Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought

Filmer, Robert; Sommerville, Johann P.

doi:10.1017/cbo9780511812644.015

Cited by 8 publications

(10 citation statements)

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“…We are not used to think that the power relationship between children and people who rear them is analogous to the power relationship between citizens and the state. Yet, the analogy dominated the imagination of ancient philosophers like Aristotle (1999) as well as early modern philosophers like Robert Filmer (1991) and, presumably, their contemporaries. More recently, Clayton (2006) argued that relationships between parents and children are like relationships between state institutions and citizens in three important respects: they are not voluntary at entry, involve coercion, and deeply influence the lives of the less powerful party.…”

Section: Republicans On Child-rearingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Child-rearing With Minimal Domination: A Republican Account

Gheaus

2020

Political Studies

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Parenting involves an extraordinary degree of power over children. Republicans are concerned about domination, which, on one view, is the holding of power that fails to track the interests of those over whom it is exercised. On this account, parenting as we know it is dominating due to the low standards necessary for acquiring and retaining parental rights and the extent of parental power. Domination cannot be fully eliminated from child-rearing without unacceptable loss of value. Most likely, republicanism requires that we minimise children’s domination. I examine alternative models of child-rearing that are immune to republican criticism.

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Section: Republicans On Child-rearingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Child-rearing With Minimal Domination: A Republican Account

Gheaus

2020

Political Studies

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“…Further, unless a man becomes a father in this morally meaningful sense, he cannot ‘earn’ the rights which would normally be associated with this kind of fatherhood (right to determine residency, health care, schooling, etc.). Thus, these paternal rights are not natural rights of the kind enjoyed by Roman patriarchs, and later defended by patriarchists, 52 and they are not rights which can be earned simply by paying child maintenance; but rights that are earned directly as a result of discharging paternal responsibilities, and legitimately enjoyed only by those who are prepared to put the work in.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Becoming a father/refusing fatherhood: an empirical bioethics approach to paternal responsibilities and rights

et al. 2008

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In this paper, we present the first stage of an empirical bioethics project exploring the moral sources of paternal responsibilities and rights. In doing so, we present both (1) data on men's normative constructions of fatherhood and (2) the first of a two-stage methodological approach to empirical bioethics. Using data gathered from 12 focus groups run with UK men who have had a variety of different fathering experiences (n = 50), we examine men's perspectives on how paternal responsibilities and rights are generated and the significance of the genetic connection within the father–child relationship. We do not attempt to explore men's experiences of fatherhood or their fathering practices; and neither is the analysis driven from a particular sociological perspective. Rather, we explore men's normative constructions of fatherhood in order to present accessible data that might be of significance to the philosophical/moral debate on the sources of paternal rights and responsibilities.

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“…The right to rule, he argued, is nothing else than the absolute and arbitrary right that fathers putatively have over their offspring. The biblical donation of dominium over non-human animals was interpreted by him as proof that Adam had ‘by right of fatherhood, royal authority over his children’ (Filmer, 1991: 6). This right, ‘as large and as ample as the absolutest dominion of any monarch’, had subsequently been passed on to successor patriarch kings (Filmer, 1991: 7).…”

Section: The Nature Of Political Governmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

‘This man is my property’: Slavery and political absolutism in Locke and the classical social contract tradition

Olsthoorn

Apeldoorn

2020

European Journal of Political Theory

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It is morally impossible, Locke argued, for individuals to consensually establish absolute rule over themselves. That would be to transfer to rulers a power that is not ours, but God’s alone: ownership of our lives. This article analyses the conceptual presuppositions of Locke’s argument for the moral impossibility of self-enslavement through a comparison with other classical social contract theorists, including Grotius, Hobbes and Pufendorf. Despite notoriously defending the permissibility of voluntary enslavement of individuals and even entire peoples, Grotius similarly endorsed divine ownership of human life. He could do so coherently, we show, because he denied that despotic power gives rulers rights in the lives of their subjects. Masters do not own slaves in the way we own material things (which we may destroy at will). Reworking received Roman law categories, Grotius maintained that ‘perfect slavery’ consists in masters having a personal right to the slave’s perpetual service; a condition equivalent to what Locke called ‘drudgery’ and deemed permissible. Our analysis of this unpalatable set of ideas reveals that Locke’s argument is premised upon idiosyncratic conceptions of slavery and absolutism, disavowed by prominent defenders of absolutism in the classical social contract tradition. It is hence less powerful than commonly believed.

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Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought

Cited by 8 publications

References 0 publications

Child-rearing With Minimal Domination: A Republican Account

Child-rearing With Minimal Domination: A Republican Account

Becoming a father/refusing fatherhood: an empirical bioethics approach to paternal responsibilities and rights

‘This man is my property’: Slavery and political absolutism in Locke and the classical social contract tradition

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