Assignment task:
Kelly: Adult children are neglecting their parents. Of adults who have a living parent, 97 percent have no parent living with them, and of these, only 3 percent recently provided physical care for a parent.
Lee: If 97 percent do not have a parent living with them, then 3 percent do, and this is a kind of physical care, so this figure should be added to those who provided other physical care. The result is not disturbingly low, since most adults need physical care for only a few years at the end of their lives. Moreover, many parents have several adult children, and if one provides physical care, there might be no need for another one to so do.
Lee's argument proceeds by:
- Putting Kelly's evidence into a new light.
- Questioning Kelly's methods of data collection.
- Redefining age boundaries.
- Disputing Kelly's presupposition that a moral obligation exists.
- Showing that the same conclusion follows whether a supposition is true or false.