Researcher(s)
- Wren Muirhead, Philosophy, University of Delaware
Faculty Mentor(s)
- Daniel Koltonski, Philosophy, University of Delaware
Abstract
What duties and obligations do we have to our family? Where do these special obligations come from? Though the dominant intuition seems to be that we do have moral obligations to those we are biologically tied to, the justification for this belief is ultimately unclear. This is particularly evident in cases where an individual discovers later in life that they have a biological parent or sibling, to whom they have no historical ties to, and yet still feel that they have some sort of moral obligation to the person(s). Moral philosophers Jane English and Raymond Belliotti have competing views on the nature of familial obligations, with English basing her beliefs on feelings of friendship and Belliotti relying on a particular view of the self in order to promote obligations to those we are biologically related to. In objecting to English, Belliotti claims that “we have moral requirements of a special sort to those who contribute to and help nurture our identities, and those whose attachment is essential for our self-understanding.” Throughout his argument however, it seems as though only a contribution is necessary, meaning that a mere contribution of genetic material from parent to child would be sufficient to justify special moral obligation. In my research, I aim to analyze and object to this argument using a series of cases which represent the flaws in a view of familial obligations reliant on biology. These cases will reinforce the importance of sacrifice, motivation/intention, and friendship/love on the nature of our obligations to family, while showing that biological relation has minimal impact on familial obligation and questioning Belliotti’s use of a genetic “contribution” as being morally relevant.