The Voluntary Life

Jake Desyllas
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A podcast about living a life of your choosing. Topics covered include financial independence, productivity, entrepreneurship, peaceful parenting, minimalism, and rational thinking.

  1. vor 2 Tagen

    When do Parental Obligations Not Apply?

    An AI narration of the article 'When do Parental Obligations Not Apply?' by Jake Desyllas. The causal theory of parental responsibility grounds positive obligations in the fact that, by creating a child, parents place that child in a state of peril. But if obligations follow from action, what about the cases where a child comes into existence without the parent having acted in the relevant sense? In this short piece, Jake works through the principled exceptions: rape, gamete theft, paternity fraud, gestational surrogacy, and a pregnancy that endangers the mother's life. Each case is a test of the theory's internal logic — and a clarifier of where parental obligations begin and end. The piece also draws an implication for the abortion debate, distinguishing the consensual-sex case from the rape case on grounds that follow directly from the causal theory. Chapters: 0:00 Introduction 0:29 Rape 1:31 Gamete Theft 2:28 Paternity Fraud 3:01 Gestational Surrogacy 3:20 Endangered Life Of The Mother During Pregnancy First published at https://www.jakedesyllas.com/blog/2024/7/13/when-do-parental-obligations-apply on 13 July 2024.

    When do Parental Obligations Not Apply?

  2. 30. Aug.

    Objections Against The State-Of-Peril Argument For Parental Obligations

    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.

    Objections Against The State-Of-Peril Argument For Parental Obligations

  3. 23. Aug.

    Support for Abortion Has Corrupted Libertarian Theory

    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.

    Support for Abortion Has Corrupted Libertarian Theory

  4. 16. Aug.

    Opponents of Parental Responsibility Cannot Help Conceding The Argument

    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.

    Opponents of Parental Responsibility Cannot Help Conceding The Argument

  5. 9. Aug.

    Abortion is Incompatible With Parental Obligations

    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.

    Abortion is Incompatible With Parental Obligations

  6. 2. Aug.

    The Only Ideal of Libertarianism is Peace

    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.

    The Only Ideal of Libertarianism is Peace

  7. 26. Juli

    A Critique of George H. Smith's Theory of Parental Obligations

    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.

    A Critique of George H. Smith's Theory of Parental Obligations

  8. 19. Juli

    The First Extreme Saver

    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.

    The First Extreme Saver
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A podcast about living a life of your choosing. Topics covered include financial independence, productivity, entrepreneurship, peaceful parenting, minimalism, and rational thinking.

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  • Erstellt von
    Jake Desyllas
  • Jahre aktiv
    2011 - 2026
  • Folgen
    416
  • Bewertung
    Unbedenklich
  • Sendungswebsite
    The Voluntary Life

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