Philosophical Foundations of Children's and Family Law

Elizabeth Brake, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Arizona State University,Lucinda Ferguson, Associate Professor of Family Law, University of Oxford

Elizabeth Brake is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at Arizona State University. She is the author of Minimizing Marriage: Marriage, Morality, and the Law and editor of After Marriage: Rethinking Marital Relationships (both with Oxford University Press).


Lucinda Ferguson is Associate Professor of Family Law, University of Oxford; Tutorial Fellow in Law, Oriel College, Oxford; and an Associate Member of 1 King's Bench Walk. She has published numerous articles and book chapters on conceptual puzzles within family law, such as the justifiability of financial obligations upon relationship breakdown and arbitration, as well as children's law, particularly debates over children's rights.

Introduction The Importance of Theory to Children's and Family Law, Lucinda Ferguson and Elizabeth Brake
Part One: Definitions
1. Family Law and Legal Theory, John Eekelaar
2. Family and Family Law: Concepts and Norms, David Archard
Part Two: Relationships
3. Paid and Unpaid Care: Marriage, Equality, and Domestic Workers, Elizabeth Brake
4. A Perfectionist Argument for Legal Recognition of Polyamorous Relationships, Ron Den Otter
5. Cohabitants, Choice, and the Public Interest, Robert Leckey
6. Heteronormativity in Dissolution Proceedings: Exploring the Impact of Recourse to Legal Advice in Same Sex Relationship Breakdown, Charlotte Bendall and Rosie Harding
7. The Rights of Families and Children at the Border, Matt Lister
Part Three: Rights and Obligations
8. Moral and Legal Obligations to Support 'Family', Diane Jeske
9. Are Children's Rights Important?, Colin Macleod
10. Parental Control Rights, Scott Altman
11. An Argument for Treating Children as a 'Special Case', Lucinda Ferguson
Part Four: Regulation and Intervention
12. Private Ordering in Family Law, Brian Bix
13. Regulating Child Rearing in a Culturally Diverse Society, James G Dwyer
14. Reconceptualizing Family Relationships in an Age of Reproductive Technologies, Mary Lyndon Shanley