SUBJECTIVITY, JUDGMENT, AND THE BASING RELATIONSHIP

Moral and legal judgments sometimes depend on personal traits in this sense: the subject offers good reasons for her judgment, but if she had a different social or ideological background, her judgment would be different. If you would judge the constitutionality of restrictions on abortion differently if you were not a secular liberal, is your judgment really based on the arguments you find convincing, or do you find them so only because you are a secular liberal? I argue that a judgment can be based on the considerations the subject claims as justification even when it depends on personal traits.     

IS THERE A RIGHT TO PRIVACY?

It is widely held that there is a legal right to privacy that plays such a central role in a number of important US Supreme Court decisions. There is however a great deal of dispute about whether there is a moral right to privacy and if there is, what grounds the right. Before this can be determined, we must be clear about the nature of privacy, something that is not clearly understood and that, as we shall see, is often confused with the right to privacy. I shall begin with a critical discussion of various views about the nature of privacy. I shall then present my own account, and show how it meets the objections that have been raised against other views. Lastly, I shall close with a discussion about whether privacy is a moral right.     

THE OBLIGATION TO GIVE: A REPLY TO TANNER1

Divine giving, Kathryn Tanner suggests in her recent Jesus, Humanity and the Trinity, generates an obligation to give to the needy. This duty, she argues, is a duty to those in need, but not to God. This essay compares Tanner's proposal for the structure of human obligation with two other theological models, and suggests a revised version of her analysis. The obligation to give is reconceived as an obligation to God and self, as well as the needy neighbor. This account removes such charitable giving from the realm of purely supererogatory acts, but does not thereby eclipse the appropriateness of gratitude on the part of the recipient.