Sustainable practices are commended to us both out of prudential regard for our own future and out of principled concern for the ‘right to life’ of endangered species, ecosystems and ways of life and for intergenerational justice among our own kind. The larger point of the ‘sustainability ethic’ might be more political, however. Insisting that any practice we adopt now must be sustainable into the indefinite future constitutes an institutional check preventing us from taking unfair advantage of our privileged temporal (...) position vis‐a‐vis our successors. (shrink)

Craniotomy as a surgical procedure used in the delivery of a fetus is subject to various moral judgments, some positive and some negative. This article gives consideration to two arguments offered for the moral legitimacy of the craniotomy. Each argument is closely examined and each is found to be flawed and hence inconclusive.