The question is therefore not whether the elderly should be taken care of...

The question is therefore not whether the elderly should be taken care of, but who should take care of them? There are few doubts that one has a moral duty to take care of oneself. But if a person has lost the ability to take care of herself, either due to old age, or to disease associated with old age, who, if anyone, has a moral obligation to take care of her?

If Daniels and English are right in saying that adult children do not have any more of a moral obligation to take care of their aged parents than any stranger on the street, or that such an obligation only has a voluntary basis, then most likely either the burden of care would be on the whole society or the elderly who are disadvantaged would suffer.

If letting the elderly suffer is immoral, then placing the burden of caring for the elderly on the whole society (through the government) would seem to be the only option. However, there are at least two further questions here. First, should the society have that burden? Second, can the society or the government really provide adequate care for the elderly?

If I, as a son, do not have a moral duty to take care of my parents, why should I, as a stranger, have a moral duty to take care of anyone else' parents? Is the moral duty of helping a stranger based on my voluntary free will or on my existential status as a human being? If my existential status as a fellow human being imposes on me such a moral duty, why not my existential status as the son of my parents?

On the other hand, the warning signals continually coming from the government-run Medicare system, as well as the Social Security system in the Unite States indicate that the society may not be able to bear the burden anymore without threatening the bankruptcy of the whole government. From a Confucian point of view, at least part of the problem is caused by the trend of deterioration of the family or individualization of the society in our modern life.

The family, as a natural institution, should play a mediating role between individuals and society. That is to say, Confucians will deny neither the existential moral duty of the elderly to care for themselves, nor that of members in the society to care for the elderly. What a Confucian wants to suggest is the addition of the familial duty fulfilled by the adult children.