|
Etikk i praksis. Nordic Journal of Applied Ethics (2020),
14
(1), 67-83 |
| http://dx.doi.org/10.5324/eip.v14i1.3362 |
| What grounds special treatment between siblings?
Marcus William Hunt Siblings ought to treat one another specially – in other words, siblings qua siblings ought to treat one another in ways that they need not treat others. This paper offers a theory of why this is the case. The paper begins with some intuitive judgments about how siblings ought to treat one another and some other normative features of siblinghood. I then review three potential theories of why siblings ought to treat one another specially, adapted from the literature on filial piety: the gratitude theory, the friendship theory, and the special goods theory. In each case, these theories fail to explain some of the intuitive judgments about how siblings ought to treat one another. The paper then proposes a familial belonging theory. The institution of the family has certain goals, which impose normative demands on family members. I suggest that one such family goal is that every member feel familial belonging towards every other member, a goal which grounds the ways in which siblings ought to treat one another specially.
Introduction
Siblings ought to
treat one another specially – siblings qua
siblings ought to treat one another in ways
that they need not treat others. This paper
aims to give a theory of why siblings ought
to treat one another specially. The paper
begins by offering a rough characterization
of the special ways in which siblings ought
to treat one another and of some other
normative features of siblinghood. With this
characterization in mind, we will be better
able to assess answers to the “why”
question. So far as I am aware, no
contemporary philosophical literature on the
question of what grounds special treatment
between siblings is available. Therefore,
this paper investigates whether extant
theories of why children ought to treat
their parents specially (theories of “filial
piety”) serve as good models for
understanding why siblings should give each
other special treatment, and I suggest that
they do not. The extant theories are the
gratitude theory, the friendship theory, and
the special goods theory. I then turn to
outlining my own theory, the familial
belonging theory. This theory postulates
that the institution of the family has a
particular goal, which is that every
member should feel familial belonging
towards every other member. The special ways
in which siblings ought to treat one another
are grounded in this goal, and can help
siblings avoid frustration of this goal and
facilitate its achievement.
I begin with some of
my intuitive judgments about the special ways
that adult siblings ought to treat one another
and some other normative features of
siblinghood. Beginning with one’s own intuitive
judgments may arouse the suspicion of being
idiosyncratic. This is a reasonable suspicion,
but given that existing philosophical discussion
of siblinghood is so scarce, and since there is
no stock set of intuitive judgments on which to
draw, this seems to be where our starting point
must be. The main desiderata of a good theory
for what grounds special treatment between
siblings will be that it explains these
intuitive judgments.
· Content. Here is a list
of the special ways that adult siblings ought to
treat one another: o Continuation of
the relationship. Adult siblings
often do not have very intimate relationships (LaFollette 2017). Frequently, they
do not spend much time with one another or share
their everyday troubles. There seems to be
nothing (normatively) wrong with this, even
though intimacy between adult siblings is
(axiologically) good. Adult siblings should
continue in the less intimate relationships that
they do share – such as making an effort to
attend family reunions, talking every so often,
and letting each other know about significant
life events, rather than becoming entirely
estranged. o Cooperation in
discharging duties of filial piety. It seems that
adult children have duties of filial piety to
their parents, such as to provide care and
companionship in the parents’ old age. Siblings
ought to help cooperate in discharging these
duties, e.g. discussing their parents’
well-being with one another, making care
decisions together, coordinating their visits to
their parents so that they do not go without
company for too long. Or again, if a sister ends
up being the one who spends the most time caring
for an elderly parent – because her siblings
live in a different part of the country, for
example – the siblings ought to give her
financial compensation for this. Even though the
sister owes it to her parents that she look
after them in the event that her siblings fail
to compensate her financially, she would have a
rightful complaint against them that they were
not only bad children but bad siblings for
failing to do so. o Material help in
cases of severe material need. Siblings ought to
give material help to a sibling who is in severe
material need, e.g. paying for their groceries
if they are going hungry, letting them stay in
the spare room if they have become homeless. In
cases other than severe material need, the
normative impetus towards material help drops
off sharply – more prosperous siblings are not
doing something wrong if they do not help a less
prosperous sibling with a deposit on a house. o Offering and
receiving advice. Siblings ought
to offer advice to and receive advice from one
another about various aspects of their lives.
This tentatively extends even to unsolicited
advice – in a manner somewhat similar to
parents, siblings ought to offer advice and hear
one another’s advice even when it is unasked for
(and even when a sibling would rather not hear
it; telling one another “home truths”). o Relationship
with their children. Siblings ought to
have relationships with their nieces and
nephews. This might involve buying the nieces
and nephews birthday presents, developing shared
interests with them (say, a love of maps and
geography or teaching them origami or woodwork),
spending time with them, taking them on
day-trips. If a sibling displayed a total lack
of interest in having a relationship with one’s
children, one could rightly regard them as being
a bad sibling as well as a bad uncle or aunt.
Likewise, if a sibling did not allow such
relationships to develop – by never bothering to
help arrange visits or ridiculing a shared
interest, for example – one could rightly regard
them as a bad sibling.
· Non-discretionary. Siblings do not
choose to be siblings, and they cannot choose
not to be siblings. These descriptive facts
about the sibling relationship also apply to the
normative question of how siblings ought to
treat one another. Siblings do not choose or
incur by their choices a significant portion of
how they ought to treat one another, nor can
they choose to rid themselves of these oughts.
By way of example, if my sister and I tried to
agree that we would not help one another in
cases of severe material need, and in the event
that my sister did fall into severe material
need, she might rightly say that what we had
tried to agree to had not really altered how I
ought to treat her.
· Open-ended. There is no type
of action by which one can, once and for all,
finish giving a sibling all the special
treatment owed them, nor is there a time period
after which one no longer ought to treat a
sibling specially.
· Permanent regret
in cases of breakdown. As noted,
relationships between siblings are often not
intimate, and siblings can become estranged by a
long lapse of contact. But, beyond this,
relationships between siblings can break down
into mutual hostility. Two brothers who refuse
to go back to their parents’ home for Christmas
if the other will be there; who complain to
their parents about the other, or who ask their
sister for gossip about the other’s failings are
examples of such behavior. In cases where the
relationship between siblings breaks down, both
ought to regard this with regret permanently. If
the relationship between you and your sibling
broke down 20 years ago you ought to still
regret this, whereas if you had a boyfriend or a
co-worker 20 years ago you need not any longer
regret that those relationships broke down into
mutual hostility.
· Permanently
reduced well-being in cases of breakdown. As a descriptive
claim rather than a normative claim, a
relationship between siblings that breaks down
permanently reduces the well-being of both so
long as the breakdown continues. The
relationship with your sibling that has been
broken down for 20 years continues to reduce
your well-being, whereas your relationship with
an old boyfriend that has been broken down for
20 years does not continue to reduce your
well-being – it might only have reduced your
well-being for a few months.
· Repair. If the
relationship between siblings breaks down, both
siblings ought to make attempts to repair it.
For instance, if one sibling has wronged the
other by stealing from them and this has led to
a breakdown in their relationship, both siblings
ought to make attempts at repairing it. This
seems to be a somewhat unusual feature in how
siblings ought to treat one another specially.
In many other cases a normative impetus to
repair a relationship is absent, or falls only
or overwhelmingly on the party to blame for the
breakdown.
· Robust. The special
treatment due between siblings is not easily
changed or diminished by the wrongdoing of
either. If my brother embarks on a life of crime
and even wrongs me as a result, or if he fails
to treat me in the special ways that a sibling
ought to, there is still some special treatment
I ought to give him, even if the treatment I
ought to give him is somewhat changed or
diminished. The sibling relationship is not
maximally robust – Mussolini’s sister need not
have continued to send him birthday cards or
invited him to visit his nieces and nephews –
and plausibly is not as robust as the attitude
of parents towards their child, but compared to
many other relationships the sibling
relationship is highly robust. In a similar
vein, the special treatment that siblings ought
to give one another is not easily changed or
diminished by behavior that either party regards
as negative in value – e.g. if my brother joins
a religion I dislike or votes for the party I
dislike or develops character traits I dislike
or lives a lifestyle I dislike, I still owe him
special treatment in certain ways. “He’s still
my brother” is a normative as well as
descriptive claim.
Drawing from the
literature on filial piety, I now outline
and critique three potential theories of
what grounds special treatment between
siblings. The gratitude theory
When someone benefits
you, they are your benefactor. It is typically
fitting to feel gratitude to one’s benefactor
and unfitting not to. In turn, gratitude
constitutively has certain desires such as a
desire to benefit one’s benefactor – a “desire
to make a return” (Walker 1981: 49). The gratitude
theory of filial piety says that since parents
act as benefactors to their children, children
ought to feel gratitude to their parents and so
ought to desire to benefit their parents. In
this way, children incur a “debt of gratitude” (Blustein 1982: 175) to their parents.
· Non-discretionary.
Debts of gratitude can be waived by the person
to whom they are owed. Some siblings might be
“uncomfortable with or uninterested in displays
of gratitude” (Keller 2006: 259), yet special
treatment still ought to be given them.
· Open-ended. Debts of
gratitude are not open-ended (Keller 2006: 260–62), e.g. if I am
grateful to my old boss for the astounding
reference letter that she wrote for me, I may
pay off my debt of gratitude by writing her a
thoughtful thank you letter and buying her a
bottle of wine.
· Robust. Debts of
gratitude are not robust. Consider the case of a
benefactor to whom you are fittingly and
strongly grateful, but who in subsequent years
starts wronging you by spreading mean gossip
about you, or you tell the benefactor about some
disappointment of yours and they can barely
contain their glee about it. At this point,
gratitude for the original benefits is no longer
fitting and any debt of gratitude has dissipated
– plausibly, because the benefactor no longer
has good will towards you. As Seneca put it: Someone who has
once behaved with good will and generosity
towards me, but later and on many occasions with
arrogance, contempt, and cruelty, has placed me
in a situation where I am just as free in regard
to him as if I had not received anything; he has
killed his own benefits. (Seneca 2011: 139) But, since the
sibling relationship is robust, one should to
some degree still treat a sibling specially who,
lamentably, is like this. As a
separate objection, consider some of
the factors that determine the
fittingness of gratitude and the
factors that determine the strength
of gratitude. Gratitude is
especially fitting and ought to be
especially strong when (among other
factors), (i) the benefit was given
intentionally as a benefit; (ii) the
giving of a benefit was
supererogatory for the benefactor;
or (iii) the giving of the benefit
imposed costs or risks on the
benefactor (Blustein 1982: 177). The
benefits that siblings bestow on one
another during childhood largely
fail to instantiate any of these
factors. For instance, by playing
with her younger brother, older
sister gives him the benefit of
being socialized largely
unintentionally. It was a treatment
that she ought to have given her
brother anyway and did not impose
costs or risks on her. The gratitude
theory is also unable to explain why
siblings, as children, ought to
treat one another specially from the
outset, before any benefits have
been received. The friendship theory
The friendship theory
of filial piety is that “friends are motivated
by love” (English 1979: 353) to seek one
another’s well-being and that the relationship
between child and parent is friendship (English 1979), or a sui
generis form of friendship (Dixon 1995: 80–82), hence children
ought to seek the well-being of their parents.
·
Non-discretionary. Friendship is
the paradigm of a discretionary relationship.
Although a person should not simply stop being
friends with someone at the drop of a hat, one
can choose to stop being friends with someone,
and we typically lose friendships and gain new
ones throughout life as our values and interests
change and as we move from one place to another.
By contrast, although we can and often do drift
away from or become estranged from our siblings
as adults, we do not lose our sibling
relationship with them. Transferring these
observations to the normative domain, we should
still treat an estranged sibling specially,
whereas the special treatment due an old or
ex-friend is much weaker. ·
Robust. Friendships seem
considerably less robust than the sibling
relationship. If you discover that a friend has
been doing wrong by you, such as by deceiving
you or stealing from you, the special treatment
owed to that friend is radically diminished if
not altogether annulled. Again, when a friend
fails to treat you specially in the ways that a
friend ought to, after a period of time you are
no longer required to treat them specially in
any way. Again, friendships do not seem very
robust in the face of non-wrongful behavior that
the friends regard as being of negative value,
such as voting for a disliked party or adopting
a disliked lifestyle. The special goods theory
The special goods
theory of filial piety is a recent innovation
by Simon Keller. Keller draws a distinction
between “generic goods, which could in
principle be received from anyone, and special
goods, which the parent can receive from no
one (or almost no one) but the child” (Keller 2006: 266). As examples of
generic goods which could be received from
anyone, Keller mentions things like “medical
care, a ride to the shops” (Keller 2006: 266), and one of his
examples of a special good which can be
received from no one (or almost no one) but a
single individual is the following: You might value your
child’s keeping in touch, but not because you
want to be in touch with someone and your
child is someone. The good in question is the
good of having your child, the one you raised,
love and care about, make an effort to keep in
touch. (Keller 2006: 266) Keller gives a
brief account of why adult children have a
special duty to provide their parents with
special goods: The reason why you
have special duties to your parents is that
you are uniquely placed to provide them with
these goods, and find yourself in a
relationship in which they have provided (and
perhaps continue to provide) special goods to
you. (Keller 2006: 268) The first clause of
Kelley’s sentence points towards the idea that
within the typical parent-child relationship
the following general principle applies: that
“when you are uniquely placed to provide
someone with an important good, you have a
moral reason to do so” (Keller 2006: 273). The
significance of the fact that one finds
oneself in a relationship in which one’s adult
parents provide or have provided special goods
to one is clarified by Keller’s remarks on the
conditions under which he takes there to be no
filial duties.
if your parents
choose not to carry out their duties towards
you, make unreasonable demands, or are
otherwise to blame for the deterioration of
the relationship – if they disown you without
good reason, for example – then your duties to
provide the special goods to them is mitigated
or dissolved, even if you are still able to
provide these. (Keller 2006: 269)
[…] the
children… who do not have filial duties are
the ones who are not well placed to provide
the special goods to the parent. Because of
their utterly incompatible personalities or
world-views, their sharing a destructive or
dysfunctional relationship, or their
respective financial and other circumstances,
a parent and grown child may have very little
to offer each other. (Keller 2006: 270)
The special goods of siblinghood do not make a significant contribution to well-being I agree with Keller’s estimation that the special goods of the parent-child relationship make an important contribution to a person’s well-being:
The goods that
parenting adds to a life can be, if our
ordinary attitudes are to be trusted, of
enormous value… People who enjoy all good
health, wealth and professional success may
nevertheless feel that if they never have
children then something important will be
missing from their lives. (Keller 2006:
265–66)
In the same vein,
Adam Swift and Harry Brighouse remark that:
People do indeed go
to great lengths in order to raise children,
and some consider the inability to do so as a
profound blight on their lives…many regard
themselves as having missed out on an
experience that would have been necessary for
them fully to flourish. (Brighouse and
Swift 2014: 99–100) Again, psycho-sociological findings indicate that involuntary childlessness is often negatively associated with measurable aspects of well-being, such as scores on depression, anxiety, and life-satisfaction scales (Greil, Slauson-Blevins, and McQuillan 2010: 144, 147–48). By contrast, it seems that equivalent claims about siblinghood would be far too strong. It seems that we do not feel of only children that “something important is missing from their lives” or that they suffer from “a profound blight on their lives.” Rather it seems that we think only children are just as or almost as well off as children who have siblings. Likewise, psycho-sociological findings indicate that only children do not differ from children with siblings in measurable aspects of their well-being, such as self-reported satisfaction with life as a whole, positive mood or self-esteem (Veenhoven and Verkuyten 1989), nor in their personality traits, social competence, and so forth (Mancillas 2006). So, we might conclude that the special goods of siblinghood do not make a significant contribution to well-being. This conclusion might seem too quick, since many people who do have siblings seem to receive special goods of enormous value from their siblings. So, this presents something of a puzzle: on the one hand only children seem to be just as or almost as well off as children who have siblings, yet on the other hand children who have siblings seem to receive special goods of enormous value from their siblings. To solve the puzzle, we can note two different senses in which a good is special, both of which are at play in Keller’s discussion of filial piety, but which are not clearly distinguished. On the one hand, an action-theoretic claim addresses whom one is able to receive a good from, and in this sense generic goods are those “which could in principle be received from anyone” and special goods are those which can be received from “no one (or almost no one)” but one individual. On the other hand, an axiological claim considers whether some good can admit substitutes or not in its contribution to an individual’s well-being, that is, whether it makes a contribution to well-being that no other good can make. As Keller said above, some people “feel that if they never have children then something important will be missing from their lives” – no amount of health or wealth or other goods can function as a substitute for the goods associated with having a child, so these goods are special rather than generic in the axiological sense. Note that, in many cases, a good being special in the axiological sense explains why that good is special in the action-theoretic sense: the fact that your child’s keeping in touch is special to you in the axiological sense is why there is some good that only your child can provide. Further, note that whether some good is special in the action-theoretic sense is in part relative to each individual – one person may be able to receive the good of “good advice” from practically anyone, another person may only be able to receive good advice from a handful of people. So, we can solve the puzzle posed above by saying that although most of the goods that people receive from their siblings are not special in the axiological sense, many of the goods that people receive from their siblings are special for them in the action-theoretic sense. For instance, a good like “the caring companionship of an equal” that can be provided by a sibling is not special in the axiological sense compared with that provided by a good friend, but given facts about the histories of a token pair of siblings, this good may be special in the action-theoretic sense. With this distinction we can account for the plausible claim that an only child might make – “I was fine growing up and I still am because I have close friends” – and the plausible claim that someone with a sibling might make – “My sister provides me with goods that no one else can.” In light of the
claim that the only child is just as or almost
as well off as the child with siblings, we may
conclude that the goods of siblinghood that
are special in the axiological sense are so
minor that they cannot ground special duties
to provide these things. Being told a “home
truth” by a sibling may for example really be
a special good in the axiological sense as
compared with being told a “home truth” by a
parent or being given serious advice by a
friend, but not a good that makes such a
significant additional contribution to
well-being that it grounds a duty to so
provide it. As Keller notes, and as seems
plausible, it is only when a good makes an
important contribution to a person’s
well-being that one has a duty to provide it
on that ground (Keller 2006: 273). In response, it
seems that it is necessary to clarify in which
modal register the claim is being made that a
good could be received from no one but a given
individual. Keller’s own claims seem to relate
to the conceptual modal register (given his
use of “in principle”). In the conceptual
modal register, most of the goods that
siblings provide to one another are not
special – as the mere conceivability of a
just-as well-off only child shows, most of the
goods that siblings provide can be provided by
others, such as friends. In a weaker modal
register like the practical modal register, it
could be the case that only a token sibling
could provide another token sibling with a
good that makes an important contribution to
their well-being; for example, your very
elderly sibling could conceptually receive the
good of “the caring companionship of an equal”
from a strong friendship, but now it is no
longer practically possible for them to
acquire a strong friendship because they live
in a remote area or because the local council
has closed the senior social center. Here, it
seems not altogether implausible that you
ought to provide such a sibling with such a
good if doing so is possible for you in the
practical sense. But, here it seems we are no
longer talking about how siblings ought to
treat one another specially qua sibling, but
about how you ought to treat others qua-only-person-positioned-to-provide-a-good,
since on the one hand it seems that (according
to the present theory) one would have a duty
to provide the same good to someone who is not
a sibling and, on the other hand, one would
not have such a duty to one’s sibling but for
various highly contingent social facts (in
this case, facts about the way the living
arrangements and social activities of the very
elderly are organized in one’s locality).
The special treatments of
siblinghood do not all relate to the
provision of special goods I noted my intuitive
judgment that siblings ought to give one
another material help in cases of severe
material need. Yet, material help is not a
special good in the action-theoretic sense.
Material help from a sibling may be a special
good in the axiological sense, but plausibly
the additional non-substitutable contribution
to well-being that is made because the
material help is received from a sibling is
not so important that it imposes a special
duty. So, the special goods theory does not
explain the intuitive judgment that siblings
ought to give one another material help in
cases of severe material need.
Cases in which one sibling ought
to treat another specially despite the
mutuality condition and the likelihood of
success condition not being met Consider the following
case: Andrew is the
brother of Brady and Sarah. Andrew is not a very
nice character, though. He shows no interest in
continuing his relationship with Brady and Sarah
– he ignores the sibling group-chat, he never
bothers to visit them or makes plans for them to
visit. Again, he neither offers them advice nor
will he tolerate it from them. Again, he shows
no interest in developing a relationship with
Brady’s or Sarah’s children and stymies the
efforts of Brady and Sarah at developing a
relationship with his children. He doesn’t help
Brady and Sarah in discharging their duties of
filial piety, and when Brady and Sarah fall into
severe material need he doesn’t help them. Brady
and Sarah have no reason to expect that Andrew
will ever change. Now, a whole novel
would be needed for us to clarify every relevant
feature of the case, but we will stipulate that
Andrew has no justifications or excuses for
acting as he does (Brady and Sarah are and
always have been very nice to Andrew, Andrew’s
not visiting or helping Brady and Sarah were not
due to other pressing concerns or lack of means,
Andrew does not suffer from mental illness, and
so forth. He is simply not a very nice
character). Andrew abjectly fails the mutuality
condition and the likelihood of success
condition. On the one hand Andrew does not
provide his siblings with any special goods, and
on the other hand it is unlikely that they will
be able to provide Andrew with any special
goods. So, in the present theory, Brady and
Sarah do not need to try to provide Andrew with
any special goods. This, I submit, seems wrong.
Since the oughts of siblinghood are not
maximally robust, this is not to say that Brady
ought to try to help Andrew as much as he ought
to help Sarah, but the failure of the special
goods theory becomes evident if we can think of
any special goods that Brady and Sarah should
try to give Andrew. For instance, perhaps every
so often Sarah ought to make efforts to get her
own children and Andrew’s children together, or
perhaps every so often Brady ought to make an
effort at repairing the relationship by sending
Andrew a thoughtful birthday present or letting
Andrew know that he’d love to go fishing
(Andrew’s favorite pastime) with him.
The familial belonging theory
I suggest that the
institution of the family constitutively has
certain goals, such that those who are members
of a token family have these goals qua
family member. Family members have different
roles within a family – at the least including
parent and child – and different rights and
duties attach to these roles, with the rights
and duties being grounded by their relation to
the goals of the family. Some such duties may
make an action obligatory because its
performance significantly advances a goal of the
family, other duties may make an action
impermissible because its performance
significantly frustrates a goal of the family.
Familial belonging is a goal of the family
Typical
practices of parents to cultivate familial
belonging Familial belonging
as a goal of the family is indicated by the
practices of parents who cultivate familial
belonging between their children during
their childhoods. Parents encourage their
children to play together, to spend time
together, or to develop shared hobbies, e.g.
“Show him how to play Red Alert with
you.” Parents encourage their children to
delight in one another’s achievements and to
sympathize with one another’s hardships –
such as when they make sure that
little-sister is there to watch your piano
recital, e.g.“That’s your brother! Aren’t
you proud?” or encourage big-brother to
treat you sympathetically whilst your leg is
in a cast. Again, parents develop unique
family traditions that give siblings a
shared set of memories, and parents
encourage siblings to understand themselves
by reference to one another, e.g. “You are
so reserved with strangers, just like your
sister! But she has a rebellious streak that
you don’t.” Imagine the case of the child
who did not feel familial belonging towards
his siblings, who thought of them as “mom
and dad’s other kids” rather than as his
brothers and sisters, who did not feel sad
about their hardships, and so forth. Such a
child’s parents would be horrified at his
feelings and think that they were in need of
correction. All of these typical practices
can be understood and explained as ways in
which parents promote the goal of familial
belonging. Parents also cultivate familial
belonging for each other and between
themselves and their children, such as when
one parent might say to the other, “I know
your Saturdays are sacred, but you should
take little Sarah out trainspotting with
you, it would be a good way for you two to
bond.” Parents judge
their well-being to be diminished by the
absence of feelings of familial belonging
between members of the family In general, it
seems that failing to achieve a goal lessens
a person’s well-being, including goals one
has by virtue of occupying a certain role. I
suggest that this is a good way to
understand the judgments of parents about
their diminished well-being in cases where
feelings of familial belonging are absent
between their children. Consider these
comments made in response to the article
“What to Do When Your Adult Kids Keep
Fighting,” written for a popular audience: Gosh, I have
to say at least I don't feel alone in this
cutting pain that I feel about my two adult
daughters fighting over and over. Thank you
all for sharing. My two girls have a pattern
of fighting as adults for the past 10 years
now. They are 35 and 40. It hurts me so much
that although I am a single parent living
3000 miles away from them, I don't want to
visit anymore. It breaks my heart to have
one daughter want to spend time with only
me, pick me up and I have to leave her
sister alone. I am not the
parent, but the older sister. My brother and
sister have not spoke [sic] or been in the
same room for over four years. This is
killing my parents. I have tried to explain
to them what they are doing to all of us. He [the
father] is completely heart broken [sic]
that they [the children] do not get along,
and it breaks my heart to see him so
distraught. He’s at the point now, that he
doesn’t want family gatherings anymore,
because of the tension, bickering and
judgemental behaviour. We simply adore our
children and have tried to raise them close
to each other, but we feel like we have
failed. (Lener 2018) These comments
illustrate that breakdown and estrangement
between adult siblings – surely inimical to
feelings of familial belonging between adult
siblings – damage the well-being of their
parents. Here, it seems that the siblings
are treating one another (fighting, not
speaking, bickering) in ways that frustrate
their feelings of familial belonging for one
another and likewise split the feelings of
familial belonging for other family members,
damaging the feeling of the wholeness of the
family. It seems plausible that less extreme
cases – such as when adult siblings fail to
help one another in cases of severe material
need or neglect to develop relationships
with their nieces and nephews – would also,
albeit to a lesser degree, damage the
well-being of parents by frustrating the
achievement of one of the goals that parents
have as members of the family. Psycho-sociological
research shows that good relations between
parents and their adult children is
positively associated with measurable
aspects of the parents’ well-being (Ward
2008). Unfortunately, it seems that no
psycho-sociological research has directly
investigated the association between poor
adult sibling relations and measurable
aspects of their parent’s well-being, so I
rely on these anecdotal reports. The goal of
familial
belonging and
special
treatment
between
siblings
Since familial
belonging is a complex mix of affective
states, and since affective states are not
under direct voluntary control, it seems clear
that there can be no duty to feel familial
belonging. Nevertheless, our affective states
can be indirectly influenced by our actions,
and since actions are under our direct
voluntary control they can be regulated by
duties (Landau 2004). The special
ways in which adult siblings ought to treat
one another can be understood as ways in which
adult siblings can avoid the frustration of,
or promote, feelings of familial belonging. · Content. Here it seems
that Continuation of the relationship
facilitates the goal of familial belonging by
helping to keep open the space within which
feelings of familial belonging can develop –
such as the two estranged brothers who
typically share only superficial chit-chat and
find their feelings of familial belonging
reawakened at a family reunion, which would
not have happened if they had not attended. Cooperation
in discharging duties of filial piety
gives adult siblings a shared object of
concern by activating and cultivating their
feeling of being parts of the whole by
attending to another part together. Material
help in severe material need serves as
a way in which siblings can activate and
cultivate the feeling that their well-being is
in part constituted by the well-being of the
other members of the familial community. Offering
and receiving advice activates
and cultivates an ongoing interest in one
another’s lives. Relationship with their
children is a way in which siblings
affirm their feelings of familial belonging
for one another whilst also affirming their
sibling’s belonging in a new family.
· Non-discretionary. Since one
cannot choose what treatment does or does not
contribute to the goal of familial belonging,
how siblings ought to treat one another is not
at their discretion.
· Open-ended. Since siblings
treating one another as they should
continually contributes to the goal of
familial belonging, there is no particular
point at which siblings have “completed”
treating each other as they should. The
familial community can survive the deaths of
the parents since siblings with deceased
parents are clearly still family, so the death
of the parents does not fundamentally alter
how siblings ought to treat one another.
· Permanent
regret in cases of breakdown. Since the
breakdown of the relationship between siblings
poses an ongoing frustration of the goal of
familial belonging, such breakdowns ought to
engender ongoing regret for the siblings.
· Permanently
reduced well-being in cases of breakdown. Failing to
achieve a goal reduces a person’s well-being,
and since siblings retain this goal of the
familial community by continuing to be family
members, breakdown in the relationship between
siblings permanently reduces their well-being
so long as the breakdown lasts.
· Repair. In this
theory, repair can be understood to encompass
actions that attempt to remove factors that
are frustrating the achievement of the goal of
familial belonging – e.g. one can attempt to
get back in contact with a sibling, or try to
better understand what led to the breakdown of
the relationship, and so forth. Likewise,
since other members of the family have the
goal of familial belonging, the breakdown in
the relationship between two siblings reduces
the well-being of their parents and other
siblings by damaging the feeling of the
wholeness of the family – hence the plausible
thought that two siblings should repair their
relationship “for mom and dad.”
· Robust. Since siblings
should have the goal of familial belonging in
mind, the wrong that one sibling does to
another or the bad behavior that they display
is not the only factor that determines how
they should be treated. By analogy, if
colleague Clive wrongs colleague Diana in some
way – such as handing in assignments very late
for no good reason, thereby disrupting Diana’s
workflow – it does not mean that Diana’s
special treatment of colleague Clive should
change drastically, e.g. deciding not
to include Clive in important e-mail chains,
because Diana’s special treatment of Clive is
largely a matter of her role-based
responsibilities, grounded in the goals of the
company. So, the intuitive judgments I made at the outset are explained well by the familial belonging theory of what grounds special treatment between siblings, which in itself is a reason to accept the familial belonging theory. Clarifications
What about cases of bad or abusive
parents, who did not cultivate feelings
of familial belonging between every
member of the family? Should the
children of such parents treat their
siblings in the ways described?
Acknowledgements
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