The Right to be LovedS. Matthew Liao argues here that children have a right to be loved. To do so he investigates questions such as whether children are rightholders; what grounds a child's right to beloved; whether love is an appropriate object of a right; and other philosophical and practical issues. His proposal is that all human beings have rights to the fundamental conditions for pursuing a good life; therefore, as human beings, children have human rights to the fundamental conditions for pursuing a good life. Since being loved is one of those fundamental conditions, children thus have a right to be loved. Liao shows that this claim need not be merely empty rhetoric, and that the arguments for this right can hang together as a coherent whole. This is the first book to make a sustained philosophical case for the right of children to be loved. It makes a unique contribution to the fast-growing literature on family ethics, in particular, on children's rights and parental rights and responsibilities, and to the emerging field of the philosophy of human rights. |
Contents
Introduction | 1 |
1 Can Children Have Rights? | 11 |
2 Human Rights as Fundamental Conditions for a Good Life | 39 |
3 Being Loved as a Fundamental Condition for Children | 74 |
4 The Possibility of a Duty to Love | 101 |
Who Has It and to What Extent? | 131 |
The Problem of Possibly Inadequate Parents | 151 |
7 Children without Adequate Parents and the Duty to Adopt | 179 |
Conclusion | 199 |
Notes | 205 |
| 232 | |
| 248 | |
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Common terms and phrases
able person account of human account of parental account of rightholding adequate parents adopt a child adult anencephalic argued autonomy basic activities basis for moral behavior Bernard Williams biological child biological children Brighouse Capabilities Approach capacities chil child’s children need children’s right claim commandable conditions for pursuing duty to adopt duty to love dwarfism Easy Rescue view Ethics example explain Failure to Thrive Fundamental Conditions Approach fundamental rights genes genetic basis Griffin human beings qua human rights Ibid idea important to human infants instance interests internal James Griffin Joseph Raz L. W. Sumner LaFollette love a child monkeys moral agency account moral status motivated Naturalistic Conception Nussbaum one’s Oxford parental love parental rights PEPFAR person’s sake Peter Singer Political Conception primary dutybearers pursue biological parenting pursue the basic qua human Rawls reasons response right of children seems social someone speciesism speciesist suppose things tion undermine UNICEF