Legitimate Differences: Interpretation in the Abortion Controversy and Other Public Debates

Georgia Warnke

Published by University of California Press 1999

Legitimate Differences

Interpretation in the Abortion Controversy and Other Public Debates

Georgia Warnke

https://doi.org/10.1525/9780520921924

Overview
Contents

About this book

Legitimate Differences challenges the usual portrayal of current debates over thorny social issues including abortion, pornography, affirmative action, and surrogate mothering as moral debates. How can it be said that our debates oppose principles of life to those of liberty, principles of liberty to those of equality, principles of equality to those of fairness, and principles of fairness to those of integrity, when we as Americans share all these principles?

Debates over such issues are not, Georgia Warnke argues, moral debates over which principles we should adopt. Rather, they are interpretive debates over the meanings of principles we already possess. Warnke traces the structure of these debates with reference to the work of Jane Austen, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Jürgen Habermas, and Bernard Williams. In separate chapters on surrogate mothering, affirmative action, abortion, and pornography she articulates new understandings of the meanings of some of our principles and shows the equal legitimacy of some different interpretations of the meanings of others. Finally, she suggests that the orientation of American public policy ought to be directed less at finding single canonical interpretations of our principles than at accommodating different legitimate understandings of them. The perspective offered by Legitimate Differences should have a significantly beneficial effect on public discussions.

Author / Editor information

Warnke Georgia :

Georgia Warnke is Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Riverside. She is the author of Gadamer: Hermeneutics, Tradition, and Reason (1987) and Justice and Interpretation (1993).

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	I
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	VII
Preface and Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	IX
1 . Interpretation and Social Issues Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
2. Surrogate Mothering and the Meaning of Family Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	31
3. Affirmative Action, Neutrality, and Integration Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	56
4. Interpretive Differences and the Abortion Debate Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	82
5. Pornography, Ideology, and Silence Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	107
6. Hermeneutic Debate and Deliberative Democracy Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	134
7. Tradition and Ethical Knowledge Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	159
8. Conclusion Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	182
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	195
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	211

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: University of California Press
Edition: Reprint 2020
Pages
- Main content: 225
Keywords: ethical issues; social issues; sociology; abortion

eBook

Published: December 22, 2023
ISBN: 9780520921924