An AI narration of the article 'Three Questions Philosophers Do Not Want To Answer About Parenting' by Jake Desyllas.

Why are books on the ethics of parenting so consistently dull? In this episode, Jake Desyllas argues that the blandness is no accident — it is the product of strategic omission. Philosophers of the family routinely skirt around questioning the practices that most urgently deserve scrutiny: corporal punishment, circumcision, and abortion. These are widely accepted parental practices that are also ethically indefensible, and they constitute acts of aggression by parents that violate the rights of their children. Drawing on Patrick Lenta, Walter Block and Patrick Testa, and Brad Stetson, Jake explains how this silence functions as conformity to intellectual taboo — and why refusing to address such questions is an abdication of the basic responsibility of a philosopher.

Chapters:

0:00 Introduction 2:35 Corporal Punishment 3:38 Circumcision 4:24 Abortion 6:06 Recent Practices to Add to the List

First published at https://www.jakedesyllas.com/blog/2025/2/5/three-questions-philosophers-do-not-want-to-answer-about-parenting on 5 February 2025.

An AI narration of the article 'The Cost of Bad Street Design' by Jake Desyllas.

In this article, Jake Desyllas examines the hidden costs of a design ideology that came to dominate twentieth-century traffic planning: the idea that pedestrians and vehicles must be physically segregated, with streets re-engineered as conduits for through traffic. Drawing on his work in a pedestrian movement consultancy, he traces the lineage from Herbert Alker Tripp's 1940s advocacy of "fencing off the perils" through the influential 1963 Buchanan report, and shows how the resulting guard-rails, underpasses and signalised crossings produce the opposite of what they promise. The casualties are not only the obvious ones — dislocated communities, dying high streets, declining walking, rising obesity — but the loss of streets themselves as places where everyday life happens. An invitation to question whether the segregated, single-use street is really the only way.

Chapters:

0:00 Title 0:05 Introduction 3:03 The consequences of bad street design 4:31 Planning for traffic 8:29 Reshaping our cities 12:44 Dangerous streets 17:16 The death of walking 22:04 Alternative solutions 25:11 Conclusion

First published in 2006 by the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment.

An AI narration of the article 'A Critique of Nozick's Comments on Parental Obligations and Children's Rights' by Jake Desyllas.

Robert Nozick's commentary on Locke's theory of homesteading contains two genuinely sharp insights into the problem of children's rights: that Locke's God-as-creator argument conceded the principle that children are ownable rather than refuting it, and that Locke's same move undermined any causal grounding for parental responsibility. Yet having identified the problem so clearly, Nozick refused to do the work of solving it — leaving the homework for someone else and, in later writing, drifting into shallow speculations about children as extensions of their parents. This essay walks through Nozick's insights, his refusal to put forward his own theory, and what his stance reveals about a philosopher who preferred clever exploration to firm conclusions.

Chapters:

0:00 Introduction 3:36 Nozick's First Insight: Locke Conceded That Children Are Ownable 4:36 Nozick's Second Insight: Locke Denied Causal Parental Responsibility 5:56 What Did Nozick Argue About Parental Obligations? 7:13 What Did Nozick Argue About Children's Rights? 10:19 Maybe Nozick Just Didn't Care

First published at https://www.jakedesyllas.com/blog/2025/2/26/a-critique-of-nozicks-comments-on-parental-obligations-and-childrens-rights on 26 February 2025.

Article only version

An AI narration of the article 'What Is The Libertarian Theory of Parental Obligations?' by Jake Desyllas.

This article examines four competing philosophical theories of the parental role within a libertarian framework: parental ownership, parenting as charity, parenting as voluntary social contract, and causal parental responsibility. It critically analyzes each theory, evaluating its logical implications—particularly concerning the legitimacy of enforceable parental obligations—and its compatibility with libertarian principles. The article argues that the first three theories are unsound and incompatible with libertarianism. In contrast, it defends the theory of causal parental responsibility as the only sound framework consistent with libertarian philosophy, grounding enforceable parental obligations in the creation of peril. This analysis seeks to resolve long-standing debates and establish a coherent libertarian theory of parental obligation.

Chapters:

0:00 Abstract 1:00 Introduction 3:06 The Theory of Parental Ownership 7:29 The Theory of Parenting as Charity 17:33 The Theory of Parenting as Voluntary Social Contract 24:19 The Theory of Causal Parental Responsibility 36:30 Parental Obligations in Contemporary Libertarian Thought 41:06 Conclusion

First published at https://jls.mises.org/article/141458-what-is-the-libertarian-theory-of-parental-obligations on 1 July 2025.

An AI narration of the article 'You Cannot Give Up Parental Obligations' by Jake Desyllas.

Parental obligations exist because creating a child places that child in a state of peril, and the parents are the ones causally responsible for that peril. From this foundation, Jake draws an unsettling conclusion: those obligations cannot be legitimately given up. Through carefully constructed thought experiments — a bonfire that endangers a neighbour's house, a swimmer pushed into a lake — he shows that delegating the task to someone else does not erase the original obligation. The argument cuts across unintended parenthood, adoption, and gamete donation, with implications many will find uncomfortable. If parents cannot legitimately absolve themselves of their obligations, what does that mean for the practices and institutions we have built around the idea that they can?

Chapters:

0:00 Introduction 3:33 Unintended Parenthood 5:45 Parents Who Give Up Their Child For Adoption 10:04 Gamete Donors/Sellers 11:47 Conclusion

First published at https://www.jakedesyllas.com/blog/2024/10/8/you-cannot-give-up-parental-obligations on 8 October 2024.

An AI narration of the article 'A Critique of Rothbard's Theory Of Parental Ownership' by Jake Desyllas.

Self-ownership is a foundational principle of libertarian philosophy — but does it extend to children? Murray Rothbard rejected outright ownership of children, yet defended a "limited" parental ownership on homesteading grounds. This essay traces the contradiction in Rothbard's position and argues the correct framing: parents hold obligations to their children, not ownership rights, and children are self-owners from the moment they are created.

Chapters:

0:00 Introduction 1:35 Rothbard's Conflicting Arguments on Parental Ownership 4:47 Individuals Cannot Be Homesteaded 7:33 Rothbard's Two Models Of Limited Parental Ownership 9:57 What Was Rothbard Trying To Achieve? 13:30 Parental Ownership Rights Are Merely Asserted 14:45 The Core Premise At Fault 15:34 The Correct Formulation Of The Parental Role

First published at https://www.jakedesyllas.com/blog/2024/12/29/a-critique-of-rothbards-theory-of-parental-ownership on 29 December 2024.

The State's Drive to Destroy the Family: Institutional Logic and Time Preference

A presentation by Jake Desyllas at the 2026 Austrian Economics Research Conference held at the Mises Institute in Auburn, Alabama.

A presentation by Jake Desyllas at the 2026 Libertarian Scholars Conference held at the Mises Institute in Auburn, Alabama.

A presentation by Jake Desyllas at the 2025 Libertarian Scholars Conference held at the Mises Institute in Auburn, Alabama. The article of this talk is at https://jls.mises.org/article/141458-what-is-the-libertarian-theory-of-parental-obligations