各位,我急用,请各位务必帮忙。鄙人不甚感激。翻译质量无需很高,只要没有大错即可(但也别直接用翻译软件翻译了贴过来,翻译软件我也会)。各位如果嫌多也可翻译一两段,但请注明翻译的是哪一段。
1. The Debt Theory
Your parents have done an enormous amount for you, and you owe them something in return: that is the thought behind the Debt Theory. As a grown child, runs the idea, you are like someone who has taken out a loan but not yet repaid it, and filial duties identify the things that you have to do to discharge your debt. Throughout much of the history of philosophy, in the west and in the east, the Debt Theory has been regarded as unproblematic and transparently true.The trouble with the Debt Theory is that it leads to implausible claims about what filial duties we actually have. If you give me a loan, then my duty is to repay the loan, or
to meet whatever conditions I agreed to meet in return for the loan, no more or less. The nature of my debt does not alter with your needs, my financial situation, my lifestyle choices, or the ongoing state of our relationship.
As Jane English points out, filial duties do not fit this pattern7. There is no measure of goods such that once you have provided it to your parents your filial duties
are discharged, once and for all. And filial duties do not seem to differ in nature or weightiness depending upon the exact amount of effort and energy contributed by parents; you may have been a healthy and angelic child, undemanding and a delight to
nurture, but that does not mean that you have any less of an obligation to respect and help your parents than you would have had if you had been sickly and temperamental and very difficult to raise.
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Your filial duties, furthermore, differ with certain aspects of your situation. You are only required to give your parents what is reasonable, given your abilities and lifestyle choices. If you are a struggling artist, to use English’s example, then you do not have the duty to contribute as much to your parents’ medical care (say) as you would if you had chosen a better-paying occupation. Your duties to your parents also vary according to the state of your relationship with them. If you and your parents drift apart,or have a serious and permanent falling-out (for which you cannot reasonably be blamed), then you are left with fewer filial duties, perhaps none at all. The duties of grown children to parents just do not look like the duties of debtors to creditors.