I examine how co-parents should handle differing commitments about how to raise their child. Via thought experiment and the examination of our practices and affective reactions, I argue for a thesis about the locus of parental authority: that parental authority is invested in full in each individual parent, meaning that that the command of one parent is sufficient to bind the child to act in obedience. If this full-authority thesis is true, then for co-parents to command different things would be (...) for them to contest one another’s authority. The only course that respects the authority of both parents is for co-parents to agree to command the same thing. Further, what is commanded must not result from a ‘capitulation’ by one co-parent, rather, it should result from a compromise. Parental authority involves a duty to deliberate about which commands it is best to give the child. If a command results from a capitulation, one parent will rightly think of themselves as not having fulfilled their parental duty. Parental compromises are not best understood as bargains or conflicts, but by the metaphor of gifts given by each parent out of respect for the other’s authority. (shrink)

This paper examines the legitimacy of retrospective parental rights-claims through the lens of so-called ‘thwarted father’ cases: men who are unaware of their progeny’s existence until the window for establishing legal parentage (and associated rights) has passed. In some famous cases of thwarted fathers, courts have found that an injustice has been done which must be rectified by awarding retrospective parental rights and custody to those men, even when their genetic child has already lived for some extended period with their (...) adoptive parents. In this paper, I critically examine Norvin Richards’ liberty-based defence of the parental rights of these fathers. He argues that the decision to overturn an adoption in a thwarted father case is justified if we agree that a man’s contribution of sperm was indeed the first act of a parenthood project that he should have had the liberty right to continue. Although Richards’ account might allow us to say that a thwarted father has been wronged, justice cannot demand that the situation be rectified through specific performance (as in cases when property is stolen and justice requires that it be returned). (shrink)