pdf with slides and notes from lecture 4

1. Slide 1
Social Change in Late Modernity
Choice | Freedom |Duty

2. Slide 2
BABIES
Is the free market fair? Does it:
• maximise welfare?
• respect freedom?
• cultivate the good life?
The test case: Baby M’’.

3. Slide 3
Contracts must be upheld
because they respect
individual liberty
Free and voluntary?
A deal is a deal Informed consent?
Commodities to buy
and sell?
Contracts must be upheld
because if both parties
agree to the deal it must
realise the utility principle Human value?
Free markets rests on two claims:
1. libertarian claim – letting people engage in voluntary exchanges respects their freedom
2. utilitarian argument for free markets – free markets promote the general welfare. When
two people make a deal, both gain – as long as the deal doesn’t hurt anyone else it must
increase general utility.
Two arguments against this:
1. market choices are not always as free as they might seem
2. certain goods are degraded/corrupted if bought and sold for money.

4. Slide 4
•Technological changes have broken the traditional ‘supply chain’ of conception/birth.
•New surrogacy brokers have entered the market
•Global markets have increased their reach
Two questions:
• Is ‘free choice’ still applicable?
• Are women’s bodies being degraded as a result of the global spread of surrogacy?
The video on the following slide shows the implications of the global growth of surrogacy
and allows you to reflect on those questions.

5. Slide 5
No more than reasonable expenses must have been paid, unless authorised by the court.
What constitutes reasonable expenses depends on the facts of each particular case and
although in practice the courts have shown a reasonably broad-brush approach, great
care needs to be taken.
http://www.surrogacyuk.org/whatissurrogacyc.html
What role should legislation play?
•Is it the state’s role to legislate on moral issues?
•If it is, what are the criteria that should be applied?

6. Slide 6
Do you believe in universal human rights?
If you do, how do you defend article 1 of the Unversal Declaration of Human Rights?
•From a utilitarian position?
•From a libertarian position?
•From an appeal to God?
•Or from an appeal to Duty?
The next video explores the idea of free choice – what does it really mean in a market
economy?

7. Slide 7

8. Slide 8
Instead of saying that the supreme principle of morality comes from God, Kant argues that it
is a consequence of:
• Our rationality
• Our autonomy

9. Slide 9
Obeying your thirst is not making a decision to do something that you have decided. It’s not
freedom.
How do we move beyond appetites?
Autonomy V Heteronomy
Kant's deontological approach:
• The moral worth of an action consists not in the consequences that flow from it,
but in the intention from which the act is done.
• Motives matter – do the right thing for the right reason

10. Slide 10
Guillermo Fariñas hunger strike in 2010 – an example of doing the right thing for the right
reason?

11. Slide 11