rd edn, 2010) ch 4. For detailed discussion of the notions of welfare and best interests see eg JM Eekelaar 'Beyond the welfare principle'[2002] CFLQ 237; J Herring 'The Human Rights Act and the welfare principle in family law - conflicting or complementary?'[1999] CFLQ 223; M Donnelly 'Determining best interests under the Mental Capacity Act 2005' (2010) 19 Medical Law Review 27; J Coggon, 'Doing what's best: organ donation and intensive care' in C Danbury et al (eds) Ethics and Law in Critical Care (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010).
3. Eekelaar, above n 2; J Herring 'Caregivers in medical law and ethics' 25 Journal of Contemporary Health Law and Policy 1.2008
4. [1996] 2 FLR 314-328.
5. Mental Capacity Act 2005, s 4(7).
6. For a discussion of how the courts have managed to attach weight to the interests of others, while holding onto the language of the welfare principle, see Herring, above n 2.
7. Cp W v M and Others[2011] EWHC 2443 (Fam).
8. In re B (A Minor) (Wardship: Sterilisation)[1988] AC 199-202.
9. [ Fam 147.2008
10. [2007] EWHC 2003 (Fam)-[99].
11. [1997] 8 Med LR 217-225. See too Re J (a minor) (Wardship: medical treatment) Fam 33.1991
12. [2000] 1 FCR 361.
13. Re A (Male Sterilisation)[2000] 1 FLR 549.
14. Ealing LBC v S[2008] EWHC 636 (Fam); In the Matter of P[2009] EWHC 163 (Ch).
15. J Griffin Well-Being: Its Meaning, Measurement, and Moral Importance (Oxford: Clarendon, 1986); T Scanlon What We Owe Each Other (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998
16. R Kraut What is Good and Why; The Ethics of Well-being (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007).
17. F Feldman Pleasure and the Good Life (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004).
18. J Bronsteen, C Bucafussco and J Masur 'Welfare as happiness' (2010) 98 Geo LJ 1583.
19. D Molyneux '"And how is life going for you?"- an account of subjective welfare in medicine' (2007) 33 J Med Ethics 568.
20. J Harris and S Holm 'Should we presume moral turpitude in our children? Small children and consent to medical research' (2003) 24 Theoretical Medical Bioethics 121.
21. N Badhwar 'Self-interest and virtue' (1997) 14 Social Philosophy and Policy 226
22. R Hursthouse On Virtue Ethics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999
23. M Slote Morals from Motives (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001) 6-7
24. LW Sumner 'Is virtue its own reward?' (1998) 15 Social Philosophy and Policy 18.
25. Aristotle (J Barnes (ed)) The Complete Works of Aristotle (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984 [C4 BCE]); Aristotle (R Crisp (ed)) Nicomachean Ethics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000 [C4 BCE]); T Carson 'Happiness and the good life' South Western Journal of Philosophy 9; T Carson 'Happiness, contentment, and the good life' (1981) Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 62.1978
26. D Haybron 'Happiness, the self and human flourishing' (2008) 20
27. Kraut, above n 16, p 127
28. Although he adds that something must also be enjoyed.127
29. T Hurka 'Value and friendship: a more subtle view' (2006) 18 Utilitas 232.
30. R Hursthouse 'Virtue Ethics' in Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy available at http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ethics-virtue/.
31. J Herring 'Vulnerability, children and the law' in M Freeman (ed) Law and Childhood Studies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, forthcoming).
32. D Portmore 'Welfare, achievement and self-sacrifice' (2007) 2 Journal of Social Philosophy
33. Griffin, Above n 16, p 64
34. R Crisp 'Utilitarianism and accomplishment' (2000) 60 Analysis 264.
35. J Raz 'The role of wellbeing' http://ssrn.com/abstract=1002585.
36. R Crisp 'Well-being' available at http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/well-being/.
37. Haybron, above n 23.
38. S Wolf 'Happiness and meaning: two aspects of the good life' (1997) Social Philosophy and Policy 207-209.
39. Although s 1(3)(f) does require the court to consider the capability of the parents to meet the needs of the child.
40. D Jeske Rationality and Moral Theory: How Intimacy Generates Reasons (London: Routledge, 2008).
41. Crisp, above n 31.
42. S Carle 'Theorizing agency' (2005) 55 American Universities Law Review 307.
43. E Barvosa-Carter 'Mestiza autonomy as relational autonomy: ambivalence and the social character of free will' (2007) 15 Journal of Political Philosophy 1.
44. A Donchin 'Autonomy, interdependence, and assisted suicide: respecting boundaries/crossing lines' (2000) 14 Bioethics 187.
45. C Foster Human Dignity in Bioethics and Law (Oxford: Hart, 2011).
46. Herring, above n 2.
47. S Sevenhuijsen 'The place of care: the relevance of the feminist ethic of care for social policy' (2003) 4 Feminist Theory 179.
48. B Woodhouse 'Hatching the egg: a child-centered perspective on parents' rights' (1993) 14 Cardozo L Rev 1747-1825.
49. Eekelaar, above n 2.
50. J Eekelaar 'The interests of the child and the child's wishes: the role of dynamic self-determinism' (1994) 8 IJLPF 42.
51. Munby LJ 'Consent to treatment' in A Grubb, J Laing and J McHale (eds) Principles of Medical Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010) p 548.
52. (1992) 175 CLR 218-270.
53. [1997] EWCA Civ 1361.
54. For a lengthier discussion see J Herring 'Farewell welfare?' (2005) 27 JSWFL 151.
55. See Airedale NHS Trust v Bland[1993] AC 789-871-872 and 894-895; Re Doe 583 NE 2d 1263 (Mass); Re Quinlan (1976) 355 A 2d 647 (NJ).1992
56. Re J (A minor) (wardship: medical treatment)[1991] Fam 33; Re E (A minor) (wardship: medical treatment)[1993] 1 FLR 386; Re W (A minor) (medical treatment: court's jurisdiction)[1993] Fam 64; Note, too, that s 4(6) of the Mental Capacity Act 2005 provides that the person making a best interests determination '.. must consider, so far as is reasonably ascertainable - (a) the person's past and present wishes and feelings (and, in particular, any relevant written statement made by him when he had capacity), (b) the beliefs and values that would be likely to influence his decision if he had capacity, and © the other factors that he would be likely to consider if he were able to do so. .'
57. S Choudhry and J Herring European Human Rights and Family Law (Oxford: Hart, 2011
58. Re MB (Medical treatment)[1991] 2 FLR 426; Re A (male sterilisation)[2000] 1 FLR 549; Re S (adult patient: sterilisation)[2001
59. [2010] EWHC
60. See, for instance, Re J (Specific Issue Orders: Muslim upbringing and circumcision)[1999] 2 FLR 678; affirmed-[2000] 1 FLR 571.
61. See eg Re L (an infant)[1968] P 119; S v MC, E v W[1972] AC 24; B (BR) v B(J)[1968] P 466.
62. Herring, above n 2.
63. For present purposes we do not seek to probe the motives behind the discharge of an obligation imposed by a relationship. It does not affect our argument if an altruistic act turns out, if one looks hard enough, to be an example of mutually back-scratching reciprocal altruism.
64. Re B (A minor) (wardship: sterilization)[1988] AC 199
65. Rochdale Healthcare NHS Trust v C[1997] FCR 274.
66. See Foster, above n 40.
67. We accept, though, that the relationship between flourishing and altruism is more complex than we have painted it as being here. A detailed account of that relationship is not, however, relevant to the thesis we are now advancing.
68. A Duff Answering for Crime (Oxford: Hart, 2007
69. (1990) 566 NE 2d 1319.
70. [1997] Fam 110, 113-114.
71. At 1331.
72. B Lyons 'Obliging children' (2011) 19 Med L Rev 85.
73. [1997] Fam 110-113-114.
74. G Williams 'Children as means and ends in large-scale medical research' Bioethics, availablehttp://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-8519.2010.01873.x/full
75. Harris and Holm, above n 20,121-129
76. J Coggon 'Doing what's best: organ donation and intensive care' in Danbury et al, above n 2.
77. World Medical Association, Declaration of Helsinki (2008).