Freedom and Fulfillment

Dealing with a diverse set of problems in practical and theoretical ethics, these fourteen essays, three of them previously unpublished, reconfirm Joel Feinberg's leading position in the field of legal philosophy. With a clarity and humor that will be familiar to readers of his other works, Feinberg writes on topics including "e;wrongful life"e; suits in the law of torts, or whether there is any sense in the remark that a person is so badly off that he would be better off not existing at all; the morality of abortion; educational options; free expression; civil disobedience; and the duty of easy rescue in criminal law. He continues with a three-part defense of moral rights in the abstract, a discussion of voluntary euthanasia, and an inquiry into arguments of various kinds for not granting legal rights in enforcement of a person's acknowledged moral rights. This collection concludes with two essays dealing with concepts used in appraising the whole of a person's life: absurdity and self-fulfillment, and their interplay.