ISBN : 9780190234836
S. Matthew Liao argues here that children have a right to be loved. To do so he investigates questions such as whether children are rightholders; what grounds a child's right to beloved; whether love is an appropriate object of a right; and other philosophical and practical issues. His proposal is that all human beings have rights to the fundamental conditions for pursuing a good life; therefore, as human beings, children have human rights to the fundamental conditions for pursuing a good life. Since being loved is one of those fundamental conditions, children thus have a right to be loved. Liao shows that this claim need not be merely empty rhetoric, and that the arguments for this right can hang together as a coherent whole. This is the first book to make a sustained philosophical case for the right of children to be loved. It makes a unique contribution to the fast-growing literature on family ethics, in particular, on children's rights and parental rights and responsibilities, and to the emerging field of the philosophy of human rights.
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Chapter 1 Can Children Have Rights?
Chapter 2 Human Rights as Fundamental Conditions for a Good Life
Chapter 3 Being Loved as a Fundamental Condition for Children
Chapter 4 The Possibility of a Duty to Love
Chapter 5 The Duty to Love: Who Has It and To What Extent?
Chapter 6 Regulating Biological Parenting: The Problem of Possibly Inadequate Parents
Chapter 7 Children without Adequate Parents and the Duty to Adopt
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Index