The book contains original essays by distinguished moral and political philosophers on the topic of the moral and political status of children. It covers the themes of children's rights, parental rights and duties, the family and justice, and civic education.

The book contains original essays by distinguished moral and political philosophers on the topic of the moral and political status of children. It covers the themes of children's rights, parental rights and duties, the family and justice, and civic education.

Book Information The Moral and Political Status of Children. The Moral and Political Status of Children David Archard , Colin M. Macleod , eds. , Oxford and New York : Oxford University Press , 2002 , viii + 296 , US$60 (cloth). Edited by David Archard; , Colin M. Macleod; , eds.. Oxford University Press. Oxford and New York. Pp. viii + 296. US$60 (cloth).

Children are affected by poverty more often than adults, and growing up in poverty has severe and long-lasting negative consequences for a child’s well-being. How-ever, children are also in a very weak position, both to escape poverty on their own and to publicly and politically enforce their claims to a better life. Accordingly, children living in poverty are victims of two intersecting forms of powerlessness: they are children and they are poor. In this article, we analyze (...) this particular type of powerlessness from a children’s rights perspective and argue that, in order to effectively restore justice to children in pov-erty, the State has to implement a comprehensive children’s rights regime. We argue that the State is obliged to consider children’s best interests in all its policies – even those that are not directly related to children – in order to compensate for the lack of political agency during childhood. This demand reflects the particular social and political status of children, namely: that they are dependent on others for their well-being, that childhood is a phase of particular vulnerability and that (young) children lack certain competencies that are needed to enforce their claims. (shrink)

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This paper considers the place of children within liberal-democratic society and its related political morality. The genesis of the paper is two considerations which are in tension with one another. First, that there must be some point at which children are divided from adults, with children denied the rights which go along with full membership of the liberal community. The justification for the difference in the statue between these two groups must be rooted in some notion (...) of capacities, since these are the only relevant differences between adults and children. Second, that linking an individual's capacities to her status undermines the central liberal commitment of political equality. This dilemma explains what I term the threshold view, which holds that children become adult citizens upon reaching an age of competence and that above this level differences in abilities cease to matter to an individual's status. While this view has attractions, this paper argues that this view must eventually be rejected because of its inability to deal with the actual process of human development. In its place, the paper proposes a modification to this view which sees the threshold constrained by moral demands and applied indirectly to age groups rather than individuals. These constraints preserve the commitment to equality in a way consistent with a plausible view of children's place in society. (shrink)

Although the philosophical literature on both poverty and childhood is certainly increasing, the status of children living in poverty has been largely ignored as a philosophical subject. The condition of children and the justice-related issues that derive from it compel us to look more deeply into the sources and responsibilities of and towards poverty during childhood. We highlight four challenges raised by studying child poverty, and the mechanisms through which philosophical analysis may aid in addressing them. Philosophy (...) can work as an important tool to conceptualise what child poverty is, assess the limitations of current research on the subject, normatively evaluate how to address this condition, and offer guidelines for how society, law and the polity ought to act in response to it. Child poverty must be looked at from what it is in itself, and how it intersects with other features of the child’s life which may exacerbate it. The role of the family is fundamental in any evaluation of what child poverty is, and how to tackle it. Understanding child poverty in the vacuum omits fundamental sources of it, and solutions to it. Other intersecting conditions such as the social and cultural ethos, citizenship status, gender or disability may play a fundamental role also. The second section provides an overview of the volume. (shrink)

This article considers children’s status in society and how this may be elevated with a view to imagining a possible future. Children’s status is such that the structures and systems under which they live diminish their agency. In so doing, their opportunity to contribute to the shaping of what appears to be an uncertain future is limited. The article proposes that looking towards children as saviours of our tomorrows is misguided and that a healthier view (...) is to recognise the networked nature of children, which recognises children’s humanity and sees them as connected to the world in which and of which they are a part. By accepting the networked nature of children, adults may come to think and behave differently towards children, beginning to see themselves and children as ‘one among many’. This perspective allows for compassion, a notion that supports our living together. This article proposes that Philosophy with Children may offer an approach to engaging in community and dialogue that allows us to think our way to a future that is epistemically inclusive. Ultimately, engaging with children as potential knowers demands that we are more overtly political in the ways in which we engage with Philosophy with Children. (shrink)

This title was first published in 2003. This book critically examines the moral and political status of the child by a consideration of three interrelated questions: What rights if any does the child have? What rights over and duties in respect of a child do parents have? What rights over and duties in respect of a child does the state have? David Archard adopts three areas for particular discussion on the practical implications of the general theoretical issues: education, (...) child protection policy, and the medical treatment of children. Providing a clear legal context and a sharper, contemporary discussion of the question of rights, this book presents a clear introduction to the key issues in the moral and political status of children. (shrink)

In recent years, children and young people (CYP) have been increasingly included in patient and public involvement (PPI) in health research and innovation. Such initiatives intend to give a voice to CYP in such matters. Given that it is debated whether PPI in health care fosters the values of participation, public discussion and decision making put forward by deliberative democracy, this article examines three sets of challenges concerning the involvement of CYP by focusing on age biases. After describing some (...) existing initiatives, the paper critically examines why CYP are involved, how the CYP group is constituted and then investigates the moral status of CYP in biomedical settings. It shows that the rationale for involving CYP in PPI is mainly top-down and adult-centric, thereby questioning the authentic participation in decision making. It also suggests that to ensure democratic inclusion, the CYP group should be constituted by considering both age and politics. Lastly, the article indicates that, despite the increasing recognition of child-specific rights, the sociocultural norms and power dynamics in pediatrics undermine their moral status and challenge political equality. These three sets of considerations offer a preliminary theoretical contribution toward improving democratic legitimacy and representation of CYP in health research and innovation. (shrink)

This highly original collection of essays, first published in 1989, is concerned with the nature of children and their moral and political status. The international team of contributors explore, and in some cases criticise and revise popular thought on children and their place in society. The book is divided into three parts: the first deals with the historical, social and psychological framework of contemporary perspectives on children and childhood; a second set of papers takes up (...) questions about the position of the young in democracy, the limits of parental authority and the appropriateness of characterising only child-adult relationships in terms of a social contract; the final essays are concerned with adult attitudes toward children's lives and experiences. These essays will interest philosophers, political scientists, as well as all those professionally concerned with the education and care of children. (shrink)

Debates on the nature and justifiability of paternalism typically focus only on adults, sometimes presuming without argument that paternalism towards children is a non-issue or obviously justified. Debates on the moral and political status of children, in turn, rarely connect with the rich literature on paternalism. This chapter attempts to bridge this gap by exploring how issues that arise in the general debate on paternalism are relevant also for the benevolent interference with children. I survey (...) and discuss various views and argue for my own: that paternalism towards children is in most respects like paternalism towards adults and stands in the same need of justification, though such justification is more often forthcoming both because children are typically less prudent than adults and so benefit more from interference, and because, in some respects, interference is less harmful to them. (shrink)

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) is presented and understood as the primary reference point regarding questions of children’s rights. However, the UNCRC is not a neutral instrument deployed to meet the rights of children: it embodies a specific perception of the child, childhood and citizenship. The interpretation of the UNCRC from the point of view of children’s legal status emphasises the autonomy of children; the focus is on the rights (...) that children possess. Conversely, the social-political interpretation of the UNCRC addresses the question of how the rights of children can be realised. It is suggested that distinguishing between these interpretations is essential with regard to questions of pedagogy and education. (shrink)

The article delves into the realm of child environmental activism, portraying it as a concerted response aimed at challenging the prevailing social and political status quo, which systematically underestimates the role of children in decision-making within political and social spheres. It highlights the paramount importance of the epistemological framework that encompasses children's experiences, emphasising how their exclusion from political and social discourse leads to epistemic marginalisation. This exclusion not only prevents children from assuming (...) the role of epistemic agents but also deprives them of agency and perpetuates existing inequalities. From a philosophical perspective, the article proposes a thorough analysis of children's epistemic agency, introducing the concept of 'epistemic capability'. It argues that, despite their social marginalisation, knowledgeable children can equip themselves with epistemic resources to interpret their reality and effect change. Furthermore, it posits that environmental activism plays a crucial role as an epistemic resource for children, facilitating the expression of their ideas, challenging dominant narratives, and addressing environmental and social issues head-on. The article emphasises the transformative potential of activism as an epistemic resource, enabling substantive participation and empowering children to navigate and transcend such marginalised circumstances. In conclusion, it highlights how child environmental activism not only challenges the status quo but also provides children with crucial tools for their development as epistemic and social agents, promoting significant change in power dynamics and in the fight for social and environmental justice. (shrink)

Despite their status as high-income food producing nations, children and their caregivers, both in the United States (U.S.) and Australia can experience food insecurity. Nutrition researchers formed a joint U.S.-Australia collaboration to help advance food security for households with young children aged 0–5 years. This study investigated food insecurity from the perspective of caregivers, especially their perceptions of the impact of food insecurity on their own childhood, their current life, and for the children in their care. (...) Semi-structured interviews were conducted from July to September 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic. Participants were recruited in Omaha, Nebraska, U.S. (_n_ = 19) and Melbourne, Victoria, Australia (_n_ = 22), during periods of stay-at-home public health orders. These two case study sites enabled an exploration of some universal, and some context-specific, social, economic, and health conditions that buffer, or exacerbate, food insecurity for families in these neo-liberal political settings. An inductive thematic analysis was conducted and established six themes:_growing up poor_, _lessons learned_,_ feeding a family amidst a pandemic_,_ caregiver coping strategies_, _food security in the early years_ and _protecting (young) children_. Perspectives on local anti-hunger strategies were organized to outline participant’s preferred solutions. Household food insecurity is conceptualized in public policy in the U.S. and Australia as a short-term crisis for people, justifying austere, time-limited and patchwork solutions. A narrative of caregivers’ lived experience of food insecurity suggests that it is inter-generational, and exacerbated by a food system shock (i.e., COVID-19). These findings from two varying cities and nations offer a different conceptualization of the timespan and nature of the phenomenon of food insecurity, challenging a dominant policy narrative and highlighting the inadequacy of current so-called solutions. (shrink)

This volume contributes to the ongoing interdisciplinary controversies about the moral, legal and political status of children and childhood. It comprises essays by scholars from different disciplinary backgrounds on diverse theoretical problems and public policy controversies that bear upon different facets of the life of children in contemporary liberal democracies. The book is divided into three major parts that are each organized around a common general theme. The first part (“Children and Childhood: Autonomy, Well-Being and (...) Paternalism”) focusses on key concepts of an ethics of childhood. Part two (“Justice for Children”) contains chapters that are concerned with the topics of justice for children and justice during childhood. The third part (“The Politics of Childhood”) deals with issues that concern the importance of `childhood´ as a historically contingent political category and its relevance for the justification and practical design of political processes and institutions that affect children and families. (shrink)

While young children lack the moral powers that Rawls calls a conception of the good and a sense of justice, psychological data show that adolescents are closer to adults in this respect. The idea that civic education should be compulsory for younger person but not for adults cannot be justified by appeal to the supposed incapacities of the former. A more democratic ’participation‐oriented’ approach to the civic education of the young is more appropriate than an ’authority‐oriented’ approach. Such an (...) approach is a requirement that flows from according younger persons the respect that justice requires. (shrink)

Masjids, which are the center of collective worship in the religion of Islam, besides being a temple, it used to be school, hospital, public kitchen, guestroom, headquarters, court and meeting room and so on in the first centuries of hijri, and furthermore they became the center many religious, political and social functions. Prophet Mohammad's (peace be upon him) encouragements on the importance and virtue of performing prayers collectively enabled Muslims to pray together in mosques. There were children next (...) to the adults in the ranks kept in masjids and mosques and they also participated in the educational activities. When the hadith sources are researched from this point of view, some rumors (riwâyât) were encountered about keeping children away from the mosques. In the mentioned rumors, it is requested that not only children but also insane people, those who trade, those who speak in a loud voice, those who argue, those who draw swords at each other, are kept away from the mosques. Also according to this rumors, al-hudûd crimes shouldn’t be carried out in the mosque. Considering the size of the present study, it is limited to the rumors that include keeping children away from mosques. In this study, the takhrîj of the mentioned rumors were studied and they were criticized in terms of isnâd and matn. In the context of this method, if any, narrators who criticized in the integrity of isnâd have been determined, al-jarh al-ta‘dil status of the relevant narrators and the effect of this situation on the authentication of the rumor has been figured out in this study. While researching the rumors, the fundamental hadith sources are taken as a basis for this study. The ultimate goal of the study is to determine the authentication of the mentioned rumors in terms of both isnâd and matn. At the end of this study, it was concluded that the mentioned rumors were weak in terms of both isnâd and matn. (shrink)

Arnold Schwarzenegger's celebrity status allowed him to project a symbolic masculine persona that was effective in gaining political power as California governor. The well-known violent tough-guy persona that Schwarzenegger developed in the mid-1980s contributed to a post—Vietnam era cultural remasculinization of the American man. But this narrow hyper-masculinity was often caricatured in popular culture and delegitimized. In the 1990s and 2000s, Schwarzenegger forged a credible masculine imagery by introducing characters who were humorously self-mocking and focused on care and (...) protection of children. Schwarzenegger's resultant hybrid masculinity, the “Kindergarten Commando,” represents an ascendant hegemonic masculinity always foregrounding muscle, toughness, and the threat of violence and following with situationally appropriate symbolic displays of compassion. The equation of toughness plus compassion composing the Kindergarten Commando is asymmetrical, with toughness eclipsing compassion; this has implications for the kinds of policies that U.S. elected leaders advocate. Republicans utilize this masculine imagery in national politics to gain voters' trust in times of fear and insecurity and continue to employ a strategy that projects a devalued feminized stigma onto more liberal candidates. (shrink)

Broadly speaking, an entity has moral status if and only if it or its interest matters morally for its own sake. Some philosophers, who think of moral status in terms of duties and rights owed to an entity, allow that moral status can come in degrees, with only some beings having status of the highest degree – that is, full moral status (FMS). We critically review the competing accounts of what qualifies one for FMS. Some (...) accounts demand cognitive sophistication, which excludes many children, while others are inclusive of children but fail by (a) putting children morally on a par with most animals (experiencing subject of a life), (b) invoking criteria of dubious moral relevance (potentiality, membership in a biological species), or (c) not securing impartial moral status (special relationships). We end with our own account, which attempts to rectify such problems, addressing specifically the moral status of children. (shrink)

Ethical issues about children’s rights in respect of matters concerning resource allocation or treatment opportunities are now a matter for public consumption and concern. Alongside this exists a long-frustrated desire by children’s nurses to promote children’s health. Long-held assumptions about the legal and moral status of children within the health care system in this country are now rightly scrutinized and challenged. Those of us who claim to represent children now possess an opportunity to exploit (...) public attention for the benefit of these children. This article will explore selected major relevant legal and moral concepts that relate to children with the aim of making transparent some of the important and often confusing information available. It is anticipated that debates about the legal and ethical status of children may be stimulated and fuelled from the following discussion. It is strongly recommended that entering into dialogue with families and children about their perceived needs will go a long way towards advancing thoughtful nursing care of individual children, their families and the general population. (shrink)

If a child’s well-being is at risk of considerable harm within their own family, state institutions usually intervene. In severe cases, the parents’ right to rear is suspended. Cases of risk assessment and potential state intervention are decided within a conflict between parents’ rights and claims of children for protection. There is, we argue, a standard model of normative assessment underlying these decisions: It rests on premises rooted in classic liberal political philosophy, which is prevalent in many Western (...) societies, such as a strong commitment to individualism, a separation of private and public, or a conceptualization of children as lacking the status of full right holders. We proceed in three steps. Based on cases in social work and child welfare offices, firstly, the article proposes an inductive approach to describe the problem. Second, we point out the most critical problems and shortcomings of the standard model. On this basis, third, we develop an alternative, pragmatistic perspective on child welfare and state intervention. It argues that child welfare must be understood more broadly as a societal concern than merely as a matter of the legitimacy of state intervention. A practice-oriented section follows to show what conclusions can be drawn from our alternative model. (shrink)

Childhood looms large in our understanding of human life as it is a phase through which all adults have passed. Childhood is foundational to the development of selfhood, the formation of interests, values and skills and to the lifespan as a whole. Understanding what it is like to be a child, and what differences childhood makes, are essential for any broader understanding of the human condition. The Routledge Handbook of the Philosophy of Childhood and Children is an outstanding reference (...) source to the key topics, problems and debates in this exciting subject and is the first collection of its kind. Comprising over thirty chapters by a team of international contributors the Handbook is divided into five parts: ¿ Being a child ¿ Childhood and moral status ¿ Parents and children ¿ Children in society ¿ Children and the state. Questions covered include: What is a child? Is childhood a uniquely valuable state, and if so why? Can we generalize about the goods of childhood? What rights do children have, and are they different from adults¿ rights? What gives people a right to parent? What role, if any, ought biology to play in determining who has the right to parent a particular child? What kind of rights can parents legitimately exercise over their children? What roles do relationships with siblings and friends play in the shaping of childhoods? How should we think about sexuality and disabilility in childhood, and about racialised children? How should society manage the education of children, and what values should inform such practices? What is a good school? How are children¿s lives affected by being taken into social care? The Routledge Handbook of the Philosophy of Childhood and Children is essential reading for students and researchers in philosophy of childhood, political philosophy and ethics as well as those in related disciplines such as education, psychology, sociology, social policy, law, social work, youth work, neuroscience and anthropology. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:American Journal of Philology 124.4 (2003) 617-620 [Access article in PDF] ROSANNA OMITOWOJU. Rape and the Politics of Consentin Classical Athens. Cambridge Classical Studies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. x + 249 pp. Cloth, $60. This book is an account of the treatment of heterosexual rape and related topics (e.g., the status of women, adultery) in two Athenian genres: forensic oratory and New Comedy. Omitowoju focuses primarily on (...) the issue of consent, a central concern of modern discussions. She demonstrates that this concern is largely absent from the ancient discourse, which effectively leaves the victim out of the picture and conforms to the silencing of women in ancient social contexts. Omitowoju does not emphasize this point, but the structure of her argument makes it clear, as does her sustained focus on the dependent status of the female "citizeness" (her term for demotis, politis, and aste gune, 23-26). She rightly insists, for instance, that the subject of rape cannot be addressed properly without reference to that central concern of Athenian men: what makes one a good citizen, and therefore who gets to enjoy citizen status. This valuable insight shapes Omitowoju's argument as a whole and should be taken seriously as a means of framing future discussions. Although the general introduction fails to situate this argument in relation to other analyses of rape in the field of classical studies, rehearsing instead some familiar notions from modern discussions, this move serves to highlight the primary differences (and disturbing similarities) between ancient and modern handling of the subject. We thereby notice, for example, that modern cases often still give too much weight to the respective statuses of the perpetrator and the victim, as if to excuse the former and blame the latter.The book is divided into two sections: the first scans forensic speeches for terminology that might relate to rape charges, and the second looks at Menander's comedies in order to assess their contributions to a reconstruction of attitudes toward rape. Omitowoju begins her discussion (after the general introduction) with a review of the forensic setting, including such essential elements as the difference between public and private charges (graphai vs. dikai) and the paucity of legal vocabulary for identifying types of "insolence" (hubris) or "violence" (bia) as rape. She also briefly considers the problems with treating texts composed by speechwriters (logographoi) as historical documents, a methodological difficulty that receives more attention in the Menander section. The discussion then turns to issues of citizenship and the "politicisation" of rape, which emerge as the central concerns of the first section. Omitowoju argues that because the Athenian woman had no "legal personality," her consent to any sexual encounter could not be distinguished from that of her male guardian (kurios) (25).This is an important point, and Omitowoju lays out the ramifications of this absence of women from the legal scene in some detail. It explains why the issue of consent is missing from the ancient discussion: if a female victim of sexual violence has no subjectivity from the legal perspective, then her response to the attack cannot even be expressed in the idiom. The only relevant legal [End Page 617] issues are whether she has a citizen kurios and is capable of giving birth to citizen children, in which case any sexual violence committed against her could be punishable by fines or even death. The charge of rape may not have been legally recognized if the woman in question was of lower status (e.g., a slave or courtesan [hetaira]), since in that case she may have a master but not necessarily one who would have an interest in defending her from sexual predation (80-81).Such distinctions emerge more fully in the course of the three chapters that divide the forensic material in relation to three terms with legal force: hubris, bia, and moicheia. The first two of these chapters address how charges of outrage and violence overlap with those of rape, while the third considers the problem of distinguishing adulterous liaisons from those involving sexual assault. Moicheia may refer to... (shrink)

Ethnic-racial socialization serves as a protective factor in the development of minority children. However, few studies have focused on mixed-status Latinx families to include the broad expression of their ethnic-racial socialization practices centering on their immigration experiences as they teach their children the risks and restrictions of having undocumented status. These parents adapt their ERS in accordance with their experiences of stress, fear, and discrimination, all of which shape the type and frequency of their socialization messages. (...) Through documentation status socialization, Latinx parents forewarn their children of the inequities associated with their ethnic-racial group and undocumented status, including possible family separation. They also teach children about nativity differences and the attendant privilege of having documented status. This manuscript highlights insights to be gained by considering documentation status socialization as an ERS dimension within Latinx families. Learning about the specific ERS practices of such an understudied group is a social justice issue with important implications for understanding how these families might adapt and respond to their social context, especially amidst a political environment that engenders fear and isolation throughout their community. Including documentation status socialization in the ERS literature is a crucial step towards developing a deeper understanding of how the structural and social forces operating within the lives of undocumented immigrants impact normative family processes that ultimately exert an influence on their children’s development. A discussion on implications for practitioners and service providers working with this population is also included. (shrink)

The article is a review of theoretical discussions about children's agency in the new sociology of childhood, on the one hand, and a review of empirical studies of children's political agency, on the other. These two fields often discuss the same problem, but look at it from different perspectives. Childhood theorists debate what children's agency is and whether the search for it should be critical. Some of them continue to postulate the need to consider children (...) as social actors, while others criticize this position for its ahistorical nature, normative charge, and simplified understanding of agency and subjectivity. Empirical researchers of children's political participation are not too concerned with the conceptualization of the very concept of agency, but the materials of their research allow us to understand how children themselves in different situations discursively construct their agency - as more progressive than that of an adult; as no different from an adult; as interconnected with an adult; or even as inferior to an adult. Children do not deprive themselves of agency out of nowhere; such deprivation can be explained by both class factors and factors associated with the characteristics of socialization. Thus, studies of children's political participation strengthen the grounds for criticizing the "naive" attitude to seek children's political agency a priori, but at the same time they call into question the possibility of one, "correct" definition of children's (political) agency. The review of discussions and findings in both areas ends with a formulation of problems and questions that childhood researchers, including Russian ones, have yet to resolve. (shrink)

SummaryIn Ethiopia, despite some recent improvements, the health and nutritional status of children is very poor. A better understanding of the main socioeconomic determinants of child health and nutrition is essential to address the problem and make appropriate interventions. In the present study, an attempt is made to explore the effect of maternal characteristics on the health and nutritional status of under-five children using the 2005 Ethiopian Demographic and Health Survey. The health and nutritional status (...) of children are measured using the two widely used anthropometric indicators height-for-age and weight-for-height. In the ordinary least squares estimation, it is observed that maternal characteristics have a significant impact on child health and nutritional status. The magnitudes of the coefficients, however, are found to slightly increase when maternal education is instrumented in the 2SLS estimation. Moreover, in the quantile regression estimation, the impacts of maternal characteristics are observed to vary between long-term and current child health and nutritional status. (shrink)

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) is presented and understood as the primary reference point regarding questions of children’s rights. However, the UNCRC is not a neutral instrument deployed to meet the rights of children: it embodies a specific perception of the child, childhood and citizenship. The interpretation of the UNCRC from the point of view of children’s legal status emphasises the autonomy of children; the focus is on the rights (...) that children possess. Conversely, the social-political interpretation of the UNCRC addresses the question of how the rights of children can be realised. It is suggested that distinguishing between these interpretations is essential with regard to questions of pedagogy and education. (shrink)

Locke's Second treatise in context -- The life and times of John Locke -- The political and philosophical context of the Second treatise -- Overview and key themes -- The Second treatise in Locke's philosophy -- Key themes -- Reading the text -- Getting started: the problem of absolutism -- From the First treatise to the Second treatise -- The state of nature -- Equality -- Freedom -- The law of nature -- Right and duty to punish: executive power (...) of the law of nature -- Natural rights -- State of nature, history and realism -- The state of war and slavery -- War -- Slavery -- Private property -- Self-ownership -- Original acquisition -- World ownership and equality -- The invention of money -- Property and colonial acquisition -- Patriarchal power and the family -- The status of children -- The duty of parents and the role of the family -- The obligations of children and parents -- The conjugal or sexual contract -- The origins of political society -- The original contract -- The second stage agreement and the role of majorities -- The problem of consent -- The Lockean state -- Legislative power -- Executive power -- Prerogative -- Conquest, tyranny and the dissolution of the state -- Conquest -- Usurpation -- Tyranny, rebellion and resistance -- When to rebel and resist? -- Reception and influence -- Locke's influence in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries -- History, religion and Locke: contemporary interpretations of Locke -- Locke, property and contemporary liberalism -- Notes -- Further reading -- Bibliography -- Index. (shrink)

Is the family subject to principles of justice? In "A Theory of Justice", John Rawls includes the (monogamous) family along with the market and the government as among the, "basic institutions of society", to which principles of justice apply. Justice, he famously insists, is primary in politics as truth is in science: the only excuse for tolerating injustice is that no lesser injustice is possible. The point of the present paper is that Rawls doesn't actually mean this. When it comes (...) to the family, and in particular its impact on fair equal opportunity, (the first part of the Difference Principle, Rawls' second principle of justice), he abandons the priority of justice. I also argue that he is right to do so. -/- The central argument is simple. As Rawls admits, what family one is raised by profoundly affects one's life chances: a child raised by a family has far greater life chances on every dimension than one raised in a poorer family that may lack books, education, and time to give the child attention. But the prevailing family arrangements in the industrialized West, assigning children to be raised by their biological parents, is guaranteed to perpetuate this injustice. While Rawls says an unjust institution in the basic structure of society, in which he includes the family, must be, "reformed or abolished," he refrains from calling for the reform or abolition of the family. We must simply work around it to compensate for the injustices he admits it involves. And this despite the fact that alternative arrangements involving communal child-rearing (Plato) or assigning children to those best qualified to raise them (Rousseau) are common in the philosophical literature. Moreover, the practice of having children raised by their biological parents is a relatively recent one, at least in the West, where, before the late 18th century, fostering-out or apprenticeship arrangements were normal and expected for both rich and poor for centuries. -/- Much of the paper is devoted to fine-grained textual analysis of Rawls' attempts to avoid the devastating implications of this argument for his theory of justice -- much of which are stated only in the original edition of "A Theory of Justice" and simply deleted, without substitution by anything better, in the second edition. In the end, Rawls has no way out. He cannot keep the priority of justice, fair equality of opportunity, and the monogamous family in which children are raised by their biological parents. As he admits, these are mutually inconsistent. -/- In the final part of the paper, I argue that Rawls should give up on the priority of justice. While child-rearing by the biological parents is a historical anomaly, in the real modern world it would be politically unfeasible to institute Platonic, Rousseauean, or similar legislation that purportedly assigned children to those best able to raise them, regardless of biological relationship. Since Rawls is committed to principles of political stability and feasibility, as he should be, and since ought implies can, such proposals are off the table. I concur with Rawls that we must work around this injustice, even those there are more just arrangements available in principle. But the cost of this -- less high than Rawls suggests -- is abandoning the principle of the priority of justice. Justice is one of a number of considerations that we must or may balance in deciding on the best attainable social relations. It is not a trump. However, this comes a great cost for Rawls: he must also abandon the lexical ordering of principles of justice or, in general, right or good principles of social order, in favor of the messy intuitionist balancing that his theory is designed to avoid. -/- One feature of the paper that is worth independent attention is a discussion of Marx's rejection of justice in the Critique of the Gotha Program, which I explicate, and urge, without adopting it, that it has a great deal more force than is widely understood. (shrink)

Empirical evidence clearly shows that child poverty is a growing concern in the industrialized world and that the well-being of children is deeply affected by growing up in poverty in at least two ways. On the one hand, a low socioeconomic status jeopardizes the access to goods and services that are necessary for the current well-being of children. On the other hand, growing up in poverty also, in various ways, negatively affects the well-being in later life. On (...) the basis of the capability approach, we will show that the systematic protection and advancement of the wellbeing of children, and hence the reduction of child poverty, is a key task of social justice, which should therefore guide policy design and implementation. However, we will also discuss the special composition of the well-being of children and point out how it poses difficulties for state action in this regard. In particular, we will argue that the importance of love and affection for a child’s well-being limits considerably the possible political measures to provide fair life chances to all children. This again reflects the insight that poverty should not be reduced to economic inequality. (shrink)

TWEEN POP examines the creation of the "tween" in the early 2000s as a gendered and raced consumer audience. The tween, aged nine to twelve, and usually thought of as a white girl, occupies a temporality between childhood and adolescence: she has aged out of children's products but is too young to fully engage in marketing directed at teenagers. But, as Tyler Bickford argues, this seemingly narrow market grew to broadly include four to fifteen year olds, with producers and (...) marketers pulling upwards and downwards by creating material that would attract younger viewers and teenagers, thereby creating a demographic that expanded, rather than limited, the traditional reach of child and teenage markets. According to Bickford, the key to this expansion was pop music, as it provided an intensity of experience that mirrored childhood in its investments in emotional authenticity, cultural value, and relational intimacies. In other words, pop music needed to be both intimate and public--a tension that Bickford argues defined the tween's positionality as well--and tween pop did so by pairing the mainstream pop of adulthood with images and lyrics suitable for younger audiences. Throughout the book, Bickford reveals how childhood's status as a private domestic position outside of politics was not a hindrance to the cultivation of children as a mass audience but rather was the very foundation of that project. By creating an intimate public of tween pop, the tween music industry was able to position tweens as still within the private domestic sphere of family life, but connected in a broader public of other tween-pop-listening tweens. Chapter 1 looks at Kidz Bop music videos to argue that the tween music industry framed childhood domesticity as complementary to participation in a public culture. Chapter 2 focuses on Disney Channel's popular music programs' efforts to engage older children, particularly older girls, in their marketing tactics. Chapter 3 analyzes the Disney Channel show Hannah Montana and its foregrounding of tensions between girlhood, public culture, and family. Chapter 4 attends to how whiteness served as central to the tween construction of innocence and childhood. Bickford concludes the book by periodizing the tween moment as the decade from 2001 to 2011, and then outlines the developments in popular culture for children since that time. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of ethnomusicology, feminism and gender studies, and cultural studies. (shrink)

Kids in the Middle: The Micro-Politics of Special Education takes the reader on a fascinating journey through special education in the past, present, and future. On this journey, the micro-politics of special education are seen through the eyes and experiences of children with disabilities, their parents and advocates, adult educators, and school administrators. Supplementing these perspectives to develop an understanding of special education that goes beyond its administrative and political aspects, such as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (...) , are scholars with expertise in special education law, administration, severe and profound disabilities, ethics, finance, teaching, and disability rights. Together, these voices explain the micro-political issues that affect how children with disabilities are educated. Kids in the Middle promotes a new model of special education to help transform special education. Instead of perpetuating a system grounded in the concepts of promises, privilege, and power, this book considers how to build a system based on caring, compassion, and the common good, a system that will elevate the status of special education children who are lost in the middle. (shrink)

That Jehovah's Witnesses cannot refuse life-saving blood transfusions on behalf of their children has acquired the status of virtual “consensus” among bioethicists. However strong the consensus may be on this matter, this article explores whether this view can be plausibly defended on liberal principles by examining it in light of one particularly well worked-out liberal political theory, that of Rawls. It concludes that because of the extremely high priority Rawls attributes to “freedom of conscience,” and the implication (...) from the original position that parents must act paternalistically toward their children as their protectors, Jehovah's Witnesses cannot legitimately be barred from making decisions on behalf of their children, even when the consequences of such decisions are serious and irremediable. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Black Health: The Social, Political, and Cultural Determinants of Black People's Health by Keisha RayChioma Dibia (bio)Black Health: The Social, Political, and Cultural Determinants of Black People's Health by Keisha Ray New York: Oxford University Press, 2023Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, bioethics had engaged only sparingly with the concept of racism. In 2016, Danis and colleagues published an article exhorting bioethicists to engage more meaningfully with (...) the concept of racism—given its impact on health and well being—and to consider strategies for combating it within and outside clinical settings (Danis et al. 2016, 5). While this paper generated considerable debate regarding how far bioethics ought to go in its engagement with racism (Baker 2016, 16; Weddle 2016, 32; Fuller 2016, 29), the focus of the field of bioethics quickly turned to more traditional subjects of bioethical inquiry, including ethical issues arising in doctor-patient relationships and new reproductive technologies. However, since the COVID-19 pandemic and the murder of George Floyd during that time, racism has received greater attention in the bioethics literature and Keisha Ray's Black Health arrives just in time to urge us to ensure that the current focus on the impact of racism on the health of racially minoritized people is not short-lived (Ray 2023, 21; BBC News 2020).The overarching argument in Ray's Black Health is that Black people's poor health does not arise from innate biological deficiencies but stems from their experience of racism at the structural, institutional, and interpersonal levels. Ray stresses that far from being solely a feature of America's past, racism [End Page 105] continues to taint Black people's relationship with the healthcare system and other societal institutions. In each chapter, Ray focuses on a specific racial disparity in health to illustrate how racism limits Black people's access to the social determinants of health and thereby contributes to their poor health. To set the context for this discussion, Ray provides an introductory chapter where she unpacks key terms including "racism," "racial disparities," and "the social determinants of health." In this chapter, Ray also clearly outlines the structure of the text and provides a summary of each chapter. This chapter provides the blueprint for the rest of the book, as in it, Ray provides a clear statement of the style, content, and purpose of Black Health.The first racial disparity that Ray considers is Black birthing mortality, and in chapter 1, Ray traces this to the history of slavery and eugenic policies which have shaped the relationship between physicians and Black women. As Ray explains, since Black people were forcibly brought to the United States, the government has sought to control Black women's reproductive lives and has often relied on physicians to effect control. She demonstrates how harmful stereotypes about Black women, including their so-called hardiness, originated in medical literature and have been used to deny pregnant Black women humane care. According to Ray, "[c]linicians' attitude and behaviors towards Black pregnant people still reflect an enslaved and slave-owner mentality, and this has great consequences for the survival of Black pregnant people." (32) By highlighting the birthing experiences of Serena Williams and Shalon Irving, Ray dispels the assumption that wealth or academic qualifications are a panacea for Black birthing mortality and shows how racism can be deadly for all Black pregnant women, irrespective of socioeconomic status. Ray also considers how income and housing inequities affect Black pregnant women and the cumulative effect of weathering on their health as well as that of their unborn children. This chapter most clearly shows how interpersonal, institutional, and structural racism operate and intersect to render pregnancy and childbirth a potentially dangerous experience for Black women.Next, Ray turns to racial disparities in clinical pain management and continues to explore the impact of historically racist beliefs and false stereotypes on the care of Black people. However, in this second chapter, Ray delves more deeply into the role of medical literature—both historical and contemporary sources—in perpetuating false assumptions about the Black body. She demonstrates how the historical portrayal of the Black body as not only less than human... (shrink)

A central question in contemporary ethics and political philosophy concerns which entities have moral status. In this article, I provide a detailed analysis of the view that moral status comes in degrees. I argue that degrees of moral status can be specified along two dimensions: (i) the weight of the reason to protect an entity’s morally significant rights and interests; and/or (ii) the rights and interests that are considered morally significant. And I explore some of the (...) complexities that arise when we link degrees of moral status to the weight of reasons to protect bundles and/or the content and size of these bundles, in particular regarding the attribution of moral status to nonparadigmatic entities (e.g. people with severe cognitive disabilities, children, embryos and foetuses, robots, non-human animals, ecosystems, and rivers). (shrink)

The question of the basis of human equality has recently gained increasing attention. However, much of the literature has focused on whether persons—understood as fully competent adults—have equal moral status, while relatively less attention has been devoted to the analysis of what grounds the equal moral status of those human beings who are not fully competent adults. This paper contributes to this debate by addressing the question of the equality of moral status between adults and children. (...) Specifically, this paper has three aims. First, it provides a conceptual map of this complex issue. Second, it argues that the challenges that have been raised against standard accounts of persons’ equal moral status are even more forceful when applied to the question of adults and children’s moral equality. Finally, it examines what a commitment to adults and children’s moral _inequality_ entails and what it does not, thereby showing that the justificatory role of the principle of moral equality is not as far-reaching as commonly assumed. (shrink)

This dissertation offers a robust philosophical examination of a phenomenon that is morally, socially, and politically significant – microaggressions. Microaggressions are understood to be brief and routine verbal, behavioral, or environmental indignities that, whether intentional or unintentional, convey hostility toward or bias against members of marginalized groups. Microaggressions are rooted in stereotypes and/or bias (whether implicit or explicit) and are connected to broader systems of oppression. Microaggressions are philosophically interesting, since they involve significant ambiguity, questions about speech and communication, and (...) the ability for our speech to encode and transmit bits of meaning. Microaggressions prompt reflection about the nature of blameworthiness and responsibility, especially for unintended acts and harms. They involve questions about how we perceive and treat one another, and whether or not people are treated as true equals in our social and political worlds. For all of these reasons, microaggressions are a critical area in need of philosophical reflection, specifically reflection in feminist philosophy, philosophy of language, moral philosophy, and social and political philosophy. This dissertation seeks to advance the philosophy of microaggressions through three distinct aims: a conceptual aim (chapters 2 and 3), an epistemological aim (chapters 1 and 2), and a moral aim (chapters 4 and 5). The conceptual aim involves clarifying how we should understand and categorize microaggressions. The epistemological aim involves identifying some of the epistemological assumptions undergirding discussions of microaggressions in the literature, including assumptions made by critics of microaggression theory, and arguing for an alternative epistemological framework for theorizing about microaggressions. The moral aim involves better understanding the harms of microaggressions, including their role in reinforcing structures of oppression and unjust social hierarchy. Taken together, these chapters make some progress on the conceptual, epistemological, and moral questions that microaggressions generate, and which philosophers have not yet adequately analyzed. It thus offers a meaningful contribution to the conversations philosophers are beginning to have about the morally and politically salient phenomenon of microaggressions. (shrink)

The ’new familists’ argue that sociological evidence on the relation between traditional two‐parent nuclear family and positive outcomes for their children justifies public‐policy measures aimed at promoting this type of family. But the success of such families is due to the fact that many other institutional arrangements advantage this type of family. Such a family typically involves a sexist division of domestic labour. A ’critical theory of family structure’ identifies the developmental needs of children and examines the ways (...) in which various family structures can function to meet these needs. (shrink)

Cognitive incompetence cannot adequately explain the special character of children's moral status. It is, in fact, because children lack preference structures that are sufficiently stable over time that they are not ’temporally extended agents’. They are best viewed as 'special agents’, and parents have the responsibility of fostering the development of temporally extended agency and other necessary related moral capacities. Parental authority should be exercised with the view to assisting children to acquire the capacities that facilitate (...) their transition from 'special agents’ to full and functioning members of the moral community. (shrink)

Malnutrition among children is prevalent in almost all the states in India. This study assesses the extent and causes of malnutrition in two eastern Indian states with similar climates, namely West Bengal and Assam, using data from the National Family Health Survey 1998s educational status, working status of the mother, mother’s age at delivery of the children, source of drinking water, toilet facilities and standard of living of the household. Logistic regression was carried out separately for (...) each of the three indices on the explanatory variables for both the states. It was found that not all variables are equally important in determining whether a baby is underweight, or suffering from acute or chronic malnutrition. Also, the importance of variables is not the same in the two states. It was observed that the coefficients associated with the variables in determining weight-for-height are not significant compared with those for weight-for-age and height-for-age. (shrink)

This book explores Walter Benjamin, Siegfried Kracauer and Alexander Kluge's analyses of the role that a rejuvenation in the capacity for imagination can play in encouraging us to reconceive the possibilities of the past, the present, and the future outside of the parameters of the status quo. The concept of imagination to which the title of the book refers is not a strictly defined, stable concept, but rather a term which is employed to refer to a capacity that facilitates (...) both an active, creative relationship to one's environment, and a process of mediation between the outside world and one's own experiences and memories. Through a detailed analysis of their engagements with subjects that span a broad range of historical and thematic contexts (including topics as diverse as literature, children's play, film, photography, history, and television) the book charts the extent to which the concept of imagination plays a central role in Benjamin, Kracauer, and Kluge's explorations of a mode of perception and experience which could serve as a catalyst for the creation and sustenance of a desire for a different kind of future. (shrink)

Children are often denied rights on the basis of their incompetence. A theory of rights for children is essential for consideration of the child's political status, yet the debate surrounding children's rights has been characterised by the divisive concept of ‘capacity’ typified in the two leading rights theory, Interest Theory and Will Theory. This article will provide a thorough analysis of the relationship between capacity, competence and rights. Although Interest Theory has successfully dealt with the (...) competence requirement for being a right-holder, the competence requirement still holds for the type of rights a child holds. Children's interests are determined sufficiently strong to found a right when the claim-holder has the competence to realise the benefit to which that interest pertains. This allows us to recognise children as right-holders while constraining the types of rights they hold according to their developing competencies. (shrink)