Philosophical Foundations of Children's and Family Law

This volume brings together new essays in law and philosophy on a broad range of topics in children's and family law. It is the first volume to bring together essays by legal scholars and philosophers for an integrated, critical analysis of key issues in this area, marking the 'coming of age' of a comparatively new field of family law.

Debates in children's and family law are at once theoretical and empirical in nature. Not only does children's and family law have significant consequences for individuals' intimate lives, the field's impact on lived experience highlights the socially constructed nature of law. Approaching this area of law often involves exploring a legal concept familiar from daily life, such as the very notion of 'marriage' or 'family', and examining it within its social, economic, and historical context. The normative basis for law regulating intimate personal and family life extends beyond any narrow legal philosophy or social context to its broader foundations in theories of morality or justice.

The chapters included bring together a representative and broad range of pieces that engage with long-standing and contemporary debates. A wide range of perspectives is represented on topics such as same-sex marriage, polygamy and polyamory, alimony, unmarried cohabitation, gestational surrogacy and assisted reproductive technologies, child support, parental rights and responsibilities, children's rights, family immigration, religious freedom, and the rights of paid caregivers. There is also philosophical discussion of concepts such as care, intimacy, and the nature of family and family law itself.

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.