Political Theory

Re: A calm and rational discussion

pairunoyd — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 00:35:41 GMT

This is sci-fi gobbledygook, but let me ask this.

If every fetus were somehow, unknown to the mother, swapped w/ another, what might be the result of unrelated parents raising children? It's obvious that non-biological parenting exists today, but if it occured on a radical level, like I mention above, do you think society would differ much from what it is now? We'll assume no one is aware of the baby-swapping and that a child's not resembling the parents is not an issue.

Why don't we see much voluntary child-swapping today?

What would be the effect of 'inferior genetics' being raised by 'superior genetics' and vice-versa?

Remember, this would be on a mass scale and with that being the case it might cause a significantly different effect than the limited cases we see today.

I know this is crazy, stupid stuff, but I believe the discussion of fringe but related ideas can enable you to discover certain truths or useful ideas. It might take 20 shots in the dark to cull a single 'piece' of useful thought, but if you're thoughts on a certain issue are idle or nearly so, it can prompt you to a deeper level or a new perspctive. IMHO...

Re: A calm and rational discussion

pairunoyd — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 21:29:40 GMT

I think part of the issue is being able to accept the fact that one can abstract from man (humans) certain states of man. It's obviously an error (empirical evidence) to assume that physically/mentally maturing man is not significantly different than mature man. Yes, there are factors besides 'years in existence' that make this abstraction problematic (arbitrariness of abstraction?), but it's universal that at some point in a man's existence that ALL mens' natures are radically different than at other points. There are more temporary differences in man such as unconsciousness, but youthfulness is fairly enduring and fairly predictable, at least the first several years.

This whole child-parent dichotomy would seem to suggest there exists in some instances legitimate slave-master relations. Of course we assume an especially significant nuance in the child-parent relationship is 'love', compared to more economically based slave-master relations. But, a parent can acceptably raise a child and not love the child, I would assume.

I wonder what man's social world would be like if man just sort of came into existence and weren't procreated. They totally bypass the developing stage and appeared as 21 yr olds. I wonder how existing man would react to new man and how would all of this effect our relationships. Maybe an investigation into this hypothetical could shed a little light on the real issue of man and man as child.

Re: A calm and rational discussion

Physiocrat — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 11:52:39 GMT

Walter Block has an interesting article on this here. His basic argument is that parents homestead the right to bring up the child which they can dispense of at any time providing they make sufficient notice of it. Now what role of punishement the parents can dole out would depend on how one constituted the right to bring up a child which would be an interesting albeit difficult job.

Re: A calm and rational discussion

Inquisitor — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 01:55:59 GMT

Also another important question is when do these obligations end?

Re: A calm and rational discussion

Niccolò — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 21:54:20 GMT

Maybe it doesn't, but how do we go about discovering them objectively?

Re: A calm and rational discussion

Donny with an A — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 22:32:19 GMT

Well, one might argue that by carrying a child to term, a parent has implicitly accepted certain responsibilities (or ought to have accepted them). But perhaps we might also want to say that the responsibilities aren't unconditional; a severely misbehaving child might violate the terms of the relationship. Given the non-explicit nature of the whole thing, it's sort of difficult to see how we could come up with a perfect account of the nature or the obligations of the parent. But I don't think that this means that the parent has no obligations to the child...

A calm and rational discussion

Niccolò — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 21:04:47 GMT

In a recent reply to another forum user, Inquisitor said,

I don't recall Rothbard saying anywhere that abusing children is alright - quite the opposite. Rothbard did not believe positive obligations to children existed on part of parents, and thus one may disassociate with them. I part ways with him here

Here, I do not want to really get into the same debate as on the other thread, but I do want to discuss the reasons why parents must have obligations to their children, maintaining that the children may be as abusive to the parents as they wish, witout the option of the parent dissasociating from the child.