Right to Be Loved

S. Matthew Liao argues here that children have a right to be loved. To do so he investigates questions such as whether children are rightholders; what grounds a child's right to beloved; whether love is an appropriate object of a right; and other philosophical and practical issues. His proposal is that all human beings have rights to the fundamental conditions for pursuing a good life; therefore as human beings children have human rights to the fundamental conditions for pursuing a good life. Since being loved is one of those fundamental conditions children thus have a right to be loved. Liao shows that this claim need not be merely empty rhetoric and that the arguments for this right can hang together as a coherent whole. <p/>This is the first book to make a sustained philosophical case for the right of children to be loved. It makes a unique contribution to the fast-growing literature on family ethics in particular on children's rights and parental rights and responsibilities and to the emerging field of the philosophy of human rights.<br>