This book examines, through a multi-disciplinary lens, the possibilities offered by relationships and family forms that challenge the nuclear family ideal, and some of the arguments that recommend or disqualify these as legitimate units in our societies. That children should be conceived naturally, born to and raised by their two young, heterosexual, married to each other, genetic parents; that this relationship between parents is also the ideal relationship between romantic or sexual partners; and that romance and sexual intimacy ought to (...) be at the core of our closest personal relationships - all these elements converge towards the ideal of the nuclear family. The authors consider a range of relationship and family structures that depart from this ideal: polyamory and polygamy, single and polyparenting, parenting by gay and lesbian couples, as well as families created through current and prospective modes of assisted human reproduction such as surrogate motherhood, donor insemination, and reproductive cloning. (shrink)

Many philosophers have portrayed Kant as having little of interest or merit to say about personal relationships--especially marriage. I argue that we can glean a compelling ideal of marriage from Kant’s ethical theory if we draw on Kant’s ideal of friendship (and on the formula of humanity, on which that ideal is based). Indeed, Kant himself often compares marriage and friendship, though he says that it is friendship rather than marriage that contains the maximum of reciprocal love balanced with respect. (...) I suggest that we cannot forge this Kantian ideal of marriage, however, without challenging Kant on a number of points. I argue that we must disregard a variety of Kant’s views about women and men, soften Kant’s insistence on both equality and distance between friends, and place more importance on the emotion of love in both friendship and marriage. (shrink)

Argues that married sex is an extreme sexual practice that shows of pornography and other alternatives as second best.

In this paper I provide a philosophical analysis of family-based immigration. This type of immigration is of great importance, yet has received relatively little attention from philosophers and others doing normative work on immigration. As family-based immigration poses significant challenges for those seeking a comprehensive normative account of the limits of discretion that states should have in setting their own immigration policies, it is a topic that must be dealt with if we are to have a comprehensive account. In what (...) follows I use the idea of freedom of association to show what is distinctive about family-based immigration and why it ought to have a privileged place in our discussion of the topic. I further show why this style of argument neither allows states to limit nearly all immigration nor requires them to have almost no limits on immigration. I conclude by showing that all states must allow some degree of family-based immigration, and that this is a duty owed not to ‘outsiders’ seeking to enter, but rather to current citizens. (shrink)