Parental authority presents a significant problem for libertarian philosophy. The principle of self ownership is incompatible with paternalism. Self ownership means that people have the right to control their own bodies and actions, even if those actions include harming themselves. Paternalism means taking authority over someone to restrict their freedom in their own interests.
If a drunkard chooses to drink himself into an early death, it is his right to do so, however unwise it may be. You may legitimately offer him non-coercive advice or assistance. However, as long as the drunkard is not aggressing against others (not stealing, trespassing etc), then (according to the principle of self ownership) it is not legitimate to restrict his freedom by forcefully preventing him from drinking.
What about parental paternalism? Parents have the authority to make decisions on their child's behalf. This includes restricting children's freedom in various ways, in order to prevent them from coming to harm. It can also include decisions or restrictions that go against the expressed wishes of the child. This is paternalism. Is the philosophy of self ownership therefore incompatible with parental authority?
Libertarians have come up with conflicting arguments in response to this problem:
- Children are not self owners
- Parental authority is unjustifiable
- Parental authority is a homesteaded property right over the child
- Parental authority derives from parental obligation
Argument 1: Children Are Not Self Owners
For those who advocate the theory of parental ownership, there is no problem justifying parental authority. If parents own their children, then they have complete authority over them. According to this theory, the relationship is the same as that of a master to a slave. If a parent is paternalistic, this is merely a choice over how to use his property. Therefore no contradiction between self ownership and parental authority arises since children are not self owners.
Children cannot be legitimately owned, as I will argue in a separate future article. But even if we accept that children can be owned for the sake of argument, this theory creates more problems. Firstly, there is no justifiable limit to parental authority if children are owned. Locke was the first to argue that parental authority must have limits. Since the Enlightenment it has become generally accepted that parents do not have completely unlimited authority to do whatever they want to their children. However, the theory of parental ownership provides no philosophical basis for limiting parental authority in any way.
Another problem created by this theory is that there is no basis for explaining how (and why) a child could ever cease to be owned and attain self ownership.
Argument 2: Parental Authority Is Unjustifiable
The second view accepts both the argument that children are self owners and the conclusion that parental authority cannot be justified. In this view, parents have no authority to act paternalistically towards children. As a corollary of this view, parents should treat children in the same way that they would treat a rights-bearing adult. This view was represented by the child liberation movement of the 1970s.
This theory faces practical challenges, given the complete helplessness of children and their inability to express preferences on many decisions that affect them, especially in the early years. Some choices will be made paternalistically by default, regardless of whether the parents intend to wield authority.
It is important to note that the argument for treating children the same as adults logically leads to justifying such evils as pedophilia, since (in this view) there can be no basis for paternalistic protection of children against the sexual advances of adults. If this implication does not immediately disqualify this argument for you, I don't know what to tell you. This position was explicitly advocated in the 1970s by intellectuals such as Sartre, Derrida, Foucault, and de Beauvoir and by some of the child liberationist authors such as Richard Farson and Germaine Greer.
Argument 3: Parental Authority Is a Homesteaded Property Right Over the Child
This argument is as follows:
- Children are self owners.
- Attached to each child is a property right to authority over the child, albeit not an ownership right.
- Whoever holds this property right can legitimately wield the authority to be paternalistic towards the child and can exclude others from doing so.
- This right can be homesteaded. Most commonly it is homesteaded by a natural parent.
There are a number of problems with this theory. Most importantly, this right to authority over the child seems to be merely asserted. What is the basis of this argument that children come into the world with a right to authority over them available for homesteading? Where does this kind of property right come from?
Another problem with this theory is that it doesn't seem to involve fathers in any role of parental authority or responsibility. Since the argument is about homesteading, many authors have argued that the mother is the one who naturally homesteads the parental authority role. The act of giving birth to a child is taken as a demonstration of homesteading the authority rights over it. Fathers don't seem to get a look in according to this theory. Murray Rothbard and Roderick Long both explicitly argue that this first-homesteading right goes to mothers only.
A third problem is that there is some equivocation about what exactly this property right amounts to. Sometimes the idea seems to be that parents homestead a limited right to certain kinds of authority, but at other times the idea seems to be that parents do in fact simply own the child, albeit on a temporary basis. Rothbard seems to slip between definitions of this property right when discussing it.
Argument 4: Parental Authority Derives From Parental Obligation
This argument comes from the Theory of Parental Responsibility. It is as follows:
- Children are self owners.
- Parents are responsible for the peril that children face because parents put them in a state of peril as a consequence of creating them.
- Therefore parents have an obligation to remove their children from peril. This means raising them safely to the independence of adulthood.
- In order to remove a child from peril, a parent must assume authority to act paternalistically towards the child.
- Therefore the parent can legitimately assume authority over the child insofar as the parent is fulfilling his or her positive obligation towards the child.
There are a number of logical implications of this way of viewing parental authority that differ from the alternative arguments above:
- Parental authority is strictly limited and there are objective criteria for determining whether it is being misused (based on the positive obligation of removing peril).
- Protecting children from threats such as pedophiles is not only justified, it is a positive obligation of parents.
- Parental authority is not a homesteaded property right in the child, rather it is a logical requirement of fulfilling the positive obligations that parents have.
- Parental authority goes to both mother and father because both are jointly and severally liable for parental obligations as a consequence of creating the child.
- As Locke pointed out, parental authority is derivative of parental obligation, not the other way around. Far from being a homesteaded right, the authority that parents have is a responsibility arising from (and temporally subsequent to) their acquiring obligations towards the child. This also entails that all use of parental authority must be justifiable in terms of the fulfilment of parental obligations, otherwise it is a misuse of authority.
Which Is The Correct Libertarian View of Parental Authority?
I argue that Argument 4 (parental authority derives from parental obligations) is the correct libertarian view on parental authority. However, most libertarians who have written on this subject have put forward some variant of argument 3 (parental authority is a homesteaded property right over the child). Rothbard and Block have both argued this. This is somewhat surprising since both these writers are advocates of the Theory of Parenting As Charity and the logical implication of that theory would seem to be that parental authority cannot be justified, but this is not the argument that Rothbard or Block make.
As I've argued elsewhere, the Theory of Parental Responsibility is the only theory of parent-child relationship that is compatible with other libertarian principles. The argument that parental authority derives from parental obligations is a logical consequence of this theory. This theory not only provides a philosophical grounding for parental authority, it also provides a clear grounding for limits on that authority.