Children Do Not Have Obligations to Their Parents

An AI narration of the article 'Children Do Not Have Obligations to Their Parents' by Jake Desyllas. In a libertarian legal order, parents owe positive obligations to their children — to feed, shelter, and protect them — because the parents' own actions brought the child into existence. But does the relationship run the other way? Do grown children owe their parents care in old age? In this short piece Jake argues no: legitimate positive obligations arise only from one's own actions, and a child has not acted to create the relationship he is born into. He examines Andrew J. Peach's case for "unchosen" filial obligations and finds it unjustified, then turns to a different question — whether young children have a moral, though unenforceable, duty to obey their parents in cases where paternal protection is warranted. Chapters: 0:00 Introduction 1:34 The Peach Counter-argument 4:16 Children's Obligations During Childhood First published at https://www.jakedesyllas.com/blog/2025/5/22/children-do-not-have-obligations-to-their-parents on 22 May 2025.