Most of us agree that we have some special duties to our parents, and these duties seem weightier than what we owe to our friends. We might have a duty to pay our parent’s medical bills, but we do not have the same duty to pay our friend’s medical bills; such a friend would be acting from generosity and supererogation, or beyond the call of duty. But why do we owe these things to our parents? You might say that you owe it to them because they sacrificed just as much in raising you, or you might point to the special relationship you have with you parents. Following this intuition, there have been three main suggested theories of filial duty: the Debt Theory, the Gratitude Theory, and the Friendship Theory. Recently, Simon Keller (2006) proposed a Special Goods Theory, stating that our filial duties arise from parents and children being able to provide “special goods” to one another – that is, goods which can be provided only by child or parent. Brynn Welch (2012) identified some counterintuitive cases in Keller’s theory, and added some amendments which resulted in the Gratitude for Special Goods Theory.

However, both of these “special goods” theories, along with their predecessors, have the issue of being too stringent. On these views, filial duties are “weighty,” they demand much, and interfere with our plans and projects; in other words, these theories suggest that they “override almost everything else” (Welch, 726). This issue requires a closer look into the nature of these filial duties, which consequently requires a closer look at their structure and motivation. Diane Jeske (2001) offers a unique perspective of how the reasons behind intimate relationships can be “objective” and “agent-relative” by using an analogy to one’s relation to one’s future self. This paper will use Jeske’s concepts to supplement the Friendship Theory with the “weightiness” of filial duties. On this new model of the Friendship Theory, filial duties are analogous to duties of friendship, and therefore less weighty; however, the intuition that filial duties ought to be more stringent are captured by reducing them to projects (I call this the “familial project”). Although projects are within the domain of permission and supererogation,[1] the intuition that filial duties ought to be more stringent is not undercut if, following Jeske, we see this “familial project” as  “objective” and “agent-relative,” which are “weightier” than other projects. This model captures our normative intuition of filial duties within the Friendship Theory, making this theory tenable and comprehensive.

Debt Theory, Gratitude Theory, and Friendship Theory

Before looking at the Special Goods theory and the Gratitude for Special Goods theory, I will quickly gloss over the other competing theories prominent in the literature. My exposition of these other theories is only aimed at providing context for the contemporary “special goods” theories.  Starting with the Debt Theory, it claims that parent-child relation is analogous[2] to the creditor-debtor relation. Parents provide various resources, like financial support, time or effort to rearing a child. The debt theory says that all of these goods provided by a parent are on credit, and that the child is in debt to the parent which they must repay. In essence, filial duties are the child’s duties to pay their debts back to their parents.

Filial duties, however, seem to be different from a duty to repay a debt in several ways. First, filial duties do not look like they can be “discharged, once and for all.” (Keller, 256) Imagine if a parent’s services were reduced to a monetary amount, say, one-million-dollars; it seems wrong to think that a child can pay one-million-dollars to this parent and be released from any subsequent familial duties. Second, filial duties do not have the same proportionality concerns as duties of debt might have. That is, “you may have been a healthy and angelic child, undemanding and a delight to nurture,” (Keller, 256) but that does not mean you have weaker filial duties, whereas on the Debt Theory you might have a smaller debt.[3] Third, filial duties are sensitive to the relationship itself. The parent-child relationship can be affected by some irreconcilable differences, and this can leave the child with fewer filial duties, whereas duties of debt would be insensitive to these changes in the relationship. By and large, duties of debt do not seem to be adequately analogous to filial duties.  

The Gratitude Theory claims that “to fulfill your filial duties is to perform appropriate acts of gratitude in response to the good things your parents have done for you” (Keller, 257). The Gratitude Theory meets the proportionality concerns of the debt theory because gratitude is less strict about proportionality. If somebody saved your life, duties of gratitude do not demand you to be their personal servant or take a bullet for them.  The duty of gratitude might be satisfied by something as small as a nice dinner or at least something proportionally smaller than the price of one’s life. The gratitude theory seems much more plausible than the debt theory so far.

The criticism with the gratitude theory is that it, too, fails to capture our intuitions of filial duties. First, there is a similar proportionality concern with the gratitude theory. Gratitude might be lax in its demands to reciprocate proportionally, but it still asks to give gratitude in some proportional manner. Again, if filial duties were analogous to duties of gratitude, they would demand less if you were “undemanding and a delight to nurture,” and demand more if you were a little hell-raiser. This seems counterintuitive to notions of filial duties because filial duties are thought to be indifferent to these proportionality concerns. Second, filial duties are “ongoing and open-ended, and can be very demanding,” (Keller, 260) whereas duties of gratitude are not. The general thought here is that gratitude fails to capture the weight of the demands of familial duties. If a parent fell deathly ill, filial duties might demand that the child invest significant amounts of time and money for their parents, even more than what is demanded by the duties of gratitude. In contrasts, duties of gratitude might be discharged with a card, a bottle of wine, or whatever, and one might be subsequently released from the duty; however, filial duties seem to go on for a lifetime, and cannot be discharged and released. Again, duties of gratitude are not analogous to filial duties.

The Friendship Theory claims that filial duties are analogous to duties of friendship. Friendships are aimed at sustaining an ongoing relationship rather than meeting duties of debt or gratitude. This view meets the proportionality concerns because friendships do not require strict reciprocity. It would be odd to think that friends keep a record of every benefit bestowed on one another; in fact, this would be the sign of a bad friendship. Friendships rather have the general positive duty to care for the well-being of one another. By and large, Friendship Theory is more tenable than the Gratitude Theory and the Debt Theory.

The Friendship Theory seems like the most plausible account of filial duties. But again, there are reasons to think that the analogy fails. Like families, friendships can have fallouts and disagreements which change their respective duties. However, families are more demanding in that reasons which affect friendship duties do not apply with familial duties. For instance, paying the medical bills of a parent appears to be a duty whereas paying the medical bill of a friend appears not to be a duty. Friendship duties are less demanding and do not seem to be completely analogous to filial duties.

Special Goods Theory and the Gratitude for Special Goods Theory

Keller’s Special Goods theory does away with analogies altogether. According to Keller, filial duties should be understood on “its own distinctive terms” (Keller, 265). The other theories fail because the family relationship is a different kind of relationship than the friendship or debtor-creditor relation. The family relationship is unique and gives rise to its own sui generis duties. The idea here is there are unique (“special”) goods and needs which can only be provided and satisfied by reciprocity between parent and child. This is not to be confused with generic goods, like your mother cooking you dinner or helping your mother move furniture. A special good, for instance, can be a parent’s “sense of continuity and transcendence, a feeling that they will, in some respect, persist beyond their own deaths” (Keller, 267).[4] Another is a child’s “special value in having a parent from whom to seek advice” (Keller, 267). A less starry-eyed example is the comfort of having someone who is “committed to ensuring that your needs and interests will be met.” (Keller, 267) A child then has filial duties because the parent-child relationship bestows special goods to them and they have duties within that relationship to bestow special goods to their parents.

It looks like this theory does better than its alternatives. It can explain why filial duties are “ongoing and open-ended” because parents will have special needs as long as they are alive. It explains the proportionality concern by making it irrelevant; that is, as long as the conditions of a good (on the “special goods” picture) family are met, the aim becomes providing special goods without tally, like the Friendship Theory. It can also explain the demands of filial duties and why they cannot be easily escaped. If the aim of filial duties is to provide special goods, then it does not matter how great the special needs are; moreover, terminating the relationship does not change the duties arising from these special needs.

However, Welch raises problematic cases for the Special Goods theory. An “elderly woman suffering from dementia requires medical care, and she has a wealthy daughter who can provide such care for her” (Welch, 728). According to the Special Goods theory, the daughter has no duty to care for the mother since the mother cannot reciprocate the contributions of special goods with the daughter.  Welch’s complaint is that Keller’s view “cannot offer a reasonable, theoretical limit to filial obligations” (Welch, 728). Another problem case, “the Abandonment Case,” (Welch, 727) is of a mother who selfishly abandons her daughter and is reunited to now provide her daughter with special goods. Here, the daughter seems to have filial duties to this negligent mother. It seems counterintuitive to say that the daughter owes less in the first case than the second.

Welch offers an alternative hybrid theory to settle these issues with the Special Goods Theory: the Gratitude for Special Goods Theory. This theory stipulates the value of providing special goods in the past, and further adds the following new condition to the Special Goods theory: “expressing gratitude by meeting the parent’s needs would not undermine the mutual respect on which moral relationships are based” (Welch, 730). Applied to the Abandonment Case, it releases the daughter from her duties to the mother because an expression of gratitude would violate the new clause.

A criticism Welch must deal with is that filial duties are too weighty and demand too much from us. Filial duties may ask us to devote unreasonable amounts of effort to our parents. A move to deal with this problem is to argue that excessive self-sacrifice is a failure of self-respect. Perhaps we want to say that some “serious”[5] projects take priority over filial duties. Keller writes that “the child’s duties to provide special goods to the parent should not be such as seriously to impede the child’s ability to live a good life” (Keller, 269). But little argument is provided for this, and we can think of problem cases, for instance, where a child makes various serious projects to escape filial duties. Where does this leave the force of filial duties? Surely some serious projects ought to be put aside for filial duties, but which ones? It seems there is some worry to one’s autonomy if we purport that the push of filial duties override all other endeavors. The rest of this paper will explore this issue.

“Familial Project” Theory

It seems counterintuitive to say that all instances of serious projects are precluded by filial duties to provide special goods, as “special goods” theories suggest. Perhaps familial duties really should override everything else, and it might be an entirely western view which places undue importance on individualism. This seems farfetched, as autonomy is generally very important to us. Or perhaps one might want to endorse some perfectionist account of the value of being a virtuous person outweighing the value of personal projects – this, however, seems equally unconvincing. On the other hand, to allow serious projects to take priority over filial duties may be a serious precedence to set, and may undercut the force of filial duties. This is an issue from the Friendship Theory, namely, that it fails to reflect the robust nature of familial duties. Friendships can change, grow apart and the duties of friendship correspondingly fade, but filial duties are not like that – filial duties appear to be more robust in the sense that they more resilient to change and have stronger demands.

The Friendship Theory may not match our intuition of filial duties, but perhaps it is too early to jettison this theory altogether. There is a worry that familial duties are not acquired voluntarily. Nobody chooses to be in a family yet everybody has filial duties thrust upon them, and these filial duties can affect choices, plans, and projects, and (ipso facto) impede autonomy. Duties of friendship, on the other hand, seem to be voluntarily taken when one voluntarily enters into the relationship. This might be further motivation for taking the Friendship Theory, but we need an explanation of its counterintuitive results if it is to be a comprehensive theory. Before sketching this new Friendship Theory, we must first explicate some concepts offered by Jeske.

Jeske analyzes the reasons for entering and maintaining friendships, and recognizes two sets of distinctions: “subjective” and “objective,” and “agent-relative” and “agent-neutral.” First, subjective reasons are reasons for an agent to desire (or to bring about) a state of affairs, whereas objective reasons are agent neutral. (Jeske, 330) Subjective reasons are thought of as “agent-relative,” meaning one’s reasons (per se) for promoting a state of affairs are not reasons for anybody else. My liking for a particular chair, for instance, might be subjective agent-relative because my reason for liking it are not reasons for you to like it. In contrast, objective reasons are thought of as “agent-neutral,” meaning they are reasons for everyone; to go back to the illustration, perhaps there is a chair with universally appealing features, like perfect lumbar support. Jeske suggests that the reasons for friendships are unique because they are “objective” and “agent-relative.”

What does it mean for a reason to be objective and agent-relative? Jeske uses a parallel case to illustrate. She relates the relationship one has to one’s future self as a case of objective agent-relative reasons. Private projects have reference to a particular agent, and one’s self in the distant future will have private projects that differ from one’s present self. One’s present projects are subjective agent-relative, but it would not be appropriate to call the projects of one’s future self “subjective,” because subjectivity is defined by current values. (Jeske, 342) Reasons one has to one’s future self are objective agent-relative reasons, and can be analogous to reasons of intimacy. Taking into account the subjective agent-relative reasons of a friend in one’s deliberative process is to treat them as objective because they belong to your friend and not yourself. As it follows, reasons can be both objective and agent relative.

Jeske’s picture offers a richer foundation to reply to the criticism of the Friendship Theory. My view is not committed to Jeske’s overall view of friendships and duties; rather I borrow her distinctions, particularly objective agent-relativity. To reiterate the issue at hand, the main objection to the friendship theory is that it does not match our intuitions of filial duties. Filial duties seem more stringent than duties of friendship; again, duties of friendship can be released on laxer grounds than filial duties, and duties of friendship seem to be less demanding. Let us begin by distilling our notions of filial duties from our duties of friendship, demarcating the duties of friendship from the(sui generis) filial duties. Let us further generalize duties of friendship to something along the lines of “to care for each other’s well-being,” and call everything else (the weightiness, the robustness, the stringency, etc.) “mere familial duties.” My suggestion is that “mere familial duties” are to be understood as an objective agent-relative “familial project,” although projects are commonly understood to be subject and agent-relative. This of course makes filial duties not duties at all; rather, they are within the realm of permissions. This leaves only the duties of friendship to be duties proper, meaning they are objective and agent-neutral. Let us take a closer look at this view.

To begin, it may be helpful to clarify the features of a “project.” Projects have a feature of intentionality, meaning there is some goal or aim which generates actions; moreover, this goal can be open-ended and subject to change. For instance, a private project of mine could be to become a better philosopher, and this leads me to read more philosophy. There is no “end” to becoming a better philosopher, and it is entirely possible for me to change this goal to becoming a better philosopher of religion. Goals or aims direct action in prudential ways, and can generate pro tanto rules or constraints. If my aim was to train to win a marathon, it might generate rules which are prudent to follow, such as running ten miles every day; however, perhaps if I only have time to run five miles today, I would feel disappointment or compunction. Projects can also be shared among people – for example, when a community comes together to raise money for a cause. Again, failure of prudential actions is met with a feeling of guilt, not in moral failure but a failure to bring about better results.

The familial project is a project of shared narrative. The aim is to preserve the family unit and foster its continuation. Let me explain this without appealing to neo-Darwinian principles or some collectivistic normative theory.[6] I think this is where the Special Goods Theory can help. “Special” goods, previously distinguished from “generic” goods, are particular to family members having special needs. There is a mutual understanding that special needs can only be satisfied within the family unit. With this mutual understanding, a common project is formed to meet these needs through the shared project. With this project, there are prudential rules to follow, and these are the “mere familial duties” which are conflated with duties of friendship. Due to the diversity of special needs, the family unit must be sustained and preserved. One might begin with a special need of a parent with wisdom and knowledge, then a special need to be taken care of, and a further special need to have some continuity after death through children or grandchildren.

The familial project is properly understood as objective and agent-relative, and not subjective and agent-relative. The shared project is agent-relative in that it only applies to the particular members of a family, yet it is objective because the familial project is not a project contrived by me. There is an element of externality to the familial project because I am merely a subscriber to the project and not the provider. Private projects are subjective because they are built around what I value. There is a sense in which I similarly value the familial project, but this seems incidental because other private projects often conflict with the familial project.[7]

When projects conflict, we assess the motivation for subscribing to projects and see how important they are to us. This weighing of the options and subscribing to projects is within the realm of permissions and has no (ceteris paribus) moral bearing. Again, thinking of a daughter who chooses to travel the world rather than help with her mother’s medical bills, it seems the daughter is callous and doing something wrong. But one must keep in mind that weighing the options is difficult; there is still a realm of regret, doubt, and compunction. On this view, she has no strict duty to choose the option of helping her sick mother, and her choosing to do so would be beyond the call of duty. This might be a novel case since the daughter’s private project of travelling the world seems obviously outweighed by her familial project, but more serious cases may shed light on the importance of having the freedom to choose between projects.

The motivation for taking this view is that on the “special goods” theories filial duties seem stringent enough to violate one’s autonomy. Familial duties can preclude other projects that are genuinely important to us and living a good life. Arguments from self-respect, which say that being concerned only about meeting familial needs violates respect to oneself, leave room for problem cases where self-respect is not violated but familial duties ask us to sacrifice important projects. This is the motivation for casting off familial duties and reframing them as mere projects. Weighing projects leaves room for autonomy. The familial project is also important to add to the picture because the friendship theory seems too lax. Duties of friendship alone are often not enough to motivate certain actions.

It is possible to make a further ambitious claim that is not an essential piece of my argument, but might suggest another motivation for taking this view. Jeske suggests at the end of her paper that “a mark of moral reasons” (Jeske, 345) is the fact that they are objective rather than subjective. Since on this view, the familial project is objective, it may suggest that they have a quasi-ethical role in affecting our actions. This might sound like a case of “having your cake and eating it too,” as this might fall into the pitfalls of the other theories of filial duties and violate autonomy; however, we still have the choice of subscribing to the familial project, whereas we would not have the choice to take on filial duties on the other theories. In any case, this is just a complementary motivation for my argument, and its only use would be to give more weight to familial projects when they conflict with private projects.

Theories preceding the “special goods” theories have been counterintuitive to our notions of filial duties in one way or another. The “special goods” theories, however, have the issue of being too weighty and plausibly restricting autonomy. The Friendship Theory’s fault was that it was not stringent enough, but we can build a model which contains the intuitions of mere familial duties within the familial project. My suggested theory amounts to a return to the Friendship Theory and while explaining away the counterintuitive aspects. This is more than just a descriptive account of how to settle the autonomy worry. It makes the stronger claim that other theories of filial duties are mistaken in their normative grounding. Filial duties proper are analogous to the mere duties of friendship.

Sources

Jeske, Diane. (2001) “Friendship and Reasons of Intimacy.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Vol. 63, No. 2, 329-346.

Keller, Simon. (2006) “Four Theories of Filial Duty.” The Philosophy Quarterly, Vol. 56, No. 223, 254-274.

Welch, Brynn F. (2012) “A Theory of Filial Obligations.” Social Theory and Practice, Vol 38, No. 4, 717-737.

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[1] This claim might be contentious to some, but nothing of importance hinges on my narrow use of “projects.” 

[2] By “analogous,” I mean that they give rise to the same duties; I do not mean that they are the same type or kind of relationship.

[3] In response to the proportionality concern, some have tried to propose an “insurance theory,” which says that investments from the parent can yield duties indifferent to the proportionality of good bestowed by the parent. This theory fails for the same reasons: filial duties are not analogous to exchanging goods and services.

[4] The idea here is that parents (qua existential beings) gain some solace in their legacy through their child. Keller is not completely clear on the “specialness” of special goods, but there seem to be plausible examples of goods only attained by the relationship between children and parents (or vice versa). (Although, in principle, “special goods” relations can be instantiated in friendships and romantic relationships.

[5] “Serious” interests are not “basic” enough to impede on a good life, but not trivial (“peripheral”) enough that it is obviously outweighed by duty.

[6] I do not want to be committed to some innate need to protect the family unit or some culturally relative zealous value of the family unit.

[7] The ontology of the familial project is not a concern here.