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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 January 2010
I attempt in this paper to do two things: to offer some comments about recent discussions of the suggested institutionalization of surrogacy agreements; and in doing so, to draw attention to a range of considerations which liberals tend to omit from their moral assessments. The main link between these concerns is the idea that what people want is a fundamental justification (other things being equal, of course) for their getting it. I believe that this idea is profoundly mistaken; yet it is an inevitable consequence of a liberal notion of the individual and liberals' extremely limited conception of harm. My intention, then, is to illustrate how unease about a concrete problem—whether or not surrogacy agreements should be institutionalized—might interact with dissatisfaction about liberal individualism to make clearer what the unease consists in and to suggest why liberal individualism is inadequate as a basis for moral philosophy.
1 Honderich, (1982).Google Scholar
2 Honderich, (1982) 504.Google Scholar
3 Devlin, (1959).Google Scholar
4 Two excellent discussions of this sort of point are Brown, (1981)Google Scholar and Mendus, (1985a).Google Scholar I return to the idea of exemplification on p. 197 below.
5 Brown, (1981) 13.Google Scholar
6 For an excellent treatment of the power of naming and related issues, see Spender, (1980)Google Scholar, esp. Chs 5 and 6; see also Assiter, (1983)Google Scholar, Shortland, and Fauvel, (1983)Google Scholar, Cameron, (1984)Google Scholar, and Beezer, (1984).Google Scholar
7 For example, the confusions set off by something like this: ‘Prostitution, I suggested, is essentially degrading. It is impossible to imagine a genuine case of prostitution which is not degrading to some extent, even though it may, all things considered, be morally admirable (as with the resistance worker who sets up as a prostitute in order to gain valuable information from soldiers and officials of the occupying power). Surrogacy, I submit, is not essentially degrading’ (Lockwood, (1985) 182´3)Google Scholar. A good corrective is Coward, (1982).Google Scholar
8 Page adds in a footnote: ‘Other terms are sometimes used. For example, Singer, Peter and Wells, Deane (1984)Google Scholar say “full” surrogacy where I say “gestatory” surrogacy and partial surrogacy for what below I shall call “genetic” surrogacy. The terms I propose are clearer and more precise than those proposed by Singer and Wells’ (Page, (1985) 171Google Scholar, n. 2; see also Page, (1986)Google Scholar for a development of his views).
9 Page, (1985) 163, 162.Google Scholar
10 As stated in conversation.
11 ‘Surrogacy tends to be treated as a form of adoption because to achieve its aim, under existing laws and modes of thought, the commissioning couple must hope to be able to adopt the child from its legal mother, the surrogate mother, after it is born. The surrogacy agreement, or contract, inevitably appears to be aimed at committing the surrogate mother to giving up her child for adoption at birth or soon after. Clearly the agreement runs contrary to the rules for adoption. However, if we had laws that recognized agreements whereby before conception a woman donates her egg, or embryo, in utero the embryo would belong to the commissioning couple from the outset and the resulting child would be theirs. At no point then would there be a question of transferring the child’ (Page, (1985) 170).Google Scholar For the Warnock view, see Warnock, (1985)Google Scholar 6.8, 7.6, 8.18, 8.19; and compare the ‘Expression of Dissent A: Surrogacy’ (pp. 87´9).Google Scholar
12 Page, (1985) 161.Google Scholar
13 Page insists (in conversation) that the question of money be not brought in until the basic issues have been sorted out, so as to avoid prejudging the issue.
14 Page, 's (1986)Google Scholar arguments against Warnock are decisive here.
15 Mill, (1962) 184, 207.Google Scholar
16 As is pointed out by Hare, (1978/1979).Google Scholar
17 Mill, (1962) 236.Google Scholar
18 Thompson, (1971/1972).Google Scholar The point was put to me by Edgar Page.
19 I discuss this in Brecher (forthcoming).
20 Some have suggested that surrogacy be encouraged as a means of widening the range of those who can have children, to include lesbians, single parents, and so on, in order thus to reduce the power of the nuclear family structure as the sole context for children ‘ideally’ to grow up in. The balance of expectations underlying this difference needs to be explored, and should constitute an important part of the debate.
21 I am particularly grateful to Edgar Page and Roger Crisp for our conversations about surrogacy, and for their comments on earlier drafts; and to David Evans for his helpful editorial advice.