The family is hotly contested ideological terrain. Some defend the traditional two-parent heterosexual family while others welcome its demise. Opinions vary about how much control parents should have over their children's upbringing. Family Values provides a major new theoretical account of the morality and politics of the family, telling us why the family is valuable, who has the right to parent, and what rights parents should—and should not—have over their children. Harry Brighouse and Adam (...) Swift argue that parent-child relationships produce the "familial relationship goods" that people need to flourish. Children's healthy development depends on intimate relationships with authoritative adults, while the distinctive joys and challenges of parenting are part of a fulfilling life for adults. Yet the relationships that make these goods possible have little to do with biology, and do not require the extensive rights that parents currently enjoy. Challenging some of our most commonly held beliefs about the family, Brighouse and Swift explain why a child's interest in autonomy severely limits parents' right to shape their children's values, and why parents have no fundamental right to confer wealth or advantage on their children. Family Values reaffirms the vital importance of the family as a social institution while challenging its role in the reproduction of social inequality and carefully balancing the interests of parents and children. (shrink)

So-called family values and their part in education are considered. ‘Traditional’‘modern’ and ‘deviant’ patterns of family relationships are discussed and the moral superiority of the first is questioned. The single life without family involvement is also proposed as a possibly fulfilling mode of existence in its own right.

Family Values shows how the various contradictions at the heart of Western conceptions of maternity and paternity problematize our relationships with ourselves and with others. Using philosophical texts, psychoanalytic theory, studies in biology and popular culture, Kelly Oliver challenges our traditional concepts of maternity which are associated with nature, and our conceptions of paternity which are embedded in culture. Oliver's intervention calls into question the traditional image of the oppositional relationship between nature and culture, maternal and paternal. (...) class='Hi'>Family Values also undercuts recent returns to the rhetoric of a "battle between the sexes" by analyzing the conceptual basis of these descriptions in biological research and the presuppositions of such suggestions in philosophy and psychoanalysis. By developing a reconception of maternity and paternity, Family Values offers hope for peace in the battle of the sexes. (shrink)

The apocalyptic character of the church's life definitively shapes Paul's language about households and kinship relations. God's adoption of Christians into this new household of faith disrupts and reorganizes existing family relationships.

종래 가족에 대한 연구는 현상의 분석과 실태를 파악하는 것이 주류를 이루어왔다. 그렇지만 이러한 연구수준에서는 가족의 정체성을 확립하고 그 방향성을 제시하기가 쉽지않다. 바로 이러한 문제의식에서 출발하여 우리는 유교의 가족관을 통해 가족의 정체성을 확립하고, 미래적 비전을 모색해보고자 하였다. 유교의 모든 실천윤리는 가족에서 출발한다. 그러한 면에서 가족은 유교사회의 중심 지위를 차지한다. 유교에 있어서 가족은 ‘도덕적 공동체’이고, 가족의 구성원들은 ‘관계적 자아’로 이해된다. 그러므로 유교에 있어서 가족의 존재 의의 또한 도덕적 행위를 실천하고 보급하는 데에서 찾을 수 있다. 유교에서는 가족 구성원들이 갖는 ‘관계’ 의식을 중요하게 생각하고, (...) 이러한 의식을 사회나 국가로 확대해 나간다. 우리는 이러한 유교의 가족관에서 인간 소외의 극복과 ‘관계적’ 인성 형성의 긍정적 가능성을 강하게 엿볼 수 있다. 물론 유교의 가족관 안에도 전통시대의 부정적 문화가 잔존해 있고 현대사회에 적용하기에 많은 문제점이 내재해 있지만, 미래지향적인 탈현대의 이념적 가치는 충분히 주목할 만하다. (shrink)

One key element distinguishing family firms from non-family firms is the role of the family’s religious beliefs, with growing attention on understanding the fit between religion and family in shaping a business’s ethical conduct. A family firm’s behavior is embedded in an institutional context, and it is important to understand how multiple institutional logic shapes a family firm’s values and ethical behavior. While scholars agree on the central significance of family values (...) and religion in shaping family firms’ values and ethical behavior, a definitive consensus on the influence of family values and religion in confronting ethical challenges and shaping ethical behavior has yet to be reached. We lack a theory explaining how family, family business, and religion shape a family firm’s ethical conduct. We conducted a qualitative study to investigate the role of family values and religion in shaping a family firm’s ethical conduct. The results reveal four themes, namely (a) ethical challenges faced by family firms, (b) family values shaping ethical behavior, (c) religion providing a rationale for family firms’ ethical decision-making, and (d) outcomes of ethical decision-making. The principal contribution of our study is clarifying the role of multiple institutional logics in the form of religion and family in explaining ethical behavior. Our findings suggest that the fit between religion, family, and business as an institution guides decision-making, helps family businesses earn a positive reputation in the community by displaying ethical behavior, and develops a positive workplace climate. (shrink)

This volume assesses the argument of Harry Brighouse and Adam Swift in their recent book, Family Values, taking up a number of controversial issues about autonomy, human flourishing, parental rights, and indeed the nature of childhood itself.

Contemporary American social and political discourses have integrated concerns about family values into the realm of debates about the associational life of social capital. In these discussions, theoretical and historical confusions about the relations between family and civil society run rampant. In this article, I first bring theoretical clarity to these social structures and the type of relations upon which they are predicated and, second, briefly historicize the relationships between an American idea of family and civil (...) society. By tracing changes in popular understandings of family and civil society, I demonstrate that the modern family values movement spurns its Victorian roots by maintaining the nostalgic language for a life and family of old built around a Christian home, while embracing means and institutions, and even more importantly, a form of family, which belies the nostalgia. The family has now become an institution or association which can be sustained through instrumental interventions; it is no longer to do with the organic relations of sentiment remaining from some long-faded Gemeinschaft. The family and the Christian home ideal, which were at the center of American critiques of modernization, have ceased to be. (shrink)

The purpose of the study is to determine the compliance of the legislative interpretation of the concept of "traditional family values" with the cultural codes of legal consciousness that have developed to the current moment. In connection with this goal, the article examines the types of modern Russian family, taking into account the peculiarities of the mentality, cultural and religious traditions of the peoples of our country, analyzes the content of the norms of the Basic Law, as (...) well as other legislative acts of the Russian Federation. The scientific novelty lies in the application of the methodological tools of legal hermeneutics to determine the content of the concept of "traditional family values" and substantiate the conclusion that the transfer of this concept from broad social contacts to the field of professional legal thinking occurs in accordance with the formed cultural code. As a result of the analysis, the duality of the corresponding cultural code of legal consciousness is revealed. (shrink)

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and queer family-making has exploded in many western nations in the past few decades in the midst of growing social acceptance and legal recognition of queer families, as well as increasing options for same-sex reproduction.1 Philosophers and bioethicists have perhaps been late in taking up these issues compared to scholars in other fields concerned with politics, justice, and cultural criticism. And where philosophers and bioethics have taken up these topics, often the moral issues at stake are (...) framed in a manner that implicitly or explicitly holds heterosexual reproduction through intercourse in a committed relationship to be the normal, natural, and morally unquestioned... (shrink)

Many discussions of love and the family treat issues of justice as something alien. On this view, concerns about whether one's family is internally just are in tension with the modes of interaction that are characteristic of loving families. In this essay, we challenge this widespread view. We argue that once justice becomes a shared family concern, its pursuit is compatible with loving familial relations. We examine four arguments for the thesis that a concern with justice is (...) not at home within a loving family, and we explain why these arguments fail. We develop and defend an alternative conception of the justice-oriented loving family, arguing that justice can—and, for the sake of justice, should—be seen as a family value. (shrink)

This paper provides a critical commentary on the claim advanced by Harry Brighouse and Adam Swift in their book Family Values: The Ethics of Parent–Child Relationships that there is an ineliminable conflict between relationship goods and fair equality of opportunity. I argue there need be no conflict between family values and equality of opportunity in a suitably non-hierarchical society. I also argue that the idea that equality of opportunity might be served by abolishing the family (...) is mistaken. Egalitarian justice does not provide an obstacle to the realization of family values. (shrink)

Proceedings of a forum held in Austin, Tex., on Mother's Day, 1996.

Alain Locke, an often neglected classical American Pragmatist, developed a pluralistic value theory as an antidote to the "value absolutism" he considered the root cause of social conflict. Values, for Locke, are not immutable features of a transcendent reality, but rather emerge from human functional attitudes, or what he calls "feeling-modes." However incommensurable the contextualized values of diverse cultures may appear, they can always be traced back to common modes of valuing. Recognizing the common character of our human (...) faculty of valuation allows us to see a basic functional equivalence among superficially conflicting values, thus undermining value absolutism. This paper suggests that one reason the debate over same-sex marriage in the United States has persisted is that the arguments have been advanced primarily in absolute value terms. Re-casting the debate in terms of a Lockean pluralistic value dialogue suggests a path out of the stalemate. (shrink)

It has been argued that patrilineal joint family systems tend to bias family planning decisions in favour of sons. A simple model suggests that in such societies, any given son will be more highly valued by his parents (1) the fewer his brothers and (2) the earlier his birth is in the brother series. A daughter's value will be greater (1) the fewer brothers she has and (2) the earlier her birth is relative to other sisters. This study (...) first addresses the extent of son preference as inferred from family composition data for 772 Taiwanese first-graders born in the mid-1970s in two socioeconomically distinct communities in Taipei, Taiwan. It then uses linear regression to consider whether the model criteria help account for statural variation among children in each study area when controlling for differences in measurement age, parental education and housing. With respect to family composition and gender preference, available evidence was consistent with previous surveys. While better-educated parents in the more affluent study area had significantly fewer children (p<0·0005) and were more willing to stop without a son, girls there, as in the less affluent area, were still significantly more likely than boys to belong to large sibships (p[less-than-or-equal]0·005). Evidence from mean height of males and females partially accords with hypothetical predictions. In the less affluent area, the interaction effect of male birth order and the presence of younger siblings was significantly associated with mean stature (p=0·002). Males without brothers were 2·0 cm taller than males with either an older or a younger brother (116·3 ± 0·5 cm vs 114·3 ± 0·4 cm). Males who had both younger and older brothers, but often no sisters, were about as tall, however, as those without brothers. A similar, but less pronounced, pattern was found amoung males in the more affluent area, but only among those who had sisters. These boys were also consistently shorter than boys without sisters (115·6 ± 0·6 cm vs 117·7 ± 0·6 cm; p=0·001). Patterns of mean female stature did not clearly support the hypothesis. Girls in the more affluent area were relatively tall and did not show significant variation. Results among less affluent girls showed significant contrasts, but not necessarily in the predicted direction. (shrink)

FEW PHILOSOPHERS, NONE APPROACHING HIS STATURE, would agree with Hegel’s claim that we have an ethical duty to marry. More commonly, philosophers sanction marriage as ethically permissible, as Kant does, or even, at least in recent years, reject marriage as ethically illegitimate. Hegel’s view reflects his understanding of the family as a moral institution, that is, an institution in which mere participation is a moral act and, therefore, obligatory. The notion that the family is or, at least, is (...) supposed to be moral has become so deeply ingrained that it may sound perverse to suppose that its morality needs any sort of justification; on the other hand, it is difficult to understand why marriage and family should be obligatory. The first aim of this paper is to answer the question, why does Hegel think that marriage is a moral institution that we have a duty to enter? The issue here is not how to recover or preserve “family values” but why the family has any value at all morally. To refine the issue, I will contrast Hegel’s approach with that of someone who, surprisingly, denies the intrinsic moral value of the family, Aristotle. (shrink)

In the collectivist culture of India, family occupies a central place in organizing social and personal lives of the people. However, the forces of industrialization and urbanization are changing the life style and leading to reprioritization of values. Against this backdrop this study examined the pattern of actual and desired family values in the context of ecology, family type and generation. The sample ( n = 90) was drawn from urban, semi-urban and rural areas in (...) central India representing parent–child pairs belonging to joint and nuclear families. Using an indigenously developed measure of family values the study revealed that ecological setting and generation significantly influenced the family value of positive interaction. The type of family emerged as a significant factor for three major values, that is, social order, manners and helping. The interaction of ecology, family type and generation were significant for the values of social order and helping. In general, the type of family and ecological setting yielded major influence in shaping values. The implications of the findings for parenting are discussed. (shrink)

One of the explanations frequently offered for current social problems is the breakdown of the family as an institution and the decline of values such as trust and responsibility that were until recently associated with it. While the philosophical position of many commentators in this area is rooted in a broadly utilitarian social philosophy, there is a case for an alternative—i.e. non-utilitarian—philosophical point of view. The essential requirement for such an alternative approach is that it accords a place (...) to certain moral absolutes: promises, principles, obligations, and the rights accruing to others as a result of those obligations. Currently procreation, marriage, and family life are being subjected to unprecedented shifts in both meaning and practice, and this is a situation in which a Kantian approach, especially the Kantian dictum that persons should not be treated solely as means to other people's ends, can find new contemporary applications. An unqualified utilitarian spirit has led us into a world where parenthood and child-raising have been split from each other and where money changes hands for the elements of child-making and for the labour of gestation. The pressure for the new constructivist consensus is strong, but so is the case against a trivial or unnecessary extension of choice in procreation and against the increasing commercialisation of human conception. In these circumstances, Kantian ethics has a distinctive role to play in assessing the values at issue in today's ‘new families’ debate. (shrink)

On the 3rd of April, 2023, the Doctor of Philosophy, Larisa Viktorovna Anzhiganova celebrated her anniversary. She is the first and currently the only woman in the region with a degree of the Doctor of Philosophy. Her research interests are related to the study of ethnocultural problems of Khakassia, in particular, the philosophy of ethnos, ethnic culture, interethnic relations, gender studies. Her scientific activity was conducted within the walls of the N. F. Katanov Khakass State University (since 1980), Khakass Research (...) Institute for Language, Literature, and History (1994–1998). It is of particular interest due to the relevance of the topic of the doctoral dissertation “The evolution of the worldview of an ethnic group (by the example of the Khakass people)” (1999, Moscow) and other works that cover the value problems of the ethnic group, including women’s family values. The researcher pays significant attention to the issues of the Khakass’ ethnocultural foundations. An important stage in the development of scientific and organizational activities of L.V. Anzhiganova was the holding of the Interregional Сonference “Ethnic Capital: Resources and Institutional Forms”, which promises to become regular. The philosopher’s ideas played an important role in the formation of the ethnic culture of the Khakass people. (shrink)

Introductory courses dealing with sex, gender and sexuality often assign excerpts from Thomas Aquinas as an exemplar of the naturalist view. Given that most novice students tend to side against such naturalism uncritically, they need to be exposed to a more charitable account of the biological considerations motivating a stance like Aquinas.’ With that in mind, this article presents accessible arguments aimed at restoring deliberative balance in the classroom.

This essay suggests some links between concern about the decline of ‘the family’, or of ‘family values’, the use of reproductive technology, and the claim that some people have children for the ‘wrong reasons’. It is argued that where conceiving and bringing a child to term is a matter of choice, a person must have a reason or reasons for doing so and further, that those reasons are of moral significance. By appealing to Kant's Categorical Imperative: ‘Act (...) in such a way that you always treat humanity … never simply as a means, but always at the same time as an end’, a distinction is made between morally desirable and morally undesirable reasons, on the grounds of the extent to which the parent or parents will be able or likely to treat the child as an end in herself. In conclusion it is argued that whilst ‘the family’is vital to the health of children, and to the health of society, it is not so much the form that the family takes that is significant, but the extent to which it allows for the development and maintainance of a certain sort of relationship. (shrink)

Character and culture describe man both as an active and a passive agent in life. It is by being fashioned by culture that man cultivates character and by the use of this character so acquired that he develops and upgrades his culture; for culture is dynamic, that is elastic; as such there is need for eternal vigilance on the part of man to see his culture evolve and become better at every point in time. This can come about either spontaneously (...) or through an agency; it is the duty of an agency to act upon what is given, required to produce a good result, in our instance to act on Igbo-African family values. This entails a dialogue of man and his milieu, for character grows form a healthy and salutary agent, so knowledge of, belief in and application of values is indeed a precondition. (shrink)

Family values are argued to enable ethical family business conduct. However, how these arise, evolve, and how family leaders articulate them is less understood. Using an ‘identity work’ approach, this paper finds that the values underpinning identity work: arise from multiple sources, evolve in tandem with the context; and, that their articulation is relational and aspirational, rather than merely historical. Prior research mostly understood family values as rooted in the past and relatively stable, (...) but our rhetorical analysis unlocks a more dynamic and promising research direction advancing family business ethics. (shrink)

This article discusses the ethics and drivers of philanthropic foundations in emerging markets. A foundation organizes assets to invest in philanthropic initiatives. Previous scholarship has largely focused on developed countries, especially the United States, and has questioned the ethics behind the activities of foundations, particularly for strategic motives that served wider corporate purposes. We argue that philanthropic foundations in emerging markets have distinctive characteristics that merit separate examination. We scrutinize the ethics behind the longitudinal activity of such foundations using 70 (...) oral history interviews with business leaders in 18 countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East. We find that 55 out of 70 foundations associated with these leaders have been used as vehicles for a specific type of philanthropic ethics defined as “spiritual philanthropy”. These foundations often embodied personal or family traditions, culture, and religious values, which emphasized charitable giving and social responsibility. As in the case of many of the industrial foundations in Europe, these foundations also carried founding family names and provided a structure to maintain family control and enhance corporate reputation. We argue that, as business leaders in emerging markets are more directly exposed to dire social, educational and health deprivation than their counterparts in developed countries, they are less inclined toward grandiose world-making, and their foundations are more focused on delivering immediate benefits to communities in their home countries, motivated by implicit or explicit spirituality. (shrink)

Se reflexiona acerca de los desafíos de la Educación Superior en Cuba a partir de los cambios ocurridos en la sociedad desde la década del 90, así como el reclamo de elevar la calidad de la formación integral de los profesionales como una de las prioridades de este Ministerio. Se destaca el papel que desempeña el proceso de educación en valores mediante la integración del trabajo educativo de todos los factores involucrados y el imperativo de buscar vías que permitan la (...) formación de un estudiante comprometido con el proyecto social cubano. El objetivo del trabajo fue argumentar la importancia de la participación de la familia en el fortalecimiento de valores en la educación superior. Se concluyó que la realización sistemática del Concurso "La familia más creativa" en la Universidad ha permitido una mejor comunicación entre la escuela y la familia que es favorable para fortalecer los valores humanos. The authors reflect upon the Higher Education challenges in Cuba taking as a point of departure the social transformations produced from the 90s on as well as upon the demands of improving the quality of the professors' formation as a priority major of this Ministry. Other points highlighted are the role played by the process of education in values by means of the integration of all the elementsinvolved and the necessity to find ways that lead to the formation of a student whose primary concern is the Cuban Social Project. The aim of this paper was to argue for the importance of family participation to reinforce values in Higher Education. It was concluded that the systematic applicationof "The most creative family" contest at the University has resulted in an improved communication between the school and the family, which favors the strengthening of human values. (shrink)

Patients' wishes regarding health care and dying must be taken into consideration by their physicians. Competent patients need to record directives about their care in advance of a crisis situation. The primary care physician, seeing the patient at the time of a routine office visit, is in a favorable position to explore and record attitudes. A patient's value system should be part of a medical history before hospital admission. Details in a Value History Questionnaire facilitate guiding an incompetent patient through (...) a terminal illness in accordance with wishes previously expressed.An instrument in the form of a questionnaire was designed to record the attitudes of 200 patients regarding health care and dying. Respondents ranged in age from 17 to 84 years, and all were members of one family practice. They reacted positively to the opportunity to record their values, opinions, and wishes about their health care and process of dying. They clearly indicated that, in the absence of prior directives, they would want their families consulted about crucial decisions. (shrink)

This paper analyzes the family business as an organizational entity and as a proprietary form useful to transmit personal values and company assets to the next generations. This paper aims to introduce the legal instruments in Italy to transfer family businesses and to evaluate how these are useful for ensuring not only the survival of the company in the market but also that family values and characteristics pass from one generation to the next maintaining a (...) prosocial humanistic management perspective. The legal status of the family business and the fact that most small- and medium-sized companies in Italy are not listed, which considerably affects disclosure obligations and makes it more challenging to get consistent and reliable information at affordable costs, has to date limited research on this model. In recent years, given their growth in size and market share, the strategic potential of family businesses was recognized by both academics and practitioners, giving rise to further study. A primary goal of a family business is to maintain its competitive advantage in the market and pass down its values in the succession line. Hence, one of the most important themes on which scholars focused has been how this process takes place to ensure continuity. This paper argues that the trust and the family pact are both valid legal instruments to this end, albeit with different advantages depending on the circumstances surrounding the succession. (shrink)

Research indicates that religious values and ethical behavior are closely associated, yet, at a firm level, the processes by which this association occurs are poorly understood. Family firms are known to exhibit values-based behavior, which in turn can lead to specific firm-level outcomes. It is also known that one’s family is an important incubator, enabler, and perpetuator of religious values across successive generations. Our study examines the experiences of a single, multigenerational business family that (...) successfully enacted their religious values in their business. Drawing upon intergenerational solidarity and values-based leadership theory, and by way of an interpretive, qualitative analysis, we find that the family’s religious values enhanced their cohesion and were manifested in their leadership style, which, in turn, led to outcomes for the business. Our findings highlight the processes that underlie the relationship between religious values and organizational outcomes in family firms and offer insights into the role of solidarity in values-based leadership. (shrink)

Evolutionary models of behavior often encounter resistance due to an apparent focus on themes of sex, selfishness, and gender differences. The target article might seem ripe for such criticism. However, life history theory suggests that these themes, and their counterparts, including cooperation, generosity, and gender similarities, represent two sides of the same coin – all are consequences of reproductive trade-offs made throughout development.