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Children

Do your parents have the right to impose their worldview on you, simply because they paid for your upbringing and education? What if their worldview and values offend you deeply - do you owe them anything more than you would to anyone else who had offended you, simply because they may have sacrificed financially for you, when you were a child and had no identity that could clash with theirs?
Accepted:
January 2, 2009

Comments

Oliver Leaman
January 9, 2009 (changed January 9, 2009) Permalink

It depends what is meant by "impose". Parents are entitled to provide what they think is appropriate guidance for their children, and of course if these views are regarded as dangerous or deplorable by the state then there will be some official way of intervening despite the wishes of the parents, and that is appropriate. Children may come to feel that their parents' views are not ones they wish to assume, and I dare say that they owe their parents a duty of respect, so they should take seriously the option of adopting those views, but they are not bound to do so. Surely no-one has the right to impose views on us; in most religions even God invites us to share his worldview, he does not oblige us to agree with him.

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