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In this short book, David Archard explores, with clarity and precision, the increasingly contentious area of political and philosophical debate concerning children and parents, and their relation to the state. His aim, as the book's title implies, is to provide a liberal defence of the family. It must be said, however, that this title could mislead, for Archard's argument depends on a radical reinterpretation of familiar terms like 'family', 'parent', and 'liberal'. This is a defence of the family in which 'family' is to be understood as applying to almost any social grouping in which children are involved. In the author's words, 'families are the sites in which children are brought up' (xvii) and 'a parent is someone who has a right to act as a parent.'(43) Nor does the term 'liberal' reflect its historical link to individual freedom, for this is a 'liberal' defence in which utilitarian or interest-based social considerations take precedence over individual rights: specifically, Archard believes there is no unqualified right to have children, nor are there parental rights that arise directly and immediately from the procreative relationship.
So while this book should be welcomed as a thought-provoking contribution to philosophical debate about the family, it should be approached with caution, and recognised as being not so much a defence of the family, as a defence of a new orthodoxy according to which the meaning of 'family' has been radically rewritten. It is an orthodoxy that is currently being widely promoted in the liberal democracies and is already built into legislation in some of them. Archard does diverge from it in one respect - its dominant focus on adult wishes - for he places children at the heart of the family. Nevertheless, he refuses to give priority to the arrangement that has been established by most empirical measures to be best for children: the 'traditional' family, which he defines as 'two married heterosexual adults bringing up their own biological offspring'.(68) He objects to this as a prescriptive definition, and recommends instead that it should be open to any society collectively to determine the kinds of families that it wants.
However, like many other contemporary commentators, Archard fails to notice that this 'traditional' definition is...