An AI narration of the article 'Objections Against The State-Of-Peril Argument For Parental Obligations' by Jake Desyllas.

Critics of the state-of-peril argument for parental obligations have raised many objections — that creating a child is not aggression and so cannot generate duties, that unborn children are themselves the aggressors, that giving life is so great a gift it nullifies all further claims, that adoptive parents disprove any causal theory, that the chain of causation is impossibly tangled. In this post Jake works through ten such objections one by one, drawn from libertarian and analytic-philosophy critics including Brake, Block, Evers, Long, Dominiak, and Brighouse and Swift. A pattern emerges: when each objection is examined, the case for parental obligation only sharpens. Many of the standard counter-arguments turn out to be assertions rather than refutations, or to collapse into ad hominem.

Chapters:

0:00 Introduction 0:31 Objection 1: Creating A Child Is Not An Act of Aggression and Therefore Does Not Incur Obligations 1:48 Objection 2: Obligations Are Only Valid If Voluntarily Agreed To 3:27 Objection 3: Unborn Children Initiate Aggression Against Their Mothers 5:31 Objection 4: Giving Life Is A Net Benefit And Therefore Parents Are Not Obligated Further 9:51 Objection 5: Adoptive Parents Disprove The Causal Theory of Parental Obligation 12:16 Objection 6: It is Too Difficult to Determine Who Caused a Baby to Exist Therefore Parents Don't Have Obligations by Cause 14:45 Objection 7: Causal Action Leads To Insufficient Parental Obligations 16:49 Objection 8: Creation of Peril Only Occurs if Someone's Rights Have Already Been Violated but Creating a Child Does Not Violate Rights 18:30 Objection 9: The Non-Identity Problem Means There Is No Creation of Peril 19:48 Objection 10: The Concept of Parental Obligations Is Merely a Cover for Prejudice or Ulterior Motives

First published at https://www.jakedesyllas.com/blog/2024/6/27/objections-against-the-state-of-peril-argument-for-parental-obligations on 27 June 2024.

An AI narration of the article 'Support for Abortion Has Corrupted Libertarian Theory' by Jake Desyllas.

Libertarian philosophy ought to offer a coherent and beautiful account of family life: parents bear responsibility for the children they create, parental authority and its limits flow from that responsibility, and children are recognised as individuals with inherent rights. Modern libertarianism does none of this. In this episode Jake argues that the corruption can be traced to a single assumption adopted in the mid-twentieth century: that libertarian theory must justify abortion. To accommodate that one position, libertarians have denied parental obligations, swapped a theory of inherent rights for one of acquired rights, abandoned the presumption of innocence, and written fathers out of the family entirely. Each distortion follows from the same root error — and each disappears once that error is corrected.

Chapters:

0:00 Introduction 1:49 The Denial of Parental Responsibility 2:58 The Distortion of Rights Theory 5:08 The Abandonment of The Presumption of Innocence 6:21 The Invisibility of Fathers in Libertarian Theory 8:21 Conclusion

First published at https://www.jakedesyllas.com/blog/2024/8/20/support-for-abortion-has-corrupted-libertarian-theory on 20 August 2024.

An AI narration of the article 'Opponents of Parental Responsibility Cannot Help Conceding The Argument' by Jake Desyllas.

The principle that parents have causal responsibility for the children they create is so undeniable that even its most prominent opponents end up making the argument for it themselves. In this article Jake works through four examples: Judith Jarvis Thomson, Murray Rothbard, Elizabeth Brake, and Roderick Long. Each is committed to denying causal parental obligation in defence of abortion, yet each in turn lays out the very case they are trying to refute — whether by conceding that "partial responsibility" can ground a right, by setting out the moral duty of parents to raise their children to independence, or by demonstrating how negative rights generate enforceable positive obligations through the creation of peril. Their motivated reasoning collapses under the weight of their own logic.

Chapters:

0:00 Introduction 0:27 Judith Jarvis Thomson 3:26 Murray Rothbard 4:52 Elizabeth Brake 7:44 Roderick Long

First published at https://www.jakedesyllas.com/blog/2024/12/30/opponents-of-parental-responsibility-cannot-help-conceding-the-argument on 30 December 2024.

An AI narration of the article 'Abortion is Incompatible With Parental Obligations' by Jake Desyllas.

If parents are causally responsible for the peril they place a child in by bringing them into existence, what does that imply for abortion? Jake traces a striking line of argument first sketched by Richard Werner in 1974 and made explicit by Doris Gordon a few years later: causal parental obligations begin at conception, and abortion is therefore incompatible with them. Werner dismantles Judith Jarvis Thomson's famous burglar analogy and offers a strict-liability gun analogy in its place. Gordon, an Ayn Rand disciple who went on to found Libertarians for Life, shows why the standard Objectivist defence of abortion contradicts the Objectivist account of parental responsibility. Those who deny the incompatibility must abandon causal parental responsibility altogether and resort to a voluntary social-contract theory of parenting.

Chapters:

0:00 Introduction 1:04 Richard Werner's Argument 3:51 Doris Gordon and the Objectivist Origin 8:59 The Logical Argument

First published at https://www.jakedesyllas.com/blog/2024/11/18/abortion-is-incompatible-with-parental-obligations on 18 November 2024.

An AI narration of the article 'The Only Ideal of Libertarianism is Peace' by Jake Desyllas.

Libertarianism is usually defended on the grounds of individual freedom, economic prosperity, or the rejection of hierarchy and tradition. In this article, Jake argues that all of these are downstream of a single, more fundamental ideal: peace. Ethics, correctly conceived, exists to resolve conflict over scarce resources peacefully — and the objective property rights that follow are the means, not the end. Freedom and prosperity are empirical consequences of implementing peace, not goals in themselves. The practical implication is that libertarians should focus first on whatever most threatens peace: war abroad, and aggression against property at home — whether by the State or by private criminals.

First published at https://www.jakedesyllas.com/blog/2024/10/4/the-only-ideal-of-libertarianism-is-peace on 4 October 2024.

An AI narration of the article 'A Critique of George H. Smith's Theory of Parental Obligations' by Jake Desyllas.

George H. Smith wrote more about children's rights than almost any other libertarian, yet when he came to set out his own theory of the parental role he advocated a version of parenting as a voluntary social contract between parents and society at large. In this episode, Jake examines the argument Smith made in his 2013 Cato Institute essay, shows why it cannot account for any enforceable duty that parents owe their children, and asks why Smith reached for this flawed theory in the first place, despite being aware of the rival causal theory of parental responsibility. The conjecture: Smith's prior commitment to defending abortion ruled out the one theory that would have served him best. Another case study in how support for abortion has corrupted libertarian theory.

Chapters:

0:00 Introduction 1:20 Smith's Theory 4:27 Smith's Motivation

First published at https://www.jakedesyllas.com/blog/2025/9/3/a-critique-of-george-h-smiths-theory-of-parental-obligations on 3 September 2025.

An AI narration of the article 'The First Extreme Saver' by Jake Desyllas.

Extreme saving — putting away fifty percent or more of your income to reach financial independence within a decade — feels like a recent invention, the work of FIRE bloggers and Joe Dominguez's *Your Money Or Your Life*. It isn't. In this episode Jake traces the idea back to the Victorian bestseller Samuel Smiles, whose 1875 book *Thrift* made the case to ordinary working people that saving was both a personal virtue and a social good, and casually recommended savings rates that today's audiences would find startling. The piece is a short reminder that frugality and long-horizon thinking used to be mainstream advice, not a fringe lifestyle — and an invitation to ask why that shifted.

First published at https://www.jakedesyllas.com/blog/2016/11/4/the-first-extreme-saver on 14 November 2016.

An AI narration of the article 'A Critique of Roderick Long's Theory Of Parental Obligations' by Jake Desyllas.

Roderick Long sets out a clear version of the causal-peril principle: if your voluntary actions place another person in danger, you acquire an enforceable obligation to get them out of peril. But when Long applies this principle to parenthood, his arguments are inconsistent. Fathers, on Long's account, are bound by their causal actions. Mothers escape causal responsibility entirely, acquiring obligations only by the choice not to abort. This episode walks through the contradictions: the gender double standard Long openly acknowledges and refuses to resolve, the strange "reversal of responsibility" that treats unborn children as agents using their mothers' bodies, the matriarchal property-right framing in which fathers are obligated only if mothers permit it, and his ad-hominem dismissal of the causal obligations argument.

Chapters:

0:00 Introduction 3:33 Men Have Responsibility For Their Actions, But Women Don't 5:04 Pregnancy Creates Special Exemptions For Women Being Responsible For Their Actions 7:38 Reversal of Responsibility 8:57 A Matriarchal Theory Of Parental Ownership 10:19 Dismissing Parental Obligations As Mere Sexism 11:34 Conclusion

First published at https://www.jakedesyllas.com/blog/2025/9/23/a-critique-of-roderick-longs-theory-of-parental-obligations on 23 September 2025.

An AI narration of the article 'What The Declaration of Independence Should Have Said' by Jake Desyllas.

The preamble of the US Declaration of Independence is among the most influential passages in the history of libertarian thought — but does it actually hold up to the way libertarians now think about rights? In this short piece, Jake Desyllas proposes a rewrite. He argues that "all men are created equal" claims more than is self-evident, that "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness" obscures the underlying property-rights framework, and that the preamble's commitment to self-evident truths is better grounded in claims that cannot be denied without contradiction. The result is a tighter, more rigorous foundation for rights: self ownership, homesteading, and voluntary agreement, with universal law applying equally to all.

First published at https://www.jakedesyllas.com/blog/2024/11/28/what-the-declaration-of-independence-should-have-said on 28 November 2024.

An AI narration of the article 'Children Do Not Have Obligations to Their Parents' by Jake Desyllas.

In a libertarian legal order, parents owe positive obligations to their children — to feed, shelter, and protect them — because the parents' own actions brought the child into existence. But does the relationship run the other way? Do grown children owe their parents care in old age? In this short piece Jake argues no: legitimate positive obligations arise only from one's own actions, and a child has not acted to create the relationship he is born into. He examines Andrew J. Peach's case for "unchosen" filial obligations and finds it unjustified, then turns to a different question — whether young children have a moral, though unenforceable, duty to obey their parents in cases where paternal protection is warranted.

Chapters:

0:00 Introduction 1:34 The Peach Counter-argument 4:16 Children's Obligations During Childhood

First published at https://www.jakedesyllas.com/blog/2025/5/22/children-do-not-have-obligations-to-their-parents on 22 May 2025.

An AI narration of the article 'The Theory Of Acquired Rights Violates Hoppe's Specificity Principle' by Jake Desyllas.

Do we have rights because of what we are, or because of some capacity we later acquire? Libertarians are split, and the stakes run straight through the hardest questions about children, abortion, and self-ownership. This episode tests the two rival theories against one of Hans-Hermann Hoppe's meta-ethical principles: that every property right must be specific about who holds it and when. Drawing on admissions from Tibor Machan, Judith Jarvis Thomson, and Stephan Kinsella, it argues that the theory of acquired rights cannot say when a child becomes a self-owner, and so fails the test on its own terms. The theory of inherent rights, which locates the start of rights at conception, does not. A short, sharp piece on a meta-ethical principle with large consequences.

Chapters:

0:00 Introduction 2:25 The theory of acquired rights is not specific about when a child becomes a self owner 7:29 The Theory of Inherent Rights Conforms To The Specificity Principle

First published at https://www.jakedesyllas.com/blog/2025/1/21/the-theory-of-acquired-rights-violates-hoppes-specificity-principle on 21 January 2025.