IF MEN COULD GET PREGNANT: BETH SINGER AND CAROL GILLIGAN ON ABORTION

Abstract: I argue here that Beth Singer's analysis of rights as operative social norms allows us to make sense of the personal and political complexities of the abortion debate. In particular, I argue that it is only by means of Singer's analysis that we, as feminists, can reconcile our conviction that Carol Gilligan's celebration of empathy and partiality gestures toward something definitive of our moral experience with the need to avail ourselves of the politically efficacious language of rights.     

Finding a “Lower,Deeper Power” for Women in Recovery

For decades people have accommodated and adjusted to the direction prescribed by recovery programs. The dominant admonition of recovery programs to find a “higher power” may be appropriate and helpful to many people, but some are beginning to question this direction for their own individuation processes. Through the use of the ancient Greek myths of Persephone, Psyche, Orpheus/Eurydice, and the ancient Mesopotamian myth of Inanna, readers will be taken in the direction of the underworld to experience an alternative heroic journey motif in search of a “lower, deeper power.”     

Marital aggression and child peer competence: A comparison of three conceptual models

This study examined longitudinal data linking marital aggression with child peer competence in kindergarten. The study compared 3 conceptual models for understanding the relation between marital aggression and child peer competence. Model 1 examines the direct effects of marital aggression, parental alcoholism, and parenting on child peer competence; Model 2 posits that this relation is mediated by child social problem‐solving abilities (social information processing theory); whereas Model 3 proposes that the relation is mediated by parental warmth/ sensitivity (spillover theory). Structural equation modeling was most supportive of Models 1 and 3, indicating that parenting behavior, but not social problem solving, partially mediates the relation between marital conflict and child peer competence.     

Affirmative Action and the Doctrine of Double Effect

ABSTRACT  This article attempts to show that affirmative action can be supported by the doctrine of double effect which recognises distinctions between desired and unintended effects such that the responsibility for acts falls on the side of the former rather than the latter. With this doctrine it may also be seen why affirmative action programmes cannot be simply equated with numerical quota systems, nor can they be called discriminatory, at least not under the definition of discrimination utilised.