Breastfeeding and defeasible duties to benefit
Breastfeeding and defeasible duties to benefit
For many women experiencing motherhood for the first time, the message they receive is clear: mothers who do not breastfeed ought to have good reasons not to; bottle feeding by choice is a failure of maternal duty. We argue that this pressure to breastfeed arises in part from two misconceptions about maternal duty: confusion about the scope of the duty to benefit and conflation between moral reasons and duties. While mothers have a general duty to benefit, we argue that this does not imply a duty to carry out any particular beneficent act. Therefore, the expectation that mothers should breastfeed unless they have sufficient countervailing reasons not to is morally unwarranted. Recognising the difference between reasons and duties can allow us to discuss the benefits of breastfeeding and the importance of supporting mothers who wish to breastfeed without subjecting mothers who bottle feed to guilt, blame and failure.
breastfeeding, ethics, motherhood, guilt, judgment, defeasible duties
515-518
Woollard, Fiona
c3caccc2-68c9-47c8-b2d3-9735d09f1679
Porter, Lindsey
ac674521-d2af-4325-bee6-4c8b1d93dbe9
1 August 2017
Woollard, Fiona
c3caccc2-68c9-47c8-b2d3-9735d09f1679
Porter, Lindsey
ac674521-d2af-4325-bee6-4c8b1d93dbe9
Abstract
For many women experiencing motherhood for the first time, the message they receive is clear: mothers who do not breastfeed ought to have good reasons not to; bottle feeding by choice is a failure of maternal duty. We argue that this pressure to breastfeed arises in part from two misconceptions about maternal duty: confusion about the scope of the duty to benefit and conflation between moral reasons and duties. While mothers have a general duty to benefit, we argue that this does not imply a duty to carry out any particular beneficent act. Therefore, the expectation that mothers should breastfeed unless they have sufficient countervailing reasons not to is morally unwarranted. Recognising the difference between reasons and duties can allow us to discuss the benefits of breastfeeding and the importance of supporting mothers who wish to breastfeed without subjecting mothers who bottle feed to guilt, blame and failure.
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AuthorsAcceptedVersionbreastfeedingpaperforR&Rfinal
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More information
Accepted/In Press date: 6 January 2017
e-pub ahead of print date: 10 February 2017
Published date: 1 August 2017
Keywords:
breastfeeding, ethics, motherhood, guilt, judgment, defeasible duties
Organisations:
Philosophy
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 411655
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/411655
ISSN: 1473-4257
PURE UUID: 21ed7fa6-ce72-4623-9b88-df8d18bf7168
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Date deposited: 21 Jun 2017 16:33
Last modified: 15 Mar 2024 12:43
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Author:
Lindsey Porter
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