Abstract

A. I. Melden’s earlier writings suggested that the justification for a given moral right is simply the social institution or context in which that right characteristically was involved: "the right that A has is the right that is his moral status or role with respect to B". On this view there is no justification for such rights independent of what can be provided by the particular practices in which they are embedded. Thus, to determine and ultimately to justify the respective moral rights of parents and their children we should look to the "language game" in which they are mutually involved—that of family life—for this is the context in which rights and obligations of this sort have their primary and peculiar place.