Gregg Strauss

UVA Law School

Associate Professor

580 Massie Road

Charlottesville, VA 22903

United States

http://www.law.virginia.edu/lawweb/faculty.nsf/FHPbI/2575027

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Ideas:

“ I am developing a new jurisprudence of parentage law that draws on Kantian legal philosophy. State law now recognizes as many as eleven tests for parentage and, when they conflict, directs family courts to follow the test founded on "weightier policy." Normative theory is not much help. None of the principles central to theorizing about parentage -- genetics, causation, intent, caregiving -- can justify parental rights and duties. To untangle this doctrinal knot, legal and moral theorists need to reconceive their notions of parentage. Parent is not a natural kind, and parental rights and duties cannot be justified by ordinary interpersonal morality. Parentage is a political office with immense authority and burdensome duties. Children have a right to parental authority as a matter of distributive justice. Moral principles cannot justify the juridical rights and duties of parents, but they can provide limits on and reasons for allocating the political office of parenthood. ”