Morality vs. legality of child neglect

Economics Political Theory
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12

This thread seems to be all over the map.

@OP: I think gross negligence of children has never been considered the “right” of the parents and I think Rothbard generates more heat than light by examining this subject in that language. The principles that I think are operative in law are as follows:

  • All else equal, it is presumed that parents have the interests of their children at heart more than anyone else. There are good, genetic reasons why this should be the case

  • If the parents abuse or neglect the child, the next of kin should step in to rectify the situation. Before 100 years ago, I think this only extremely rarely involved the law.

I say more about this subject here and here.

Clayton -