Another excerpt from my forthcoming One Body book, this time from the discussion of gamete donation (challenge to the reader: find the relevance of this to gamete donation):
Now, it is not merely the duty of the parents to bring it about that the children are cared for and appropriately educated morally, religiously and academically. Rather, it is the duty of the parents to care for and educate the child—i.e., to do it themselves. In caring for and educating the child, parents will make use of the help of others, including that of family members, friends, and professionals. How much the parents can rely on the help of others before they have failed in their duty of caring for and educating the child will depend on the circumstances.
There are thus two aspects of the parental duty: (a) caring for and educating, and (b) ensuring that the child is cared for and educated. In other words, there is the aspect of parental activity and the aspect of results. These two aspects need to be balanced prudently, and, moreover, balanced with other duties the parents may have; how they are balanced will depend on particular circumstances. In no cases will it be desirable and rarely will it be possible for the parents directly to care for and educate the child in all respects with the help of no one else. Moral education, for instance, requires contact with virtuous people of a significant variety of different characters, not just the parents. Academic education should typically include education in subjects in which the parents lack competency. The need to work to earn money to provide for the child can force the parents to delegate a significant degree care to a third party.
Here is an observation worth making. In most couples, there will be specialization. Thus, the mother might be working long hours to earn the money needed to diaper, feed, clothe, and house the child, while the father might be changing the diapers, feeding, clothing, and otherwise taking care of the child for most of the day. It might seem that in such cases, each parent will be neglecting an aspect of the parental responsibility to himself or herself care for and educate the child. But we can respond to this by noting that parents should be friends of each other, and bringing in an idea from Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. Aristotle considers what value there in having good friends. He observes that friends share a life, a friend is “another self,” and one can be active through one’s friend’s activity: what the friend does virtuously is something that accrues to oneself.
6 comments:
I am simply going here with what is plausible, and not offering further argument at this point. Somewhere argumentation needs to stop.
Moreover, if Natural Law or Divine Command is correct, these could actually be fundamental duties, not derivable from more fundamental ones.
One might extend Aristotle's remark (paraphrasing from memory) that if one doesn't know that one should honor one's parents and worship the gods, one doesn't need an argument--one needs a beating. :-)
"Now, it is not merely the duty of the parents to bring it about that the children are cared for and appropriately educated morally, religiously and academically. Rather, it is the duty of the parents to care for and educate the child—i.e., to do it themselves. "
But I don't think I can say both of these things and be a rigorist, because I can conceive of a situation (not itself the result of immorality) in which it seems likely in order to do the first "appropriately" I would be creating a situation in which my ability to do the second was removed...
So for example, if two adults have a baby and then in a single car crash one of them dies and the other is left severely handicapped (and given our healthcare system, probably destitute). Would it be wrong for the handicapped parent to allow another family to adopt the child given that she thought thee child would be cared for and appropriately educated morally, religiously and academically?
Kara:
That's right: this is a weaker sense of the word "duty". It is more like "responsibility". In other words, it is possible to permissibly not do the "duty".
Why is there a duty to ensure a child is religiously educated?
Does it matter which religion, or is this simply some 'must believe in some higher power' nonsense?
I would also be very interested, as a moral error theorist, how you think one could even begin to educate a child 'morally'...
I said that they need to be appropriately educated in religion. What is appropriate depends on other questions. For instance, if atheism is true, then the appropriate education might be an education that teaches children arguments showing that there is no God and yet explains how they should respectfully co-exist with others who do believe there is a God. If we can know that we cannot have any reasonable confidence about which, if any, religion is true, then the religious education should teach the children this. On the other hand, if Christianity is true, then the appropriate education will involve Christian formation. There may even be views on which appropriate religious education involves leaving religion entirely to the child to figure out. But on all these views, ensuring the appropriate religious education is an important part of parenting.
If moral error theory is true, the whole thing is moot since parents have no duties to their children then. (Or at least no moral ones, and that's what I was talking about.)
"I would also be very interested, as a moral error theorist, how you think one could even begin to educate a child 'morally'..."
"If moral error theory is true, the whole thing is moot since parents have no duties to their children then. (Or at least no moral ones, and that's what I was talking about.)"
Then let's not educate children morally and then we'll see what happens. Let's see what happens when all parents say "I have no duties to my children." Then let's not be surprised by the rise in the prison population, rise in the suicide rates, rise in addictions, rise in depression, and rise in self-harm behaviors. Let's not be surprised then when a bullied teen commits suicide and his/her bullies text each other with the ice cold message "Mission Accomplished", posting crude comments on the memorial Facebook page or that some of them even show up at the funeral to laugh at the victim in the casket as in this story:
http://www.indyposted.com/116421/high-school-bullies-laugh-into-open-casket/
I will quote directly from the story:
"Sladjana Vidovic fled her war torn home in Bosnia for the safety of America. What she found instead was taunting classmates who called her names, threw food at her and in one instance pushed her down a flight of stairs. The administration at Mentor High School did nothing to stop the torment.
Now as a lawsuit on behalf of Sladjana Vidovic inches forward, a shocking detail emerges that brings into clear focus the brazenness of Sladjana’s tormentors. Some of them actually came to the funeral not as a belated show of contrition, but to make fun of the deceased teen one last time in front of her grieving family. AOL News reports as follows..."
Nor should it surprise us that we read more about things like teen girls beating up a mentally disabled woman as in this news story:
http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/09/28/14138253-six-teenage-girls-beat-pennsylvania-woman-videotape-attack-police-say?lite
Yes, let's not educate children morally, because we can't decide on what educating children morally is. Let's not impose our religion by teaching all those "Thou Shalt Nots" or by making our kids go to Confession or tell them that their behavior will determine if they go to Heaven or to Hell. And then let's wonder, debate, philosophize and consult all these academics and experts about where all these kids from Hell came from.
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