Political Theory

Re: Morality vs. legality of child neglect

JackCuyler — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 21:36:00 GMT

The child voluntarily places themselves on the flight, just as the sperm voluntarily enters the egg.

The sperm has a choice in the matter?

Re: Morality vs. legality of child neglect

FlyingAxe — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 17:50:51 GMT

Voluntaryist72 wrote:

If someone is drowning at the beach, and you declare to everyone on the beach that you will go and rescue him, but all you do once you reach him is tread water, you're breaking an implicit contract. This is because you declared to everyone else that you would save him through your superior skill, which made everyone else not bother. From my understanding and opinion, the implicit contract only applies when there is a third party that is discouraged (by your actions) from taking the same action, usually to help the second party.

Well, in that case, why should it even be that the third party is discouraged? I make a contract with you that I will paint your sister's house. You're not discouraged from painting it, although you probably won't since you're relying on me. (In that sense, it's no different from any other contract. If I contract you to fix my car, I won't try to fix it myself or hire someone else, because I am expecting you to do it.)

One thing I am troubled by is the one-sided nature of this contract. In a separate thread, I asked the question: can a person obligate himself unilitateraly, such that this obligation would be binding? Some people responded that without the second party providing a consideration to the first party, the first party cannot be said to be obligated by its promise. But I don't really see why not. After all, we don't always say that if a contract is broken, the second party merely gets its consideration back. Sometimes we force the first party to carry out its obligation (or provide monetary compensation).

I still think, however, that implicit contract can apply even to the child —

Imagine if you could bring a person into existence, if just for a day. Your action gave this entity a consciousness! How can you be obliged' to take any further action? Similarly, if I decide to rescue someone starving out at sea, but then abandon him on the beach in front of anyone else present, why should I be the one who gets stuck with an 'obligation'?

Well, that's the nature of implicit contract — it depends on the implicit expectaitons. If I come into your restaurant, it is expected I will pay after the meal. If you say: "Hey, come spend a weekend at my villa and eat my expensive food and drink my expensive wine" and it's clear it's a friendly invitation, then I am not expected to pay after the weekend.

So, when someone rescues someone else, by his actions he does not implicitly obligate himself to take care of him after the rescue.

But when someone gives birth to someone else, one could say that he implicitly obligates himself to the baby to take care of him/her, until the baby grows up and can take care of itself.

My point is: the same mechanism that one would obligate oneself to the "society" to take care of the baby is the mechanism that one could obligate oneself to the baby itself! (And the same goes for adoption: if, somehow, one can break his contract with the society by giving up the baby to another parent, one can do the same re: contract with the baby.)

The advantage of the contract-with-the-baby model is that it does not involve the implicit contract with society which does not seem to be popular with most libertarians. (One could say that by using public roadways, one is making an implicit contract with the society to pay taxes in whatever amounts the society determined to support the roadways, protect them internally and internationally, etc.)

Another advantage is that because parents have no rights or responsibilities towards children, this is the case vice versa. Incest, emotional abuse and monopolistic neglect would be rare if children had freedom of association, and could choose their own caregivers in a competitive market of family rating agencies.

Well, a child is certainly free to give up its contract.

Anyway, I was thinking before that the case of a child neglect is similar to a case when a person sees someone fall down with an epileptic seizure. He pulls out his gun and prevents the paramedics from taking care of the epileptic. The latter as a result suffers brain damage. Can he sue the guy with the gun? It seems funny to say that no crime was committed (except violation of the paramedics' rights), but at the same time, what rights of the epileptic did the guy with the gun break?

The reason this example is similar to parenting is that what "parents' rights" are is rights to exclusive care of the baby — which is the same as preventing others from taking care of the baby. For instance, my wife and I are deciding which immunization shots we are going to give to our future baby. If we decide not to immunize the baby against chicken pox, for instance, we will be effectively preventing others from doing so. So, that's similar to the first example, except, hopefully, there will be no harm to the baby. So, when a parent exercises his rights as a parent but then does not provide for the baby, he is similar to the person with the gun.

Except, again, though it seems funny to say that no crime was committed against the epileptic, still, which of his rights were broken?

Re: Morality vs. legality of child neglect

Marko — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 00:42:05 GMT

I think a better analogy for Roderick Long to use would have been this:

Suppose human beings magically come into existence onboard planes in mid-flight, where their survival depends on the pilot taking them safely to the ground. By flying a plane, the pilot takes the risk that someone may come into being during his flight. Pro-abortionists would be content with the pilot asking the newly 'born' person to jump off the plane, and if he doesn't, physically kick him out the door. After all, the plane is the pilot's property just as the womb is the woman's body; both have the right to expel anyone they deem an intruder by any means necessary. After all, the plane is the pilot's property just as the womb is the woman's body; both have the right to expel anyone they deem an intruder by any means necessary. I agree with this.

Excellent work in thinking up this analogy. Let me improve on it. Let us say there is nothing magical about human beings coming into existence onboard planes in mid-flight. Let us say this is the only way humans may come into existence and how humans procreate naturally. Instead of it being a magical coincidence they are created by the act of flying a plane, by the person who flies the plane.

The question is can the pilot who personally created this new human being of his own accord now throw him out his plane?

The child voluntarily places themselves on the flight, just as the sperm voluntarily enters the egg.

Sperm is not a human being. Seeing it comes into existence the moment of its succesful completion a new human being is not an agent in its own conception. (But the mother is.)

Re: Morality vs. legality of child neglect

Voluntaryist72 — Sat, 17 Mar 2012 23:26:06 GMT

I think a better analogy for Roderick Long to use would have been this:

Suppose human beings magically come into existence onboard planes in mid-flight, where their survival depends on the pilot taking them safely to the ground. By flying a plane, the pilot takes the risk that someone may come into being during his flight. Pro-abortionists would be content with the pilot asking the newly 'born' person to jump off the plane, and if he doesn't, physically kick him out the door. After all, the plane is the pilot's property just as the womb is the woman's body; both have the right to expel anyone they deem an intruder by any means necessary. I agree with this.

But the pro-abortionists turn the situation on its head when it comes to abandonment. If the pilot is so generous as to drop-off the newly-born person firmly on solid land, why should the pilot then be stuck with an obligation to provide him with education so he can get a job and become independent? That would be ludicrous. Of all the people that didn't bother flying planes around and bringing people into existence, why should the ones who do be subject to force?

The child voluntarily places themselves on the flight, just as the sperm voluntarily enters the egg.

Re: Morality vs. legality of child neglect

SirTenenbaum — Sat, 17 Mar 2012 16:05:39 GMT

Roderick Long wrote an excellent article on this subject. He concluded that A woman who voluntarily bears a child but later changes her mind does not have the right simply to abandon her child, but must care for it until she can arrange for a substitute caretaker.

Here is the link to the article which you should fully read: http://praxeology.net/RTL-Abortion.htm

Here's an excerpt:

Suppose that Stan is a pilot for Clouds-R-Us, a charter airline company. Now ordinarily Stan is under no obligation, enforceable or otherwise, to work as a pilot; he has a right to go on strike at any time. But now suppose that Stan decides to go on strike in mid-flight: he abandons the controls, dons his parachute, leaps out the door, and leaves his planeload of passengers (none of whom can pilot a plane) to fall to their doom. (Clouds-R-Us does not waste money on frills like copilots.) When Stan is accused of murder he is indignant: “What do you mean, murder? I didn’t kill my passengers; I merely let them die. Since there are no basic positive rights, I was not under any enforceable obligation to take positive action on behalf of my passengers’s welfare; I was merely obligated to leave them alone. And that’s precisely what I did: I left them alone. What am I, my passengers’ keeper?”

This response is clearly inadequate; but why? The answer, I think, is that Stan’s relation to his passengers is importantly different from, say, an innocent bystander’s relation to an accident victim. When one is merely a bystander, one’s failure to take positive action counts as letting die, not as killing. But it is a different story when one is not a bystander but the pilot.²⁴ The fact that all these passengers are traveling at a high speed, thousands of miles above the ground, is not simply an interesting situation to which Stan is a latecomer. The passengers are way up in the air because Stan brought them there.

Re: Morality vs. legality of child neglect

Voluntaryist72 — Sat, 17 Mar 2012 10:45:47 GMT

>> What’s an implicit contract?

If someone is drowning at the beach, and you declare to everyone on the beach that you will go and rescue him, but all you do once you reach him is tread water, you're breaking an implicit contract. This is because you declared to everyone else that you would save him through your superior skill, which made everyone else not bother. From my understanding and opinion, the implicit contract only applies when there is a third party that is discouraged (by your actions) from taking the same action, usually to help the second party.

>>Also, if you believe in the concept of implicit contract (and I am not saying I don’t; it’s just not clear to me), why should we go to the implicit contract between the society and the parents? How about an implicit contract between the parents and the child? For instance: when the parents willingly conceive a child, they make an implicit obligation to take care of it until he is vaible.

Imagine if you could bring a person into existence, if just for a day. Your action gave this entity a consciousness! How can you be obliged' to take any further action? Similarly, if I decide to rescue someone starving out at sea, but then abandon him on the beach in front of anyone else present, why should I be the one who gets stuck with an 'obligation'?

>>Afterwards, if they continue to take care of him after birth (i.e., they don’t give him up), they are making an implicit obligation to the child to continue taking care of him until he is physically independently able to do so himself.

So from my viewpoint, there is no implicit contract between the parent and child, e.g. after rescuing some one from sea, instead of leaving him of the beach, taking him home for a week or two, before dumping him in a public place.

One practical advantage of this is that people don't have to be forecefully burdened with severely deformed babies. If anyone wants to look after them, they may do so themselves, but don't point a gun to someone else's head to make them look after an entity they gave a consciousness to.

Another advantage is that because parents have no rights or responsibilities towards children, this is the case vice versa. Incest, emotional abuse and monopolistic neglect would be rare if children had freedom of association, and could choose their own caregivers in a competitive market of family rating agencies.

Re: Morality vs. legality of child neglect

Autolykos — Sat, 17 Mar 2012 01:42:32 GMT

Voluntaryist72:
Universal in the sense of being accepted by all societies or perhaps 99.9% of societies. In any case, this is why I'm starting to like the argument from morality less and less.

At the risk of sounding pedantic, I'd like to point out that the notion of society accepting something cannot be the same as the notion of an individual accepting something.

I actually like the argument from morality a lot, though, because it's really about showing people the inconsistencies in their own moral reasoning. To me, the argument from morality goes like this: "If you think X is wrong, and Y is a form of X, then logically you must also think that Y is wrong."

Voluntaryist72:
You said: I think it's immoral because I think it's a violation of someone's rights

Your explanation of why this was the case, was a restatement of the conclusion.

[abandoning the child] is [a violation of someone's rights]

http://ksuweb.kennesaw.edu/~shagin/logfal-pbc-circular.htm

Ah, I think I see the issue now. I wasn't trying to use the second sentence in that paragraph of mine to logically support the first. Rather, its purpose was to simply pinpoint which of the child's rights would be violated in that situation. Here's a syllogism that more explicitly outlines my position:

1. (Premise) Aggression is immoral.

2. (Premise) Abandoning a child constitutes aggression against the child if it leads to the child's death.

3. (Conclusion) Therefore, abandoning a child is immoral if it leads to the child's death.

Re: Morality vs. legality of child neglect

FlyingAxe — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 17:29:24 GMT

Also, if you believe in the concept of implicit contract (and I am not saying I don’t; it’s just not clear to me), why should we go to the implicit contract between the society and the parents? How about an implicit contract between the parents and the child? For instance: when the parents willingly conceive a child, they make an implicit obligation to take care of it until he is vaible. Afterwards, if they continue to take care of him after birth (i.e., they don’t give him up), they are making an implicit obligation to the child to continue taking care of him until he is physically independently able to do so himself.

In this sense, not only neglect, but even sending a child to bed without supper would be violation of the child’s rights.

(Now, obviously, the parents are not obligated to buy the child a trip to the moon every month, because that wasn’t a part of the implicit contract.)

Re: Morality vs. legality of child neglect

FlyingAxe — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 17:17:29 GMT

Voluntaryist72 wrote:

think generally speaking, such parents would have the obligation of abandoning the baby in a 'public' place, because there is an implicit contract with others in the community that the parents will look after the baby. Whereas if they don't, they are breaking that implicit contract.

What’s an implicit contract? And what does the concept of "obligation" mean in this case? Contractual obligation?

However, I don't think there are any "obligations" of the parents that require them to be forced to feed anyone else; the dilemnas surrounding this are best solved by social pressures; excommunication and consumer demand affecting protection agency contracts.

My question was not as much regarding the practical way to resolve the problem of neglected babies, but regarding whether a crime has been comitted. By "crime" I mean violation of natural or contractual rights.

For a minarchist society, the application of the answer would be whether to punish the criminal or not. For an anarchist society, it’s not immediately clear for me what the application is, because I am not sure what people think would happen in the anarchist society to the people whose murder victims had no relatives, estate, or anyone who could protest on their behalf.

Another point I was making (with morality issue) is what the problem with abandanment is. Why should the parents be excommunicated if they haven’t violated the child’s right?

Re: Morality vs. legality of child neglect

Voluntaryist72 — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 16:43:11 GMT

>>In the case of child neglect, would libertarians agree that it is immoral to leave one's 1-day old baby alone at home (without anyone watching/taking care of him) while going on vacation, effectively killing the baby? (I assume that most libertarians would not think that it is a violation of anyone's rights.)

I think generally speaking, such parents would have the obligation of abandoning the baby in a 'public' place, because there is an implicit contract with others in the community that the parents will look after the baby. Whereas if they don't, they are breaking that implicit contract. However, I don't think there are any "obligations" of the parents that require them to be forced to feed anyone else; the dilemnas surrounding this are best solved by social pressures; excommunication and consumer demand affecting protection agency contracts.

The practical advantage of there being no rights or responsibilities of either party is freedom of association and contract; parents and children will be paired together through the market mechanism, thus boosting their opportunities. Remember that it is almost universally accepted that monopolies under any circumstances are terrible for the recipients. By removing the parental monopoly and creating competition in the provision of care, children will receive a higher quality of service at a lower price (e.g. chores, pension contributions). Both parties would be regulated by an external third party, a family rating agency, which could make the process as simple as choosing 4 stars over 3.

>>Hence, I see no reason to consider such maxims to be universally preferable (i.e. preferable by all people without qualification).

Universal in the sense of being accepted by all societies or perhaps 99.9% of societies. In any case, this is why I'm starting to like the argument from morality less and less.

>>I don't see how it's circular reasoning. Could you please explain?

You said: I think it's immoral because I think it's a violation of someone's rights

Your explanation of why this was the case, was a restatement of the conclusion.

[abandoning the child] is [a violation of someone's rights]

http://ksuweb.kennesaw.edu/~shagin/logfal-pbc-circular.htm

Re: Morality vs. legality of child neglect

FlyingAxe — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 16:25:45 GMT

Autolykos:
I think that morality ultimately has an instinctual basis. That is, nearly everyone is born with certain moral instincts.

I would disagree with this. First, just because I have certain instincts about what is wrong and right, why should I force my unique physiology and psychology on others? Plenty of people "instinctively feel" that eating meat is immoral. Some people think spanking children is immoral. Some don’t. I instinctively find eating cockroaches disgusting. Therefore what?

Second (and this is addressing what Voluntaryist72 wrote vis-a-vis Molenaux), I would say that your instinctive feelings of what makes something murder differ from those of Aztecs, Vikings, Japanese, etc. Your instinctive feelings about whether taxation is theft also differ from those of the majority of the population.

Third, even if an instict is universal, therefore what? How is this an intelligent way of deriving whether something is wrong or right -- from your gut feeling? Most people share instinctive tendency to optical illusions...

Re: Morality vs. legality of child neglect

Voluntaryist72 — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 16:00:35 GMT

>>My two cents: regardless of whether or not it ought to be illegal, it will always be de facto illegal. If the official law doesn't punish parents who leave their children home to die, mobs will.

Likewise, regardless of whether black male-white female relationships ought to be illegal, it will always be de facto illegal. If official law doesn't punish black males for entering into relationships with white women, mobs will.

>>Would it be illegal for everyone in a community of people who exercised non-violent economic discrimination, by refusing to sell food to an individual deemed immoral, even if it meant the person would die because they could not obtain food?

Whether or not it is technically "illegal" would depend on consumer demand within the community, which means it would probably be legal in this case.

>Is there a moral or legal difference between using force against an indivudal by incarcerating them for life until they die or not using force by refusing to sell them food until they die?

I think we should differentiate based on the use of physical force (or threat thereof) that is inherent in laws, but which is absent in excommunication.

Is there a "moral" difference? If by moral, you mean roughly "universally-preferrable behavior", then no, since the community's actions are voluntary and respectful of property rights.

>>- All else equal, it is presumed that parents have the interests of their children at heart more than anyone else. There are good, genetic reasons why this should be the case

>>- If the parents abuse or neglect the child, the next of kin should step in to rectify the situation. Before 100 years ago, I think this only extremely rarely involved the law.

How does genetics have relevance when managing human conflicts? We need something that applies to equally to all individuals; whereas everyone has their own unique genetic makeup. If I have a genetic predisposition towards doing X, does that entail an "obligation" to do X?

If you look at the history of the middle ages, child physical/sexual abuse and infanticide was rampant.

http://media.freedomainradio.com/feed/FDR_1625_true_news_catholic_child_abuse.mp3

Re: Morality vs. legality of child neglect

Autolykos — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 15:09:16 GMT

Welcome to the forum, Voluntaryist72.

Voluntaryist72:
A side note: instincts do not always lead to the best outcomes, as Malcolm Gladwell noted in Blink.

That depends on what you consider to be "best". But I wasn't claiming that instincts necessarily lead to the "best" outcomes.

Voluntaryist72:
I don't understand Stefan Molyneux's concepts of morality particularly well, but I agree with him that morality is nothing more than "universally-preferrable behavior" amongst human beings, of which only two principles have so far acclaimed such a status; don't initiate physical force, don't take property without the consent of the owner.

There are a relative few human beings, such as serial murderers, who intentionally don't follow the alleged maxims of "universally preferable behavior". Hence, I see no reason to consider such maxims to be universally preferable (i.e. preferable by all people without qualification).

Voluntaryist72:
You said it's: "a violation of someone's rights"

"if [abandoning the child] effectively kills the child, then it constitutes aggression against the child's life" [i.e. a violation of someone's rights].

Circular Reasoning Alert

I don't see how it's circular reasoning. Could you please explain?

Re: Morality vs. legality of child neglect

Voluntaryist72 — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 15:00:18 GMT

Autolykos:
I think that morality ultimately has an instinctual basis. That is, nearly everyone is born with certain moral instincts.

A side note: instincts do not always lead to the best outcomes, as Malcolm Gladwell noted in Blink.

I don't understand Stefan Molyneux's concepts of morality particularly well, but I agree with him that morality is nothing more than "universally-preferrable behavior" amongst human beings, of which only two principles have so far acclaimed such a status; don't initiate physical force, don't take property without the consent of the owner.

Autolykos:
I think it's immoral because I think it's a violation of someone's rights - namely the child's rights. As you note, if it effectively kills the child, then it constitutes aggression against the child's life.

You said it's: "a violation of someone's rights"

"if [abandoning the child] effectively kills the child, then it constitutes aggression against the child's life" [i.e. a violation of someone's rights].

Circular Reasoning Alert

Re: Morality vs. legality of child neglect

FlyingAxe — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 21:07:17 GMT

Another question:

What is justification for someone to take a neglected child away from the parents? The argument that I heard from Walter Block is that by neglecting or abusing the child, the parents give up their homesteading rights to be the child's sole caretakers.

But could this argument be used about any other case of ownership? Could I say: "You haven't changed oil in your car (or, haven't driven your car) in months, so clearly, you gave up your rights to it" or "You bought this field but just left it empty for seven years, so I can just take it from you"?