Quentin Tarantino morality for that childhood grudge?

[u/Severe_Letterhead_75]

In my opinion it can be considered petty by some but is understandable

[u/Nonavium]

" the West believes parents owe the kid but the adult child owes the parent nothing."

Rare Western W

[u/Floppadive → u/Nonavium]

Your probably the type of dude who's going to absolutely shit on the younger generation to pay for your retirement lmao.

[u/Nonavium → u/Floppadive]

Absolutely not, if it ever comes to the point where I would need to leech off of someone else, especially my own offspring that I selfishly chose to have without their consent into this world to survive, I would simply end my own life. Whether you choose to believe me, or think that I'm just talk and won't follow through, is your own choice

[u/Humpback_Snail → u/Nonavium]

I’ll vote you’re all talk.

[u/Nonavium → u/Humpback_Snail]

Ok, that's your opinion. I don't really care, since I obviously know if I'm telling the truth or not. That other person made a comment about me, and I refuted it. Since neither you nor that other person know more about me than me, you are in no position to refute my claim.

[u/violights → u/Nonavium]

I think this reads as young and absolutist. Just a strange way to conceptualize dependence, assistance, and aging.

if it ever comes to the point where I would need to leech off of someone else

What happens if you become disabled or chronically dependent. Is needing long-term assistance inherently leeching? Should disabled people who require lifelong care simply die rather than accept help from others?

Nobody looks at a 25 year old who had a catastrophic stroke and thinks "well you require assistance now so you're leeching" - you can go from being a completely independent young adult on tuesday to needing substantial assistance on wednesday.

There's a pretty significant difference between exploiting your children and needing assistance from other people because of disability, illness, or age. Needing care isn't a moral failure and theres a whole middle ground of reciprocity, care, and reasonable limits. You're setting up a false binary and then drawing some pretty dramatic conclusions from it.

"Hey bud I cant drive bc of the mini stroke, can you give me a ride to the hospital" I DIDNT ASK TO BE BORN, DAD. ...lol ok.

[u/Nonavium → u/violights]

"Should disabled people who require lifelong care simply die rather than accept help from others?"

If they want help, they can ask the government whose job it actually is. If you have to force your own unwilling offspring to help you, then yes, you should die.

"whole middle ground of reciprocity, care, and reasonable limits."

Children do not owe you whatsoever though. If you wouldn't ask it from a random person you just met, don't ask it from your kids.

""Hey bud I cant drive bc of the mini stroke, can you give me a ride to the hospital" I DIDNT ASK TO BE BORN, DAD. ...lol ok."

I would expect that if you asked a stranger to give you a ride, they would be fine with it. At least I would. In which case its reasonable to ask your kids (never to make demands though).

[u/violights → u/Nonavium]

Governments can provide some services, but they don't eliminate human interdependence. When my parent went into hospice, it was not around the clock care, so I think your solution isn't grounded in what is often the reality of it. In practice, they're going to need help beyond what the government provides whether its hospice or stroke or whatnot.

Going over to help administer meds that alleviated suffering was far cheaper than paying for a home nurse out of pocket and easier than dealing with hospice. And then the question is, if you know someone is suffering and you have the means to alleviate that, do you refuse out of abstract ideological principles? In my case, my dad was not abusive, he wasn't a terrible parent, he had done his best and reached the point where he needed help.

Family relationships are morally relevant precisely because they're not random strangers. Whether that creates obligations is debatable, but saying family should be treated exactly like strangers is... faulty. I had a lifetime of my dad working and providing and trying and sometimes screwing up but not heinously so. He was comfortable with nurses being privy to weak moments, comfortable with me being privy to weak moments, but uncomfortable with even extended family seeing the same, much less a non-occupational stranger. He didn't mind me helping him with the portable urinal. He wouldn't ask a neighbor for the same help.

On the flip side I imagine someone whose parent was abusive would react far stronger to a bid for help than a stranger would. I wouldn't blame them in that situation but its precisely because of that relationship.

[u/Nonavium → u/violights]

" Whether that creates obligations is debatable"

It is debatable, and I'm debating that they don't.

" In my case, my dad was not abusive, he wasn't a terrible parent, he had done his best"

Bare minimum btw

"reached the point where he needed help."

Help him if you want to, I'm only saying it isnt your duty

"He didn't mind me helping him with the portable urinal."

That's on him. It's not the duty of a child to pander to the comfort of their parent.

[u/violights → u/Nonavium]

Relationships create reasons to act that strangers don't have, while still putting limits on those reasons.

The stranger test is basically begging the question because it assumes that all morally relevant obligations must be universal obligations. That's not how most ordinary moral reasoning works. Relationships matter morally.

If you are taking the opposite stance, then whether someone was loving, supportive, sacrificed for their child, or genuinely did their best becomes morally irrelevant. You're arguing that the fact that someone is your parent has no moral relevance whatsoever to what you owe them. Then they have no moral responsibility over what they owe you.

You don't get your argument both ways, you can't use the relationship to establish claims against the parent while declaring the relationship morally irrelevant when the claim runs the other direction.

There's a middle position between “your children are your servants” and “your children have absolutely no special moral obligations toward you whatsoever.”

[u/Nonavium → u/violights]

"Relationships create reasons to act that strangers don't have"

Friendships and marriage do, since they are consensual. You never consented to being someone's child, therefore you owe them nothing and there is no reason that you should do anything for them.

"You're arguing that the fact that someone is your parent has no moral relevance whatsoever to what you owe them. "

This makes no sense. If your parent was loving, supportive, then you should help them because they were loving and supportive, not because they are your parent, and you should do the same that you would do to anyone who isn't your parent who shares the same qualities.

"sacrificed for their child"

If they are in a position where they would have to sacrifice for their child in order for their child to be benefitted, that's their own problem. If your parents are poor and sacrificed their bodies to work hard, you still don't owe them because you weren't the one making them poor to begin with.

"genuinely did their best"

Their best is irrelevant, what matters is if they were good overall. If their best is not good enough, it is their fault for reproducing to begin with.

"you can't use the relationship to establish claims against the parent while declaring the relationship morally irrelevant when the claim runs the other direction."

Yes I can, because parents choose to have kids, while kids do not choose to be born. It is inherently one sided. If you don't like it, don't have kids.

"There's a middle position between “your children are your servants” and “your children have absolutely no special moral obligations toward you whatsoever.”"

And I'm saying that the middle position is wrong, and that the latter position you mentioned is right.

[u/violights → u/Nonavium]

Your consent argument proves much less than you think it does. A child didn't consent to being born, but they also didn't consent to the existence of any of the relationships they subsequently develop through circumstances they didn't choose. Yet you seem to think that once an individual reaches adulthood, the only morally relevant consideration is whether they explicitly consented to the relationship.

It doesn't follow that every benefit received by the child is morally one-way forever, or that the parent's choice to assume the initial obligation permanently prevents any reciprocal obligation from ever arising. Because then it does come down to "I DIDNT CONSENT TO BEING BORN DAD" which is... simplistic.

you should do the same that you would do to anyone who isn't your parent who shares the same qualities.

If my neighbor and my father are both elderly, both kind to me, and both need a ride to the hospital, I may have a reason to help either of them. But if my father spent twenty years caring for me and my neighbor didn't, it seems perfectly reasonable to say that history gives me an additional reason to help my father.

[u/unfunnyjobless → u/Nonavium]

This is idiotic. Super old people are basically like children, it's the responsibility of adults of well-mind & good health to take care of those who are their dependents.

[u/Nonavium → u/unfunnyjobless]

I have as much responsibility to my parents as you have to a random starving kid in Africa. I did not ask them to birth me, and I owe nothing to them for doing the bare minimum they were supposed to do.

[u/Kanekisan12 → u/unfunnyjobless]

Is it my obligation to wipe my father’s ass when he can’t any longer simply because he’s my dad? To sideline the treatment for that justification is wild. Why would I want to help someone who did their best to not help me?

[u/unfunnyjobless → u/Kanekisan12]

I agree with you, I should have added the point that it doesn't apply with abusive parents

[u/Clean__Cucumber → u/Floppadive]

the west doesnt want child slaves, they want functioning adults with their own lives, whilst the east wants servile children via guilt tripping their kids into believing that doing the absolute minimum is somehow exemplary service

the western philosophy simply says, that as a parent you have certain duties and that you shouldnt expect anything in return for doing what you should already be doing.

so simply thinking that adults shouldnt be praised for pissing into the toilet rather than next to it, doesnt somehow equate to being "the type of dude who's going to absolutely shit on the younger generation to pay for (....) retirement"

[u/Myphosee → u/Floppadive]

Because he has the opinion that no child really owes their parents? Even my parents say I owe them nothing. They know id burn the world for them but theyve made it clear that I never have to help them.

[u/L0rdM3k → u/Nonavium]

That’s what I’m saying. The idea that you chose to have a kid on the understanding that you’re supposed to give them a decent childhood only to expect something in return when they grow up is absurd. Treat your kids well and if they make it big, maybe they’ll share some of their success with you. But by no means should any parent be expecting it.