ABSTRACT
Walter Lesch (1997) opens his interesting paper with some rather sceptical remarks on the possibility of what he calls with a beautiful expression: an ethics of desire. At least a liberal moral philosophy should, according to his opinion, not be authorised to comment on personal wishes. Therefore he takes another approach, and asks the question of rights: do people have a right to a child of their own? But at the end of his paper it becomes obvious that not only has this rights-based approach its limits, but that it even presupposes a further elucidation of the parents’ desires and the being desired of the future child, in order to assess the relevant rights. We need an ethics of desire. In my comment I would like to discuss – briefly – the relation between liberal moral philosophy and an ethics of desire, and then give two examples of what could be elaborated on in such an ethics of desire.
