Joiner Flourishing Pathway Blog Six - Obligations to Ourselves

In this Blog we explore JFP Principle 6 – While we do have obligations to ourselves, in that we do matter and need to construct a life where our wellbeing is important, such obligations ought never be at the expense of our children’s wellbeing. In the previous blog exploring JFP Principle 5, we discussed our obligations to infants, deciding that indeed our obligations are great and ought to include adjusting our lives to provide what it is infants need. But, and there is a big but, we as parents are also important, so what is it we need to support our own autonomy?

Autonomy is what we usually argue is compromised if there are any impediments to women returning to the workforce after having children. For instance, there is, of course, our need to financially support our families (a topic I will discuss in JFP Blog 13). When we speak of autonomy, we are arguably referring to a liberal ideal that the ultimate state of maturation is to have freedom and to be self-sufficient, self-directed individuals. Seeking to be an autonomous person is about being able to pursue obligations to ourselves to maintain an independent life. Once we have children, however, it is often difficult to know where the line is to be drawn between a parent’s need for autonomy, a child’s needs, and our obligations to them, as they appear to conflict at times.

So, what are the duties or obligations we believe we have to ourselves? Such obligations are, from a Western liberalist perspective, to ensure we act as autonomous beings. However, there is no consensus, as to what autonomy entails. Philosopher Archard (2015a) suggest autonomy has two aspects

… one having to do with the ability of the individual to choose independently of others, and one having to do with the ability of the individual to choose in the light of what are genuinely her own desires and beliefs (p. 5).

According to this view, the idea that people act, think, and make decisions about their lives independently of others is unspoken; they ought to act as independent agents. Overall, as O’Neill (1992) states

By and large, liberals and liberal political thinkers admire autonomy – whether they interpret it as independence, self-sufficiency or self-assertion or see it as (some form of) coherence or rationality within an agent’s action (p. 203).

O’Neill and Archard’s analysis, positions the liberal view of autonomy as a positive state of being and something to which to aspire. However philosopher Dworkin (2012) points out a problem; that is, being autonomous does not preclude them being an ‘amoral or an immoral person’ (2012, p. 450). I believe Dworkin is right. Certainly this would be a problem for the founding fathers of liberalism. Immanuel Kant (1785) for instance, believed being autonomous was invariably equated with being rational and being rational automatically meant that you were a moral person (here’s the rub ladies, the founding liberalists thought that only men were capable of being autonomous as only men were capable of rational thought, therefore all discussions about autonomy and rationality and thus morality, excluded women).

While autonomy is now accepted as being something for which women ought to aspire, being rational or moral is no longer part of that discussion. Nonetheless, I suggest, the idea that people should be free to be self-directed individuals is generated by the underlying belief that autonomous beings are the best person to make their own decisions. Even though, as Ramsay (2004) argues, ‘If an individual acts because of impulse, obsessions or compulsions’ as a ‘result of ignorance, misunderstanding or the failure of critical rationality, then they are not acting autonomously’ (p. 58). However, in the West, we do not generally, make judgements about others’ rational capacities to decide for themselves and largely they are free to make their own decisions.

What is generally also assumed is that being autonomous is indeed a sign of maturation or maturity. Interestingly philosophers have been discussing the concept of flourishing and how it was to be achieved for thousands of years but have failed to marry it with the concept of autonomy and maturation. Communitarians and some feminist writers have made similar points. They have suggested, broadly speaking, that in fact independence and self-sufficiency act as barriers to peak wellbeing and that true maturation is synonymous with human interdependence. That is, to understand that we are never truly independent, but all rely on a myriad of others to support our ability to exist in the world (a topic I explore at length in blogs exploring JFP Principles 9 - Liberalism & 11 - Feminism).

Nonetheless, in the liberalist society in which we live, parents are generally viewed as autonomous, independent individuals. Parents very often undertake paid work of their choosing, live in places of their choosing, and choose the kinds of activities they undertake. Indeed, they may choose to have children. The nature of parenting however, and the vulnerability and need for care of children, particularly during the period of a child’s infancy, does require parents to modify their priorities which may then conflict with their previous ideas about autonomy. Blustein (2012) sees parenting as exacting, stating

Parenthood is an extraordinarily demanding undertaking if it is done even moderately well, and for many individuals and couples, it fundamentally changes their practical identity, contouring and constraining whatever other particular identities they may have acquired (p. 202).

In my last blog I mentioned Alstott  who says that the changes Blustein speaks of should be expected as part of being a parent.  However, Blustein’s view is that demands on parents often result in unfair restrictions on them, causing them to fail to pursue the obligations they have to themselves. Yet another philosopher Michael Austin (2007), holds the view that parenting naturally involves placing greater priority on children’s needs as parents are their stewards (p. 111).

Placing priority on the care of our children in Austin’s account implies that this is not an error on the parent’s part but a deliberate positive choice. Archard (2015b) also points out that

… parents share their life with their children, and in conditions of considerable intimacy and emotional closeness. Families live, eat, play, holiday, travel, entertain themselves and worship together (p. 199).

Given this level of intimacy and, in a sense, inseparability of children and parents’ lives, I suggest it is normal to adjust our lives to accommodate the needs of children. Yet, Archard and Blustein also believe such adjustments may compromise parental autonomy. A pathway which enables parents to circumvent this problem is formal childcare. Babies are sometimes booked into childcare as soon as they are conceived and are accepted into childcare centres in Australia as young as six weeks of age. Some argue that for women to maintain their autonomy they must be unencumbered by their child.  This is achieved through the use of childcare at least for the period of the day that they are engaged in paid work.

Archard (2010) offers an argument which can be used to justify the utilisation of childcare. He says there is ‘an obligation to ensure that someone acts as a parent to the child, and there are the responsibilities of acting as a parent’ (Archard 2010, p. 104). Archard brings our awareness to these differing aspects of parental obligation because he maintains that parents can discharge their parental obligation by ‘making provision for others to care for the child’ (p. 104). Archard states that while parental obligation is discharged by one, it can be accepted and undertaken by another (2010, p. 104). Archard puts forward this argument to protect parents from the obligation to parent when they may not be fit to parent or may choose not to parent a child. However, this argument can equally be applied to parents who wish to have others care for their children in their daily absences. If they believed their children were no worse off in the care of anyone other than their natural parent during their working hours then parents would be justified in placing their children in childcare, thus maintaining their own autonomy. However, as we have previously discussed such ideas do not appear to embrace the premise of attachment theory; that infants also need to be free of high level stress by developing a secure attachment relationship with their primary carer.

Given our conclusion that children, especially from age 0-3,  ought to receive the kind of care from their parents which will result in their optimal development and such care being unavailable in childcare centres, we still have a dilemma at hand. What does this ultimately say about autonomy if a child and a parent’s needs cannot both be satisfied? This is a question we further explore in the blog for JFP Principle 16 - Family.

Bibliography

Archard, D 2010, 'The Obligations and Responsibilities of Parenthood', in D Archard & D Benatar (eds), Procreation and Parenthood: The ethics of bearing and rearing children, Clarendon Press, Oxford, pp. 103-127, via Philosopher's Index.

—— 2015a, 'Children, Adults, Autonomy and Well-Being', in A Bagattini & C Macleod (eds), The Nature of Children's Well-Being, Springer, Dordrecht.

—— 2015b, Children: Rights and childhood, Routledge, London.

Austin, MW 2007, Conceptions of Parenthood: ethics and the family, Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., Hampshire, England.

Blustein, J 2012, 'Doing the best for one's child: satisficing versus optimizing parentalism', Theoretical Medicine & Bioethics, vol. 33, no. 3, p. 199.

Dworkin, G 2012, 'Autonomy', in RE Goodin, P Pettit & TW Pogge (eds), A Companion to Contemporary Political Philosophy, 2 edn, Wiley-Blackwell, UK, pp. 443-451.

Kant, I 1785, The moral law; or, Kant's Groundwork of the metaphysic of morals H. J. Panton (translator), Taylor & Francis, 2008, London.

O'Neill, O 1992, 'Autonomy, Coherence and Independence', in D Milligan & W Watts-Miller (eds), Liberalism, Citizenship and Autonomy, Avebury, Aldershot, UK, pp. 203-225.

Ramsay, M 2004, What's Wrong with Liberalism?: a radical critique of liberal political philosophy, Continuum studies in political thought, Continuum, London.