But if you believe in any sort of non-contractual positive duty, duties to your parents should not seem weird
If you’re a utilitarian/consequentialist, as the vast majority of EAs are, there aren’t going to be duties to any particular entity. If you have any duty, it is to the common good (net happiness over suffering).
So in the EA community it is going to be far more common to believe we have ‘duties’ to strangers—such as those living in extreme poverty (as our resources can help them a lot) or future people (as they may be so numerous)—than we have duties to our parents who, generally, are pretty well-off.
I agree that traditional/pure/naive/act utilitarians are not going to believe in any special obligations to parents—the same way they don’t believe in special obligations to be honest, or keep promises, or be a good friend. If you object to special obligations to parents because they are ‘forc[ing] an unformed, non-consenting minor to sign a binding, life long conflict’, you should be much more averse to traditional utilitarianism, which is one of the most totalising moral philosophies. On the other hand, if you want to make modifications to utilitarianism, special treatment for family seems pretty plausible.
If you’re a utilitarian/consequentialist, as the vast majority of EAs are, there aren’t going to be duties to any particular entity. If you have any duty, it is to the common good (net happiness over suffering).
So in the EA community it is going to be far more common to believe we have ‘duties’ to strangers—such as those living in extreme poverty (as our resources can help them a lot) or future people (as they may be so numerous)—than we have duties to our parents who, generally, are pretty well-off.
I agree that traditional/pure/naive/act utilitarians are not going to believe in any special obligations to parents—the same way they don’t believe in special obligations to be honest, or keep promises, or be a good friend. If you object to special obligations to parents because they are ‘forc[ing] an unformed, non-consenting minor to sign a binding, life long conflict’, you should be much more averse to traditional utilitarianism, which is one of the most totalising moral philosophies. On the other hand, if you want to make modifications to utilitarianism, special treatment for family seems pretty plausible.