Naive. There is no malice here aside from the one you project. Why are you conflating legality with morality? The father is clearly self destructive and going through legal ramifications to prove it does not serve anyone but the government, or one's self to cover their ass. Who cares if it's a father, mother, grandfather, boss, elderly person you care for, sister or other relation. That has little to no bearing on how one treats self destructive behavior.

Letting him have his money because he's your 'father' is no different an argument than letting X do Y because he's Z relation. It's a piss poor argument and doesn't hold.

"I'll let my alcoholic father drink some more because he's my father, and if I take away his drinks, well that'd be indefensible because I'd be stealing! He should be allowed to drink however much he wants. If I want to take his alcohol away I need a court order to prove that this is a morally acceptable act, because moral authority resides with the government! In fact, I'm worse than the punks around the corner who regularly steal alcohol from under his nose because they are unrelated despite crappy intentions, whereas my good intentions for his health and my relation as his son and son's should pay deference to their elders makes my act oh so terrible. " /sarcasm