Resources

Worth your time on this question

Everything worth your time on the question: What do I reasonably owe? What am I refusing?

Three things on this subject: three things to read. It opens with Persons, Character and Morality by Bernard Williams. Read after Singer. Two of these take opposing positions, and both are kept, because the disagreement is the useful part.

This page is for going further on your own. If you would rather work the question out with somebody asking, that is the conversation.

What does my family need from me: talk it through

READ · ESSAY

Persons, Character and Morality

Bernard Williams

Read after Singer. The disagreement is real. It matters for how you actually live.

The reply: a morality that treats your own family as one claim among millions asks you to abandon the projects that make you a person at all.

One view

Special obligations. Partiality towards those close to you is not a failure of reasoning.

Another view

Impartial obligation. Distance is morally irrelevant. Famine, Affluence and Morality

Family Therapy in Clinical Practice

Murray Bowen

Bowen's idea of differentiation, staying connected to your family without being governed by it, is the useful frame for most adult family questions.

Negotiating Family Responsibilities

Janet Finch and Jennifer Mason

British sociology on how family obligation is negotiated in practice rather than fixed by role. It shows how quietly duties get allocated.

Recommended by the TAIU community

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