Do parents "own" their children? A simple question and an astonishing philosophical problem for libertarians

[Jose Perez]

 

 

The control idea also does not work when somebody is unconscious or paralyzed.

Not being able to drive a car does not disprove you own it or have the potential to drive it.

Potential?  Nearly all people have the potential to drive my car.

 

Nearly all people have the potential to own your car too, what they do not have potential for is controlling your self, which was my argument – as well as the argument of anyone here differentiating between things and people.

 

 

Something like genetics, metabolism, and our objective place in nature must contribute to what is owned.  Control is just one thing in the mix.

This all points in the direction of children being owned by the parents (half ownership by mother and father to be more precise) and being enslaved to similar accidents of birth. 

 

Not in the least.  Genetics is different than either parent alone, so we are unique.  Even identical twins are unique because of mutations.  Our metabolism is made more and more independent after birth.

 

Well, you are the one who will have to enter that ownership debate if you disregard the far more simple standard of psychophysical control, and the team that considers children are not so biologically unique has clearly quite good arguments.

 

 

I do not grasp why, hypothetically, a government with direct mind control technology should somehow be our rightful owners because they gained exclusive power.

They would be rightful owners indeed. I don't understand why you think that's an argument. People effectively controlling other people is no different that cells controlling other cells. Luckily, as it happens, we do not have that kind of control on each other.

 

Why?  Is not ownership a moral claim?  Whether you can do it is different that whether you should.  Does this idea of control causing property necessarily lead to the concept that those who can do evil things are morally right to do so.

 

An organism that has no exclusive self control is not alive or is "people", and can hardly be a moral agent. Anyone who cares to control and maintain such humanoid does effectively own it.

[Jose Perez]

 

It's not something, someone. Owning someone as a piece of property, slavery, I've brought all of this up already.

 

Joseph, if you read the thread you'll see how the issue is precisely that some people do not think children are people. (They even think there is a point in their development at which they magically turn into people with all the same rights as their parents.) The very mention of parents/children in this context gives this away. 

[David L]

 

 

Guests who are invited to a dinner typically do not feel they need to own anything there. Any attempts to do so would be considered bad manners indeed.  

Perhaps the issue of ownership has arisen because we've lost all awareness that we are just guests here on this planet, not permanent occupants.

 

Does property exist then?

 

Not if we are all guests. Perhaps it is impudent on our part to think we are not.

Have you noticed the latent violence and fear that lurk behind attitudes of ownership? And isn't personal property the underlying attitude of statism?

Maybe ownership is not as necessary as we think it is. Maybe a lighter attitude of "letting go" affords us a more free and happy life-experience than mere exclusive clinging to the things and people of this world. If we are truly interested in freedom, we can experiment to see if existence DOES provide and take care of us in surprising and delightful ways we could never contrive for ourselves through burdensome, propertied relationships which, after all, only tend to keep us at odds with one another.   

Maybe this earth was meant to be freely shared and celebrated together, not rigidly divided and exclusively possessed. Maybe the concept of personal property is just a fear-based defense mechanism that's no longer working and needs to be left behind.  What say you?

[Makalakumu]

 

 

 

 

 

 

If ownership is obtained because people own themselves and the products of their labor, do parents own their children? Children are produced by parents labor and are therefore products of that labor. Therefore it could be argued that parents own their children.

I would love it if someone would poke holes in that argument for me, because right now it's been weighing heavily on my thoughts, when I divert them to philosophy.

 

 

It seems that you're misconstruing the definition of ownership, and forgetting that morality is the ultimate goal. Under the logic used to make a parent's child property, the same could be made for slavery. The slave hunter put in labor to hunt down slaves and keep them imprisoned. What needs to be remembered is that ownership of a human being is slavery, which we both know is immoral. I believe parents have an inherent responsibility to take care of their children peacefully, that doesn't mean they can treat their children as their property.

 

How am I misunderstanding ownership? Could you provide a definition? 

 

Misconstruing in the sense that people cannot be owned and it be considered moral, which I explained further in my post.

 

Why would morality exempt something from being owned?

 

It's not something, someone. Owning someone as a piece of property, slavery, I've brought all of this up already.

 

Yes, but it all seems so arbitrary. Why does morality exclude someone from ownership? What reason makes this possible?

[Joey M]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If ownership is obtained because people own themselves and the products of their labor, do parents own their children? Children are produced by parents labor and are therefore products of that labor. Therefore it could be argued that parents own their children.

I would love it if someone would poke holes in that argument for me, because right now it's been weighing heavily on my thoughts, when I divert them to philosophy.

 

 

It seems that you're misconstruing the definition of ownership, and forgetting that morality is the ultimate goal. Under the logic used to make a parent's child property, the same could be made for slavery. The slave hunter put in labor to hunt down slaves and keep them imprisoned. What needs to be remembered is that ownership of a human being is slavery, which we both know is immoral. I believe parents have an inherent responsibility to take care of their children peacefully, that doesn't mean they can treat their children as their property.

 

How am I misunderstanding ownership? Could you provide a definition? 

 

Misconstruing in the sense that people cannot be owned and it be considered moral, which I explained further in my post.

 

Why would morality exempt something from being owned?

 

It's not something, someone. Owning someone as a piece of property, slavery, I've brought all of this up already.

 

Yes, but it all seems so arbitrary. Why does morality exclude someone from ownership? What reason makes this possible?

 

If you claim ownership over your offspring, are you saying that then you have the moral justification to do whatever you please with your offspring? I can take a lamp and throw it to the ground, or punch a pillow, because they're my property. Can I do the same with a dog, let alone a child? Afterall, they're your property. The answer is of course not, because claiming ownership means you have complete control and say in that propety, and to excersie your will, let's say violence against your child, would go against the NAP. As soon as your child wanted to move out of your home, you'd stop them from doing so because they're your property, just like you would a cow trying to break out of a farm. The examples go on and on.

[Makalakumu]

 

 

 

Guests who are invited to a dinner typically do not feel they need to own anything there. Any attempts to do so would be considered bad manners indeed.  

Perhaps the issue of ownership has arisen because we've lost all awareness that we are just guests here on this planet, not permanent occupants.

 

Does property exist then?

 

Not if we are all guests. Perhaps it is impudent on our part to think we are not.

Have you noticed the latent violence and fear that lurk behind attitudes of ownership? And isn't personal property the underlying attitude of statism?

Maybe ownership is not as necessary as we think it is. Maybe a lighter attitude of "letting go" affords us a more free and happy life-experience than mere exclusive clinging to the things and people of this world. If we are truly interested in freedom, we can experiment to see if existence DOES provide and take care of us in surprising and delightful ways we could never contrive for ourselves through burdensome, propertied relationships which, after all, only tend to keep us at odds with one another.   

Maybe this earth was meant to be freely shared and celebrated together, not rigidly divided and exclusively possessed. Maybe the concept of personal property is just a fear-based defense mechanism that's no longer working and needs to be left behind.  What say you?

 

I'm not sure.  I think I'm just wondering about the philosophic basis for property rights.  It seems as if the way we define it now would actually include children into the catagory of property contradicts the idea of self ownership and property.  This seems to be a huge problem...

[Makalakumu]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If ownership is obtained because people own themselves and the products of their labor, do parents own their children? Children are produced by parents labor and are therefore products of that labor. Therefore it could be argued that parents own their children.

I would love it if someone would poke holes in that argument for me, because right now it's been weighing heavily on my thoughts, when I divert them to philosophy.

 

 

It seems that you're misconstruing the definition of ownership, and forgetting that morality is the ultimate goal. Under the logic used to make a parent's child property, the same could be made for slavery. The slave hunter put in labor to hunt down slaves and keep them imprisoned. What needs to be remembered is that ownership of a human being is slavery, which we both know is immoral. I believe parents have an inherent responsibility to take care of their children peacefully, that doesn't mean they can treat their children as their property.

 

How am I misunderstanding ownership? Could you provide a definition? 

 

Misconstruing in the sense that people cannot be owned and it be considered moral, which I explained further in my post.

 

Why would morality exempt something from being owned?

 

It's not something, someone. Owning someone as a piece of property, slavery, I've brought all of this up already.

 

Yes, but it all seems so arbitrary. Why does morality exclude someone from ownership? What reason makes this possible?

 

If you claim ownership over your offspring, are you saying that then you have the moral justification to do whatever you please with your offspring? I can take a lamp and throw it to the ground, or punch a pillow, because they're my property. Can I do the same with a dog, let alone a child? Afterall, they're your property. The answer is of course not, because claiming ownership means you have complete control and say in that propety, and to excersie your will, let's say violence against your child, would go against the NAP. As soon as your child wanted to move out of your home, you'd stop them from doing so because they're your property, just like you would a cow trying to break out of a farm. The examples go on and on.

 

Ok, that makes sense, but how are property rights themselves derived from the NAP?  How can the NAP define property, self ownership, and the mechanism that property is created?

[Joey M]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If ownership is obtained because people own themselves and the products of their labor, do parents own their children? Children are produced by parents labor and are therefore products of that labor. Therefore it could be argued that parents own their children.

I would love it if someone would poke holes in that argument for me, because right now it's been weighing heavily on my thoughts, when I divert them to philosophy.

 

 

It seems that you're misconstruing the definition of ownership, and forgetting that morality is the ultimate goal. Under the logic used to make a parent's child property, the same could be made for slavery. The slave hunter put in labor to hunt down slaves and keep them imprisoned. What needs to be remembered is that ownership of a human being is slavery, which we both know is immoral. I believe parents have an inherent responsibility to take care of their children peacefully, that doesn't mean they can treat their children as their property.

 

How am I misunderstanding ownership? Could you provide a definition? 

 

Misconstruing in the sense that people cannot be owned and it be considered moral, which I explained further in my post.

 

Why would morality exempt something from being owned?

 

It's not something, someone. Owning someone as a piece of property, slavery, I've brought all of this up already.

 

Yes, but it all seems so arbitrary. Why does morality exclude someone from ownership? What reason makes this possible?

 

If you claim ownership over your offspring, are you saying that then you have the moral justification to do whatever you please with your offspring? I can take a lamp and throw it to the ground, or punch a pillow, because they're my property. Can I do the same with a dog, let alone a child? Afterall, they're your property. The answer is of course not, because claiming ownership means you have complete control and say in that propety, and to excersie your will, let's say violence against your child, would go against the NAP. As soon as your child wanted to move out of your home, you'd stop them from doing so because they're your property, just like you would a cow trying to break out of a farm. The examples go on and on.

 

Ok, that makes sense, but how are property rights themselves derived from the NAP?  How can the NAP define property, self ownership, and the mechanism that property is created?

 

If I were to answer you I'd just be repeating what Stefan has already covered in these three videos explaining what you've asked. Let me know if you still have any questions after watching them (preferably in order).

,

,

[RestoringGuy]

Nearly all people have the potential to own your car too, what they do not have potential for is controlling your self, which was my argument – as well as the ar gument of anyone here differentiating between things and people.

That seems fine.  I am not clear on the outcome of that.  The idea of ownership usually includes a socially-induced right to buy and sell things and impose sanction on rule-breakers.  Are you maintaining that ownership of things is mere possession and control?   It would seem to me, a car that can only be driven by me (say with impenetrable, irreversable sensors that block alternate drivers forever) gives me some superficial claim of ownership of the car.  But does it morally prevent me from selling the car to somebody else strictly for use as a lawn ornament?  Is it wrong for me to drive the car away after I sell it, seeing that I still have exclusive power to do so?

Well, you are the one who will have to enter that ownership debate if you disregard the far more simple standard of psychophysical control, and the team that considers children are not so biologically unique has clearly quite good arguments.

I do not disregard it.  Quite the contrary, it is an important contribution.  But it is only one of many.  Psychophysical control is not so useful for paralyzed and unconscious people.  Some biological basis has to persist at the individual level.  The basis parents have is somewhat weak because they must employ and rely on third-parties to retake their "property", and even then their self-ownership will be in doubt (their being owned by their parents and so on would basically lead to an infinite loop).  Individual ownership based on genetic/metabolic/developmental uniqueness has fewer of these kinds of logical flaws.

 

I do not grasp why, hypothetically, a government with direct mind control technology should somehow be our rightful owners because they gained exclusive power.

They would be rightful owners indeed. I don't understand why you think that's an argument. People effectively controlling other people is no different that cells controlling other cells. Luckily, as it happens, we do not have that kind of control on each other.

An organism that has no exclusive self control is not alive or is "people", and can hardly be a moral agent. Anyone who cares to control and maintain such humanoid does effectively own it.

You speak of ownership as an effect.  I speak of ownership as a cause.  Ownership is what causes you to have a moral right to retake a stolen item, and to be "wrong" when you take something that is owned by others.  If you can own something "effectively" by control and that constitutes proof, then stealing can be OK because murdering the owner removes their control (even of their own body).  So effectively exclusive control goes to whoever in not yet dead.  The only way to escape this dilemma would be to make murder wrong for reasons beyond mere body ownership.  I am willing to do that, but whatever principle it is, seems to have to go beyond mere body control.

I like the cell analogy.  In the case of multi-celled organisms, the cells are not strictly controlled as if they are chained up with guaranteed control of neighboring cells, but they all serve a symbiotic role.  Every cell of my kidney can drift away and do its own thing if it wants to.  But it gets no benefit, and doing so is against the cell's nature.  This favors my genetic/metabolic position because many of our organs behave involuntarily, and what basis would I have for owning them since I can't directly control them?

[RestoringGuy]

I should also point out the severe logical flaw in the ownership argument.  If a parent owns a child due to proven genetic similarity to the parent, then by symmetry the parent is also genetically similar to the child.  On that basis, proving parent-owns-child based on genetics, also proves child-owns-parent.   Fortunately I do not care if I own my cells, or my cells own me, the result of moral individuality is the same.  The ownership argument assumes somehow asymmetric privilege can be deduced from genetic similarity.

[Daniel Chambers]

Post retracted.

Edited August 7, 2013 by Daniel Chambers

[ProfessionalTeabagger]

You own the responsibilities you chose when you created the child. When you created it you created another being with self-ownership. You own the effects of your actions, not just the product of your labor.

[FiddlertheLeper]

How is this even a real debate, i mean if children are not people, then NONE of us are people, because we were all children, and there was no biological change at the age of 18 (or age of majority where you live) that suddenly made you a human.  You are either Human at birth, or not.  And sense Self Ownership is Universal, the idea that children can be claimed as property because of the investment of labor, is automatically invalidated, because they already own themselves, under the universal principle of Self Ownership.  thus Children own themselves and cannot be property. 

[tasmlab]

Does child ownership have to be an either/or proposition?

 

When a baby is first born it has many features/characteristics of being owned.  E.g., it isn't allowed to leave (nor can it), someone else can't come and take it away from the mother, etc.  Perhaps it has 99% of the features of being owned except perhaps for its humanity. 

 

Similarly when the child is young it has features of being owned, like the parent can insist on it doing something or the parent is liable for behavior the child has (say, he breaks Mr. Wilson's window)

 

As it grows it continues to lose more and more features that are in common of being owned until it eventually sheds each of them.

 

If this is truish, then a child is never definitionally owned but just carries a lot of the same characteristics.   This makes for untidy semantics and a heap of subjectivity, though.

 

My thoughts on abortion are sorta stuck around this right now.  It seems that a 1 day old, 2-celled biocyst has most of the features of a blob of meat and almost none of a person.  But as time goes on, it sheds the old characteristics and gains the new ones in a graduated process, which, unfortunately, never let's anyone lock on to hard and fast definitions.

[FiddlertheLeper]

The question of unborn children and the idea of self ownership is a tricky one, but i don't feel the same way about children once they are born.  This is all my opinion. But, i don't think features/characteristics of ownership really matter, the simple principle is that every human own's their own body and mind, and if this is true or accepted as true, you cannot not extend it to children, unless you reclassify them as non-human (which would make no sense). A human being can never own another human being, whether child or adult.  This is the basis of all human rights or freedom or most other concepts of individualism.  If we reject the idea that no human can own another human, and accept that humans Can own other humans under certain circumstances (such as children-parents) then any idea of Innate rights is moot, because these rights are only applicable to people who own themselves, otherwise if humans can be property, the only can have the rights granted them by their owners, so nothing can be innate.  

Plus if people "own" their children, then they have the right to destroy their property without consequence (other than the obvious consequence of their property being destroyed) so we would have to stop prosecuting parents who abuse/kill/exploit their children, because if they "own" their children they have every right to do so, because the children are their property.  And if that isn't morally repugnant i don't know what is.  The idea of parents owning their children only is even arguable if you completely throw out what ownership really implies.   

[JamesP]

If an adult becomes paralyzed or bedridden, or suffers dementia, and is thus cared for by others–say, a spouse or their adult children–can they rightly be said to be owned in the same way that children are said to be owned here?

 

If not, then the argument has a major flaw.

[Shqiptar]

No children are not owned. A parent is responsible for the child. A child should be allowed freedom besides which will cause them death or serious injury. Most would stop a friend from wandering into a street drunk where cars are zooming by. Does that mean the drunk friend was "owned"? No.

[A.I.]

Are you saying you have no self ownership? Like this post does not exist? If that's true, you just saved everyone a whole lot of time and simultaneously wasted it. What's it like not existing?

 

You made the argument in your original post that self ownership is invalid, rendering your post impossible. Why are people still pretending there is a debate?

 

No self ownership means you do not own your body, you do not own the product of your mind and fingers (i.e. the typed post), and most importantly, you do not own your argument by your own "argument" that self ownership doesn't exist "in your argument"

[RestoringGuy]

If an adult becomes paralyzed or bedridden, or suffers dementia, and is thus cared for by others–say, a spouse or their adult children–can they rightly be said to be owned in the same way that children are said to be owned here?If not, then the argument has a major flaw.

That is the most concise and perfect analogy I have yet encountered.  We constantly have to deal with the argument that children have inferior rights because of their mental and physical incompetence, but somehow magically the rights of the elderly are elevated rather than diminished by their status. 

[Hannibal]

This needn't be as difficult as it's made out to be...

 

Firstly, parents cannot own their children because that introduces the problem of determining when a child stops being a child, and therefore stops being owned, and as someone must own themselves in order to own anything, children must at some point stop being owned otherwise we'd all be the property of someone else. This is just 1 issue, but its simple enough to abandon the idea right away.

 

So how do we reconcile the issue of childrens rights, and the fact that we have to make them do/not do stuff?

 

1)What is morally good is that which aids man in living as a man. That's a simple and detailed enough definition. If you don't agree then ask yourself why do we even need a concept of morality in the first place?

 

2) On this basis we have rights, which are all derived from the fact that for men to live as men we must all be free from the interference of other men that prevents us from achieving that end. While a man may behave immorally to himself if he chooses, we prohibit that immorality when used against ourselves. This is potentially applicable to every single person without contradiction, and so we have a universally accepted principle, or a "right".

 

3) Children do not have all of the rights that an adult has. To do so would be contradictory as we've already noted that morality exists to guide us in promoting the living of lives, as men; If a child had an equally absolute right to live free from coercion, that child would invariably die and the human race would become extinct. This means that parents may use coercion to protect their children until the point that they can look after themselves. No more.

 

4) Clearly there will come times where the lines aren't easily seen, and mistakes will be made. This does nothing to invalidate the moral principle, and if the principle is only violated in those unclear and difficult times, then it would hardly be an issue worth worrying about.

 

 

To suppose that a parent can own a child seems a very strange idea. It's no different from the idea that white men could own black men. On one hand w man and a woman "make" a child, on the other men and women labour to catch a black man. The only reason it's even considered is because of confusion about the applicability of rights to children.

 

 

 

I'm not sure.  I think I'm just wondering about the philosophic basis for property rights.  It seems as if the way we define it now would actually include children into the catagory of property contradicts the idea of self ownership and property.  This seems to be a huge problem...

 

 

As I've alluded to already, if you want to understand the philosophical basis for property rights you should first ask yourself why we need a moral code in the first place. When you see that a moral code is a codified set of shortcuts to ethical principles, and that the purpose of ethics is to reason on our behaviour so that we might live the best lives we can (as life is an end in itself - the alternative makes this thread and forum redundant), and that the way we live the best lives we can is by living as men (our ability to reason - and therefore alter the environment around us, and to trade and cooperate - is what sets us apart from animals), then you'll see that in order to maximise our humanity and live as long and as comfortable as we can, with as much joy as we can, property rights are essential.

 

Without property rights we'd all be living like cavemen.

 

So now we can get to the fine details about what does and doesn't constitute property, and we'll do a better job knowing why we're even asking the question in the first place.

[Frosty]

Property and ownership are human concepts codified in law, there's no legal systems I'm aware of that currently considers children property of parents. Could we in theory own our children? Sure, if enough people agreed to write that into law, at one point humans owned slaves.

 

Concerning the moral issues of doing this, I believe morals are subjective so I have no answer other than my own opinion, which is that people should be free, including children, that precludes ownership.

[A.I.]

If ownership is obtained because people own themselves and the products of their labor, do parents own their children? Children are produced by parents labor and are therefore products of that labor. Therefore it could be argued that parents own their children.

I would love it if someone would poke holes in that argument for me, because right now it's been weighing heavily on my thoughts, when I divert them to philosophy. 

Essentially, I think that their might be a gaping hole in the self ownership principle here. If parents own their children, when does that ownership transfer to the child? If that ownership transfers to the child, couldn't it be said that parents are "stewards" of their children? Further, if there is an exception to this principle, then it is not universal. Doesn't this undermine the whole basis of owning anything? Perhaps we are simply "stewards" of everything?

That could be argued, because property rights are not infinite. If a farm owner dies and the property reverts to a state of nature, that individual no longer has property rights. Also, if we consider that all of the matter in our bodies is continuously cycling through it, humans simply don't have the permenancy for ownership.

On the other hand, if parents do own their children and ownership never transfers, then we never truly own ourselves because that ownership never transferred to us. Either way, self ownership doesn't appear to exist in my argument.

I wish I could give Stef a ring on this on a Sunday show, but alas I'm too many time zones away. Any thoughts from this community on this?

 

Case closed, this argument and this whole thread is pointless because you're debating a guy who doesn't think he's responsible for himself, his argument, this thread, etc. I'm sorry, but this seems a little insane to me and no one is seeing it.

 

It's like saying, "My B.O. may smell, but it's not my body that's producing it." Some people cannot be reasoned with

[RestoringGuy]

Guests who are invited to a dinner typically do not feel they need to own anything there. Any attempts to do so would be considered bad manners indeed.  

Perhaps the issue of ownership has arisen because we've lost all awareness that we are just guests here on this planet, not permanent occupants.

That is a good observation.  It's as much about mortality as it is about morality. We can whine all we want about justice and homesteading and absolute truth thinking property only has two objects (owner and owned).  It seems to me, object A owns object B at the discretion of object C, at least until C is dead.  C can be the state or really just anybody who weighs whether property exists.  Property is a three-way relation, two of which must at some point be living objects (the owner and the recognizer of rights).  We see this with estates and wills, that C has not yet died so C inherits property B from A by fictional contractual means -- nothing biochemical about it.

 

By my thinking, parent cannot own child because we can substitute C=B and the assertion or property now fails because child  denies the ownership.  The only way we "self-own" is by substituting A=B and convincing all values of C to believe it.  Ownership seems to require agreement more than it requires control.  That is because borrowed objects are not owned by the borrower, so to be pedantic about meaning of words, you could say parents borrow their young children until children are returned to themselves.  But hypothetically if some children die before they understand idea of property, how can we ever say they "self-own"?  This has to be more naturally developed than a labor/control/neurobiological stance will admit.  Because I can control my arm does not prove I own it.  I have to understand why I control it and what the implications are.

[Makalakumu]

This is why I subscribe to people who are much smarter and more well read than I am.  Apparently the argument that I posited above is one that has been dealt with many times before in discussions of children's rights.  The argument I posited is known as the Ownership Model of Children's Rights according to George H. Smith.  Here is a video that goes into depth on this subject.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CnxUhkZ_u14&sns=em

 

George H. Smith was formerly Senior Research Fellow for the Institute for Humane Studies, a lecturer on American History for Cato Summer Seminars, and Executive Editor of Knowledge Products. Smith's fourth book, The System of Liberty, was recently published by Cambridge University Press.

In this lecture from a Texas Libertarian Party conference in 1981, Smith speaks about the rights of children, specifically very young children who have not yet reached the "age of reason" and cannot legally consent to contracts. Smith looks at several different methods of dealing with the idea of children's rights, including the theories of Murray Rothbard and Samuel Pufendorf. He also takes a few questions from the audience.

 

 

This question is not as simple as it seems.  If children ARE self owners, then parental obligations can be supplanted by competing third parties.  This is based on the concept of an implicit contract.  Anyway, this issue is not settled and it does affect our view of ownership as a whole, as I suggested.

 

Very interesting!

 

This needn't be as difficult as it's made out to be...

 

Firstly, parents cannot own their children because that introduces the problem of determining when a child stops being a child, and therefore stops being owned, and as someone must own themselves in order to own anything, children must at some point stop being owned otherwise we'd all be the property of someone else. This is just 1 issue, but its simple enough to abandon the idea right away.

 

So how do we reconcile the issue of childrens rights, and the fact that we have to make them do/not do stuff?

 

1)What is morally good is that which aids man in living as a man. That's a simple and detailed enough definition. If you don't agree then ask yourself why do we even need a concept of morality in the first place?

 

2) On this basis we have rights, which are all derived from the fact that for men to live as men we must all be free from the interference of other men that prevents us from achieving that end. While a man may behave immorally to himself if he chooses, we prohibit that immorality when used against ourselves. This is potentially applicable to every single person without contradiction, and so we have a universally accepted principle, or a "right".

 

3) Children do not have all of the rights that an adult has. To do so would be contradictory as we've already noted that morality exists to guide us in promoting the living of lives, as men; If a child had an equally absolute right to live free from coercion, that child would invariably die and the human race would become extinct. This means that parents may use coercion to protect their children until the point that they can look after themselves. No more.

 

4) Clearly there will come times where the lines aren't easily seen, and mistakes will be made. This does nothing to invalidate the moral principle, and if the principle is only violated in those unclear and difficult times, then it would hardly be an issue worth worrying about.

 

 

To suppose that a parent can own a child seems a very strange idea. It's no different from the idea that white men could own black men. On one hand w man and a woman "make" a child, on the other men and women labour to catch a black man. The only reason it's even considered is because of confusion about the applicability of rights to children.

 

If a person owns themselves and owns the product of their labor, and children are made with labor initiated by individuals, than children are owned by their creators, the parents.  

 

This argument is not so easily dismissed, as I stated above.  There appears a different kind of relationship to property appearing in this situation.  Apparently, we must acknowledge that their is an exception to the idea of property rights in regards to children.

 

I have no idea how this exception would be defined or why it would be an exception.  Perhaps the idea of ownership itself is invalidated by this example?  Anarcho-syndicalists claim that Property is Theft.  I wonder if this exception ties into that idea?  I'm not arguing one side or the other, btw.  I'm simply exploring idea.s 

[RestoringGuy]

If a person owns themselves and owns the product of their labor, and children are made with labor initiated by individuals, than children are owned by their creators, the parents.  

But how many cells are initiated directly by parents?  I think just one.  The hidden assumption is transitivity, or basically you require that "the product of your product is also yours".  This has absurd consequences if applied to everything we touch, eat, and breathe.  I think your products only include your direct stuff.

[Makalakumu]

But how many cells are initiated directly by parents?  I think just one.  The hidden assumption is transitivity, or basically you require that "the product of your product is also yours".  This has absurd consequences if applied to everything we touch, eat, and breathe.  I think your products only include your direct stuff.

This argument could also apply to plants.  A farmer could plant crops and the crops could grow, but nothing about the growing process invalidates the farmers ownership of the crops.  Ultimately, I don't think ownership is altered by this argument, I think the philosophic way we describe ownership may be invalid though.  Perhaps, I'm not even defining it correctly and this whole argument is invalid.  

 

It's interesting to note that if we proceed from the NAP, our relationship towards the products of our labor look very much like ownership.  For example, if a farmer grows crops and someone wants some of those crops, he must use reason and evidence to make a case to trade for those crops in order to remain moral.  If he takes those crops, he violates the NAP.

 

Similarly, if a parent has a child and someone would wish to compete for that child, they would have to use reason and evidence to make the case that this child should transfer to them.  If they took the child, it would invalidate the NAP.  Now, when the child is capable of using reason and evidence on it's own, it can make the case for autonomy.  If the parent refuses to accept this case and imprisons the child, the parent violates the NAP.

 

This is a very interesting argument with some interesting implications regarding parenting!  It means that as soon as the child can make the case for autonomy, the parent must accept it or they violate the NAP.  

 

Regardless, it appears in this argument, that ownership as we know it does not exist.  Ownership is simply an effect of the NAP, not a principle all by itself.

[RestoringGuy]

This argument could also apply to plants.  A farmer could plant crops and the crops could grow, but nothing about the growing process invalidates the farmers ownership of the crops.  Ultimately, I don't think ownership is altered by this argument, I think the philosophic way we describe ownership may be invalid though.

 

This is a very interesting argument with some interesting implications regarding parenting!  It means that as soon as the child can make the case for autonomy, the parent must accept it or they violate the NAP.  

 

Regardless, it appears in this argument, that ownership as we know it does not exist.  Ownership is simply an effect of the NAP, not a principle all by itself.

That is good analysis.  But why must you wait until a child can make the case?  Are unconscious adults expected to make their case, or should you wait until they are able to before deciding whether NAP applies?For plants, the seed is usually not the majority of the energy input.  Crop ownership I think is usually a result of land ownership, which is entirely outside NAP because the land boundaries are conjured up as fiction to influence some people who did not agree to boundary placement.  While the sleeping farmer has the crops taken, often no contract with the taker exists, so none has been violated under NAP.   Perhaps plants grown hydroponically under artificial light, maybe that works because the sole source of the plant is the farmer's effort.  But ordinary crop ownership seems to have a large subjective component tied to land ownership. 

 

My idea is that ownership is a mixed result of three totally different things:  Non-aggression, genetic/metabolic autonomy, and mutual contract.  I do not believe "aggression" in the case of NAP automatically includes protecting every clump of dirt and region of spacetime that you want it to, or that some authority decides is an abstract legal extension of you, but only actual interpersonal aggression.  So as you describe, when people compete for a young child, it is not ownership being argued for, but a weaker concept.  It's responsibility, not ownership, much as who should decide what to do with an unconscious adult lying on the sidewalk. 

[HasMat]

Parents own their sperm/ova.

 

What is occuring in this process is transition from parent ownership of matter, to a new self.

 

selfhood, btw, is a fantasy. its an arbitrary and meaningless concept in any nonmetaphysical universe. the achievement of a new life's selfhood does not change the mass of the universe, it does not change the informational quantity of the universe, it does not suspend any laws. it does not consume nor produce. its a fantasy creation outside the scope of physical law or the measureable universe. if it ever DID exert a force on the known universe then the laws of science would need revision. it would be proof of metaphysics too. its a metaphysical creation like hope, love, or any other idea/name.

 

its coming or going (birth/death) is sheer opinion (ask an abortionist when life starts, or a spouse when their companion stops being themself and becomes a corpse) this stuff is raw opinion, you certainly wont be measuring selfhood with any science instruments. does this thing sound like a soul yet? selfhood and identity are fantasy without a discrete immortal soul to boundarize the existence from its subcomponents and greater environment, and an infinite property of choice to attain independence from physical reality, known as free-will. without free-will NAP has no moral claim on a creature.

 

life and selfhood are not interchangeable, as we shall soon see with transhumanists.

 

selfhood is the core of the question of ownership of offspring. contracts, which require consent (and thus identity) are at best secondary considerations. when the new self arises, all previous claims on the matter are destroyed. if you sell your sperm, any resultant babies own themselves and are not slaves to the buyer.