Family, ethics and the

7. Conclusion

Each approach may yield reasoned answers to some of the various questions a comprehensive ethics of the family would pose. Whether we should expect any single approach to answer all such questions is debatable, especially in cultures for whom ‘the family’ no longer refers to a single, well-defined and widely-accepted norm. The diversity of families, as well as each family’s complexity, may require a plurality of approaches, perhaps even greater than the six sketched here. What we should hope for, perhaps, is not a systematic ethics of the family, but a conceptually enriched capacity for moral reflection on family matters as they arise in context at different stages of our lives.