Parents are obliged to care for their children for the basic reason that the owner of a sailboat cannot simply leave a passenger swimming in the middle of the ocean."
-- Diana Hsieh contra Murray Rothbard on children's rights [hat tip Gus Van Horn]
-- Diana Hsieh contra Murray Rothbard on children's rights [hat tip Gus Van Horn]
22 comments:
Children have the right to be cared for.
Unless, of course, you don't want the passenger and in that case you can tear them limb from limb and throw them overboard.
@Reed: Seems to me you're confusing your passenger and a bucket of chum.
Note to Reed: Must do better.
I think Rothbard got that one (the ethics of parenthood) dead wrong. If parents have children, there is an implicit responsibility to care for them until they can fend for themselves independently. Until then, parents hold the rights of their children in trust. With this trusteeship comes the responsibility to clothe, feed, educate them, etc. Any reasonable force used - not assault, but protective/defensive force - in this process can be justified.
Rothbard misses by a mile here. I wonder if he had any experience raising or looking after children.
RMcG: He misses by a mile because he holds the non-initiation of force principle as an axiom, which it's not, leading him (amongst many other absurdities) to that same absurdity that Brian Scurfield peddles here so regularly: i.e., that looking after your children responsibly means you're coercing them.
Just another example of how bad ideas make smart people go wrong.
"With this trusteeship comes the responsibility to clothe, feed, educate them, etc."
How does this moral responsibility which I agree with, apply practically as a legal responsibility? What is the role of the state on this matter?
@ Daniel Bell: It's a moral *and* legal responsibility.
Daniel (Bell): The state's role is to uphold and defend the individual rights of all citizens, including children. This role includes stepping in where a child's parents prove incapable of providing due care and attention (i.e. when parents fail to act as proper caretakers of that child's rights). I accept that may mean having to remove children from the custody of delinquent or abusive parents.
As usual, Objectivists get it wrong...
Thanks Richard, that's what I wanted clarified.
@PC: Chum or passengers?
http://www.circleofprayer.com/abortionposter4.jpg
http://iwka.files.wordpress.com/2008/09/abortion_22_weeks01.jpg
@Reed: Astonishing. You really don't know the difference between a bucket of chum and a human being.
I think religion must have addled your brain.
This is easy to deal with. If the parents don't want the child, then they adopt it out- give it to someone who does want the child. No force necessary.
LGM
PC,
I hold that looking after your children responsibly means *you're not* coercing them. Why is that so hard to understand?
For your information, I do not hold the non-initiation of force principle as an axiom. I agree, it's not.
Richard,
I agree that your choice to raise children comes with moral obligations. You seem to think, however, that those moral obligations justify any reasonable force against your children. They don't (nor can they). On the contrary, your choice to raise children carries with it the moral obligation not to coerce them.
This moral obligation means that you should not force your child to enact one idea while a different idea is active in their mind. Disregarding this obligation is damaging in all kinds of ways: for one thing, it leads to adults who submit to and do not question authority. For another thing, it impairs the growth of knowledge within the child's mind because the child is not truly in control of their own mind.
This does not mean - and I raise this as PC has mischaracterised my view on this - that you can't argue with your children and disagree with them and point out where you think they are wrong. It doesn't mean you can't persuade them, or introduce them to new ideas. None of those constitute coercion under my definition.
@Brian Scurfield: "PC has mischaracterised my view on this...
Brian, based on previous comments you appear to think that parents choosing education for their child constitutes coercion.
I'll allow readers to judge that absurdity for themselves.
PC,
Education does not have to be involuntary or coercive. In any way. I'll leave it to readers to judge how absurd it is for a libertarian to think that it has to be.
Brian Scurfield said:
"This moral obligation means that you should not force your child to enact one idea while a different idea is active in their mind."
So, forcing a child to step back from an imminent collision with a car is immoral? The child should instead be permitted to enact the idea of crossing the road and perhaps learn from his mistake, if he survives?
Or a child playing with matches and petrol should be watched from a respectful distance by the parents, and later on they can all learn about acute burns management, excruciating pain, skin grafts and disfigurement?
What you are saying about non-intervention applies to adults interacting with other adults, Brian. Rothbard, similarly, failed to make the distinction between independent adults and dependent children.
Children's rights are delegated to their adult guardians until such time as they can assume the rights and responsibilities of adulthood. And there's the catch, Brian - children are, almost by definition, unable to assume adult responsibilities.
A 14 year old who is intellectually able to grasp and take on adult functions should be permitted a degree of independence. Once children have assumed the heavy mantle of individual responsibility, they are adults.
Brian Schurfield said: "This moral obligation means that you should not force your child to enact one idea while a different idea is active in their mind"
Hmmmm.....I'll keep that in mind next time my 1 year old tries to take a nose dive into a bathful of water.
Richard,
Acting to save a child's life, or anybody's life, is not inconsistent with principles of freedom or my definition of coercion. You would act to save an adult who was about to be run over. Right? The child does not want to die. Right? The child just wants to learn about roads and traffic. So letting your child unintentionally die is wrong. If your child wants to learn about crossing roads, then it is up to you to help them and find safe ways for them to do so. But telling them that crossing roads is too dangerous and sending them to their room for even making the suggestion is coercion under my definition and wrong.
You talk about rights being held in trust by their adult guardians. Children are the target of all sorts of arbitrary and wanton coercion by adults and they, of all people, are least able to defend themselves against it. Using some argument to say that this is not harmful to them or somehow justified because their rights are "held in trust" is wrong. Like most libertarians, it would seem that you are unwilling to offer even the least of the fruits of the tree of liberty to your children. I find that attitude repugnant.
Brian,
I notice you've ignored my real-life example that illustrates how absurd your principle is. My 1 year old has a thing for water. He likes to try and climb into the bath-tub. If I let him, he would drown. He is not at age where he can be "educated". All he can understand is that water is interesting, and that Dad is stopping him doing what he wants. According to your principles, not letting him drown is immoral?!
Now I'm all for the idea that kids, as much as possible, should be left to learn from consequences of their actions, rather than being forced by their parents. But the key part is 'where possible', and it's not always possible. As Richard has explained, the older they get, their capacity to make better decisions improves, and so should their rights commensurate with that.
You obviously don't have kids, cos if you did you would have been forced to come to this conclusion by yourself - or alternatively they wouldn't stay alive for long.
Your principles are an interesting variant of the saying that 'those who who believe absurdities, commit atrocities'. And your protestations to the contrary, it's clear that you *do* hold the non-initiation of force principle (or some variant of it) as a religious-like axiom.
Mark,
Please see my reply to Richard re. the child crossing the road. As I said there, your child wants to live right? Your child has a desire to not die unintentionally? Your child also wants to explore water. These are not incommensurate. Helping your child avoid unintentional death while also exploring water is not coercion.
The substantive issue here is that children are subject to massive amounts of routine coercion from adults and this has a horrible impact on their lives. Furthermore, force is not an aid to education: it is a severe impediment. The right not to be coerced is not something that you take on as an adult; it is a right that extends to all human beings. All. How can you expect your children to sing the praises of liberty when liberty was not extended to them?
I don't agree at all that children *should be left* to learn from the consequences of their actions. That is a type of parenting I don't advocate. Help your children if they want help and explain things to them.
I keep my private life private and don't divulge things about my family that they don't want divulged. I will say that I practise what I preach and I have met adults raised with the explicit recognition that force and coercion against children is wrong (these people are very much libertarians).
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