Question Do children have duties towards their parents? If they do, do these arise as a result of the parents' efforts on the child's behalf, or are they in some way structurally required, regardless of the parents' "performance"?

Accepted:
January 26, 2011

Comments

Great questions that have vexed many philosophers who have reflected on parenthood and debts of gratitude. Some philosophers (perhaps most famously John Locke) worked historically to limit the control of parents over children. Locke opposed what may be called patriarchalism and a tradition, that goes back at least to Roman times, that a parent (especially a father) could, by virtue of being a parent, exercise tremendous power (in ancient times this included the power of life and death) over the child. This seems to have been built on what you are calling a structual component (you created the child, therefore you have power over him or her) and this could back up claims on the child to demonstrate family loyalty. Behind Plato's dialogue the Euthyphro there is a hint that Socrates himself may have thought that a child should honor his father. (In the dialogue, Socrates challenges a man intent on prosecuting his father.) In any case, I suggest that there may be a prima facie debt of gratitude stemming from the structure of the parent-child relationship, though I also suggest this needs to be hedged in two ways. First, as Locke argued, parents are not the absolute creators of their children. For Locke, as a theist, he thought God is the creator of all, but even if you are not a theist the general point seems reasonable. Human parents can't claim to have created their children ex nihilo (from nothing)! But second, I suspect most of us would conclude that a parent can fail to live up to being a parent. In the case of serious abuse, we might even think that a father or mother has ceased to function as a parent. For example, to use a grotesque example, if a father claims to sexually love his daughter or son, would we say he is demonstrating fatherly love? I think most of us would not. So, I suggest that a parents' performance can undermine any claim a parent might have on a child.

At least two more vexing matters are in the offing: arguments that build on debts of gratitude can be stretched when a good is conferred involuntarily. Children do not (as many of them point out at some point) ask to be born. It is one thing to voluntarily accept a good (say, listening to National Public Radio, here in the USA), and then have a prima facie obligation of gratitude (to help pay for the radio broadcasts, for example), but it is another matter when a good that was not accepted freely. This may not be insurmountable. After all, the gift of life is providing the very basis upon which a person can make any voluntary action at all. Perhaps in the case of such a foundational gift, most of us who are glad to be alive are naturally led to being glad and therefore being grateful that we were born!

Second, if we grant that in the case of good parents, their children do have duties for their parents, how far do these duties extend? I suspect that the way to answer this question would take us into a conversation about love and the good. In a healthy family, there is (or at least I hope there is) love between parent and child and love is best viewed (I suggest) as desiring the good of the beloved. So, if a child loves a parent, she or he will desire the good or flourishing of the parent, and vice versa. This love would then inform just how much one party would desire or request of the other. Presumably, in this terrain, we are entering into deeply personal relations when a philosophical panelist should know when to stop writing!

Question Do children have duties towards their parents? If they do, do these arise as a result of the parents' efforts on the child's behalf, or are they in some way structurally required, regardless of the parents' "performance"? Accepted:January 26, 2011

Question Do children have duties towards their parents? If they do, do these arise as a result of the parents' efforts on the child's behalf, or are they in some way structurally required, regardless of the parents' "performance"?

Accepted:
January 26, 2011