Abstract
The nature of parents’ relationships to their children and what is entailed by those connections have always raised moral and legal questions. Procreation, Parenthood, and Education Rights answers these queries using a liberal framework. Although there is no general consensus as to what liberalism is, it seems to be a position favoring strong, individual rights – whether negative or positive – autonomy, freedom from undue government or social group influence, and equality of opportunity (see Curren, 2006). The liberal focus for parental–child relationships, hence, is on whether there are parental rights or child rights, how they are grounded, what these rights are specifically and how they function, and what the relevant rights tell us about what we should do and be.
Michael Cholbi’s chapter, for instance, provides one of the field’s most interesting arguments on how to ground parental rights. Adopting the claim by David Benatar (2008) that all procreation illicitly harms the procreated because the latter have their wills/potentials/horizons encumbered without their permission, Cholbi states, If procreation is a wrongful encumbering, then procreators have an obligation to compensate their offspring for the wrong. The general obligation is in turn the source of other more specific parental obligations, as well as of parental rights. (pp. 17–18)
If this view is correct, then parents who bring their children into existence in worse circumstances than others would have more compensation obligations and, possibly, additional parental rights. The result, it appears, is that more vulnerable parents with more vulnerable children in more vulnerable circumstances would have more rights and duties than those parents with the resources to provide more opportunities for their offspring. We then begin to wonder whether sufficiently vulnerable parents should have children, merely on the grounds that the former cannot fulfill their compensatory parental duties. Moreover, to avoid doing unnecessary wrong – which every person is required to do – perhaps no one should have children, since bringing any child into existence is automatically a wrong done to her or him.
Additional contributions strongly argue for intriguing conclusions but also serve – as all good pieces do – to raise further questions. Samantha Brennan and Colin Macleod argue that religious lose their moral right to parent if their homophobic beliefs lead them to abuse their non-heterosexual children. In another chapter, Jaime Ahlberg contends that those who would intentionally create ‘disabled’ children have an obligation to pay for any additional educational costs. Each of the two arguments presented is plausible, but one begins to wonder if they would work for other groups, perhaps with less desirable conclusions.
Christina Overall’s examination of the claim by Hugh LaFollette (1980) that all parents should be licensed is slightly flawed but offers a much-appreciated perspective on what parental relationships are. First, the flaw: It is never quite clear that the experience of pregnancy is always a sufficient alternative to licensing requirements. More interesting, by focusing on the actual experience, Overall shows us why a strong emotional parental relationship or bond develops. Perhaps that relationship or bond is the key to adequately understanding what parents should do and be, and why.
Finally, all anthology editors have the hard task of weaving a connecting thread through sometime disparate offerings to make a coherent whole. Jaime Ahlberg and Michael Cholbi perform this essential task with their thoughtful introduction, breaking their anthology into four broad sections: Procreation and the Sources of Parental Rights and Obligations, Choosing Our Children, Parental Rights in a Liberal Society, and The Aims and Limits of Parenting. Each, of course, could be a volume or two on its own, but taken together the chapters give a generally clear snapshot into specifics, including Russell DiSilvestro’s argument that parents own their children because the latter are composed of the former’s constituent physical parts, which are also owned by the parents.
As stated above, interesting papers raise additional interesting questions. Do moral rights exist, or are they ‘nonsense on stilts’ (as Bentham claimed)? Do they serve, as ‘intuition’ does, to mask a deficiency of argument? Can we achieve desired outcomes without using rights? Are parental rights a subset of the right to privacy? If parental rights exist in their own right, then what are they and how do they function? K. Lindsey Chambers’ and Roger Marples’ articles, for instance, adopt limited parental rights, whereas other contributors have a more expansive view. Marples’ and Chambers’ nuanced positions would not be prone to the same objections the others encounter, but are they enough to do the work that those supporting strong parental rights want such rights to do? To answer these and other questions, the volume would have benefited from some thoughtful interaction between the various contributors.
The book’s underlying assumptions and framework also raise a concern. If many of the authors are correct, what do their arguments entail for the world’s less affluent? Given that moral rights are universal and equal, what should we think about those who have difficulty meeting Maslow’s hierarchy of needs? Do parental rights remain negative in the face of such needs?
Notwithstanding the questions above, this book is a solid addition to the procreation, parenthood, and philosophy of education literature in three ways. First, readers encounter a broad range of issues and ways to resolve them. Second, the moral problems addressed, while perennial, are growing more complicated with biotechnology enabling greater ability to design children. Finally, the essays build upon foundations laid by David Benatar (2008), Joel Feinberg (1980), Hugh LaFollette (1980), and Derek Parfit (1986) in the area. Overall, it is a fine piece of work.