Blog 7

In Children’s Filial Obligation, Chenyang Li argues that morally a filial obligation exists between child and parent. Li also opposes Jane English’s view that children do not owe parent’s anything because they did not ask to be born. Li argues that giving life to and raising a child is a great favor to a person, whether the person wanted to be born or not and if the person is not grateful of such favor then he or she has a weak moral consciousness. The issue of adoption is one that Li never touches in his argument that English does to an extent. English states that if a child feels no relationship to a parent then they should not have to care for that parent. This insinuates that a child put up for adoption should not have to care for its biological parents since there is no friendship or relationship formed. Also, if a child feels a friendship to his or her adoptive parents, they are morally inclined to care for them.

Li never specifies his beliefs on this issue, however he does state that “the greatest favor a person has ever received is from his parents, their giving him birth and bringing him up” (344). This strikes a problem in the case of adoption where the parents that birth the child differ from the ones that raise that child. One could assume that the biological parents give up this filial duty when they give up their child, however Li states that “a normal person appreciates the fact that he has a life… between being born and not being born a normal person would strongly prefer the former” (344). If this is true, Li believes, that a person owes his parent for giving them life and not aborting them despite what happens after birth. Does this then mean that the child has split filial obligation to the birth parents for giving the child life and the adoptive parents for sacrificing to raise the child? If so, is there one set of parent that holds more weight of that duty and what determines if the child has that duty to one set of parents over the other? I believe this issue needs to be expanded on in Li’s argument in order to make it more stronger.