ABSTRACT The jurisdiction of schools has long been contested. Initially, under the sway of loco parentis, parents delegated all authority to educators. With ascendency of the common school movement in the 19th century, however, the doctrine confronted reverses. As the student body increased in size and heterogeneity, families no longer spoke with a single voice. The courts granted parental requests for a more determinative role in their children’s education, prohibited schools from giving religious instruction, and guaranteed students some civil rights. (...) This curtailment of school authority has been countered in recent years by the emphasis on educating the “whole child” with schools taking on responsibilities, such as character development and mental health, arguably a home preserve. While acknowledging the large overlap between school and home, I argue they have differing agendas and capacities. Schools stress the collective, cultivating “we-ness” and agreed upon norms, whereas homes cultivate privacy, individualism, and particularistic values; schools stress equality while homes stress equity; schools are constrained in their use of discipline whereas homes take more liberties. In urging schools to circumscribe and differentiate their role, I nonetheless recognize the problems of doing so. (shrink)

n this thesis I describe how conventions specify how to put normative principles into practice. I identify a class of recurring situations where there are some given normative principles in effect, but they underdetermine what each individual should do, and what is best for an individual depends on what others do. I demonstrate that in such cases, whenever the community develops a response that repeatedly brings them to as good an outcome as is available according to their principles, that response (...) is a Lewisian convention where the benefit of an outcome to each individual is measured by the extent to which it conforms to the principles they subscribe to. Since these conventions are constrained by the normative principles, I call them limited conventions. They are supplements to the principles, and are ineradicably involved in moral action insofar as the abovementioned cases of moral underdetermination are in play. That has the consequence that in these cases the only reliable way to follow your principles is to follow the relevant conventions. As examples of this mechanism I offer a conventionalist analysis of authority, such that the commands of an authority is normative when they instantiate a limited convention, and of the variation in understandings of virtue and vice across societies, such that the evaluative vocabulary of each society is a set of different limited conventions about how to express in word and deed the evaluative points of the virtues and vices in question. Finally, I discuss how conventions and similar forms of guidance provide a way for individuals to participate in their community’s moral life without having a full understanding of the principles that underlie it, or even if they are profoundly ignorant or outright mistaken about the demands of morality. (shrink)

In this article I investigate the extent to which Bhikhu Parekh believes that a person's cultural/religious background must be preserved and whether, by implication, religious schooling is justified by his theory. My discussion will explore—by inference and implication—whether Parekh's carefully crafted multiculturalism, enriched and illuminated by numerous practical insights, is socially tenable. I will also consider whether, by extension, it is justifiable, on his line of reasoning, to cultivate cultural and religious understandings among one's own children. Finally, I will contend (...) that Parekh, notwithstanding his cautious, even‐handed approach, commits several important errors, including conflating the culture of the parents with that of the children and insisting that cultural and religious persons ought to be allowed to defend their views in the public square on religious grounds. (shrink)

Parents are usually appreciated as possessing legitimate moral authority to compel children to make at least modest sacrifices in the service of widely shared values of moral decency. This essay argues that such authority justifies allowing parents to authorize a child to serve as an organ or tissue donor in certain circumstances, such as to authorize bone marrow donations to save a sibling with whom the potential donor shares a deep emotional bond. The approach explored here suggests, however, that at (...) least under some conditions, parents have legitimate authority to authorize donations forbidden by current guidelines. (shrink)

Martha Nussbaum grounds her version of the capabilities approach in political liberalism. In this paper, we argue that the capabilities approach, insofar as it genuinely values the things that persons can actually do and be, must be grounded in a hybrid account of liberalism: in order to show respect for adults, its justification must be political; in order to show respect for children, however, its implementation must include a commitment to comprehensive autonomy, one that ensures that children develop the skills (...) necessary to make meaningful choices about whether or not to exercise their basic capabilities. Importantly, in order to show respect for parents who do not necessarily recognize autonomy as a value, we argue that the liberal state, via its system of public education, should take on the role of ensuring that all children within the state develop a sufficient degree of comprehensive autonomy. (shrink)

Für viele liberale Denker fällt die religiöse Erziehung der eigenen Kinder unter die Erziehungsautorität der Eltern. Das heißt, dass die Eltern für ihre Kinder entscheiden sollen, ob Letztere religiös erzogen werden und welche Religion hierbei unter Umständen zugrunde liegen soll. In diesem Aufsatz wird ein Argument von Matthew Clayton kritisch diskutiert, das dieses traditionell liberale Verständnis der Erziehungsautorität infrage stellt. Clayton geht von Rawls‘ Rechtfertigungsmodell legitimer Autorität aus, nach dem staatliche Autorität durch öffentlich zugängliche Gründe zu rechtfertigen ist. Clayton wendet (...) dieses sogenannte Prinzip der Legitimität auf den Bereich der Familie an, woraus für ihn folgt, dass die religiöse Erziehung von Kindern auf einer illegitimen Ausübung von Autorität beruht, wenn Eltern ihre Kinder so beeinflussen wollen, dass diese die von ihnen bevorzugten religiösen Überzeugungen annehmen. Für Clayton muss die legitime Ausübung der Erziehungsautorität der Eltern auf die zukünftige Zustimmung, seinen retrospektiven „consent“, Bezug nehmen. Am Ende des Aufsatzes wird – unter Berücksichtigung von Clayton-Kritikern – untersucht, ob es Formen religiöser Erziehung gibt, die vereinbar sind mit dem Prinzip der Legitimität. (shrink)

For many, it is far from clear where the prerogatives of parents to educate as they deem appropriate end and the interests of their children, immediate or future, begin. In this article I consider the educational interests of children and argue that children have an interest in their own well-being. Following this, I will examine the interests of parents and consider where the limits of paternalism lie. Finally, I will consider the state's interest in the education of children and discuss (...) a familiar view that argues that we have a central obligation to cultivate good citizens. The article will focus on the tensions which inevitably arise from the sometimes conflicting interests between them. (shrink)

The paper addresses arguments in the recent philosophical and bioethical literature claiming that social and cultural benefits can justify non-therapeutic male infant circumcision. It rejects these claims by referring to the open future argument, according to which infant circumcision is morally unjustifiable because it violates the child’s right to an open future. The paper also addresses an important objection to the open future argument and examines the strength of the objection to refute the application of the argument to the circumcision (...) case. (shrink)

This article explores the values that should be promoted in civic education for democracy and also how the promotion of values can be non-coercive. It will be argued that civic education should promote the values of reasonableness, mutual respect and fairness, but also that only public, political reasons count in attempting to justify the content of civic education. It will also be argued that the content of civic education may legitimately be broader than this, including but not restricted to the (...) values of autonomy, integrity, magnanimity, truthfulness and generosity. At the same time, if civic education is seen merely as a means to shape and form future citizens, then the promotion of values in civic education will be a coercive imposition on children and young people. If the promotion of values instead is to be non-coercive it must be defended with reasons that children and young people should be able to accept. (shrink)

In the growing philosophical literature on the family and its value, the parents' fiduciary role often serves to explain why the family is valuable from a child-centred perspective. Recently it has been further argued that this fiduciary role also explains the distinctive value the family has for parents. By offering a critique of that argument, the paper advances an alternative parent-centred account of the value of the family. It points out the process in families whereby parents reproduce some of their (...) characteristics in their children and thereby establish a powerful sense of interconnectedness and continuity between their own identity and the child's. The fact that the family provides quite a unique platform for developing this type of interpersonal bond may account for the striking importance ascribed to families. Liberal theory should accommodate this fact when offering an account of legitimate parental authority. (shrink)

Should society intervene to prevent the risky behavior of precocious teenagers even if it would be impermissible to intervene with adults who engage in the same risky behavior? The problem is well illustrated by the legal case of the 13-year-old Dutch girl Laura Dekker, who set out in 2009 to become the youngest person ever to sail around the world alone, succeeding in January 2012. In this paper we use her case as a point of entry for discussing the fundamental (...) question of how to demarcate childhood from adulthood. After summarizing the case, we identify a ‘demarcation dilemma’ that frames much of the public and expert debate. On the one hand, it seems morally imperative ‘to treat like alike’, which means that both children and adults should be allowed to undertake all actions for which they have the relevant competences. On the other hand, requiring proportional treatment of children and adults seems to neglect the special nature of childhood as a distinct stage in life that ends at a specific age. We introduce the notion of a ‘regime of childhood’ to deal with this problem. This regime includes several dimensions, including the limited liability for children, the supervisory responsibilities of parents, the role of age-based thresholds, and the overarching purpose of childhood as a context for developing autonomy. We argue that, all things considered, there are good reasons not to shift to a regime that offers individual children the option of qualifying for adulthood on the basis of age-neutral criteria. (shrink)

Offering the first developed account of political liberal education, this book combines a thorough analysis of the theoretical groundwork of political liberal education with application-oriented approaches to contemporary educational challenges. Following in depth engagement with the shortcomings of Rawls’ theory and addressing some key objections to neutrality-based restrictions in education, the volume moves on to provide an insightful discussion of topics such as same-sex relations in sex-education, the position of migrant children and the rights of religious parents to determine the (...) education of their children. This book outlines a political liberal account of education which provides a useful contribution to the current debates about liberalism and education in a way unprecedented in the literature on political liberalism so far. It is of interest to anyone working at the intersection of political philosophy and philosophy of education as well as for scholars with a broader interest in how liberalism can respond to the challenges of value pluralism. (shrink)

:Use of the best-interests test as the legal standard to justify medical treatment in respect to legally incompetent adults or minors has come under sustained critique over the years. “Best interests” has variously been alleged to be indeterminate as well as susceptible to majoritarian ideology and inherent bias. It has also been alleged to be inferior to rights-based approaches. Against the background of several particularly hard cases involving minors discussed by Gillett in a prior article in this journal, this article (...) considers some of these critiques. It concludes that these critical accounts make significant contributions to enabling a more procedurally and substantively robust consideration of what might be in a child’s best interests. However, it is argued that none of these accounts alone provide a superior framework that would justify jettisoning the concept of best interests. Further, it is suggested that best interests still has an important role in achieving patient-centered decisionmaking in this context. It concludes by suggesting a taxonomy of considerations when determining best interests. (shrink)

An overarching aim of education is the promotion of children's personal well-being. Liberal educationalists also support the promotion of children's personal autonomy as a central educational aim. On some views, such as John White's, these two goals—furthering well-being and cultivating autonomy—can come apart. Our primary aim in this paper is to argue for a species of a stronger view: assuming preferentism as our axiology, we suggest that there is an essential association between the autonomy of our springs of action, such (...) as desires and beliefs, on the one hand, and personal well-being, on the other. If we are right about this link, then we have at our disposal a partial (non-instrumental) validation of the liberal ideal of autonomy. (shrink)

This introduction provides a brief overview of the field of childhood ethics. It briefly outlines current debates about children’s autonomy and vulnerability, children’s rights, the relationship between children and parents, and (social and global) justice for children.

Liberals who want to support multiculturalism need to be able to justify the parental authority to instill cultural value systems or worldviews into children. However, such authority may be at odds with liberal demands that citizens be autonomous. This paper argues that parents do not have the legitimate authority to instill in their children a specific value system, contrary to the complex and intriguing arguments of Robert Noggle (2002). Noggle’s argument, which draws heavily on key ideas in Rawls’ theory of (...) justice, is that children are not moral agents and that parents are in a special kind of fiduciary relationship vis-à-vis their children. Noggle’s position is contrasted with the more limited conception of parental authority advanced by David Archard (2002). I argue that we can accept that parents are agents of their children, but contra Noggle, this does not entitle them to impose their parochial value systems onto their children. I argue that while children have an interest in acquiring values, they do not have an interest in acquiring a value system. (shrink)

In recent years, neuroscience has been a particularly prolific discipline stimulating many innovative treatment approaches in medicine. However, when it comes to the brain, new techniques of intervention do not always meet with a positive public response, in spite of promising therapeutic benefits. The reason for this caution clearly is the brain’s special importance as “organ of the mind”. As such it is widely held to be the origin of mankind’s unique position among living beings. Likewise, on the level of (...) the individual human being, the brain is considered the material substrate of those traits that in combination render each person unique. In view of this preeminent significance of the brain, it is understandable that, in general, interventions into the brain are considered a delicate issue and that new techniques of intervention are scrutinised with particular care. However, in doing so it is important not to go to the opposite extreme and shy away from promising new therapeutic approaches for debilitating disorders of the brain. With respect to the new techniques of brain intervention a broad interdisciplinary perspective is required to discern irrational fear from justified concern. Hence, the Europäische Akademie established a project group consisting, on the one hand, of experts from different fields of medicine who have got first-hand experience of applying the techniques at issue and, on the other hand, of philosophers and a legal expert. The task of this team was to review the state of the art with respect to each single technique of intervening in the brain, to indicate future developments, and to address the ethical and legal issues common to all of them. The project’s outcome is the book at hand. (shrink)

Obesity and poverty in childhood are widely studied phenomena and despite mixed results, some findings are without doubt: they come with various experiences of mental, physical and social harm, have therefore negative effects on the well-being of children, and they intersect in relation with race, class and gender. In this contribution we analyze child obesity and poverty from a philosophical social justice perspective, which has, to a large extent, so far neglected this topic. We show how they compromise social justice (...) and argue that there is an obligation to implement structural changes to assist the affected children and their families. However, we make also clear that such interventions must not happen in accordance to the current neoliberal fitness and health ideology and its related narrow individualism. (shrink)

The principle of the child's right to an open future was first proposed by the legal philosopher Joel Feinberg and developed further by bioethicist Dena Davis. The principle holds that children possess a unique class of rights called rights in trust—rights that they cannot yet exercise, but which they will be able to exercise when they reach maturity. Parents should not, therefore, take actions that permanently foreclose on or pre-empt the future options of their children, but leave them the greatest (...) possible scope for exercising personal life choices in adulthood. Davis particularly applies the principle to genetic counselling, arguing that parents should not take deliberate steps to create physically abnormal children, and to religion, arguing that while parents are entitled to bring their children up in accordance with their own values, they are not entitled to inflict physical or mental harm, neither by omission nor commission. In this paper, I aim to elucidate the open future principle, and consider whether it is applicable to non-therapeutic circumcision of boys, whether performed for cultural/religious or for prophylactic/health reasons. I argue that the principle is highly applicable to non-therapeutic circumcision, and conclude that non-therapeutic circumcision would be a violation of the child's right to an open future, and thus objectionable from both an ethical and a human rights perspective. (shrink)

Legitimate parental interests need to be distinguished from any putative rights parents qua parents may be said to possess. Parents have no right to insulate their children from conceptions of the good at variance with those of their own. Claims to the right to faith schools, private schools, home-schooling or to withdraw a child from any aspect of the curriculum designed to enhance a child’s capacity for autonomous decision-making, are refuted.

This article responds to certain objections Jeffrey Morgan raises against the theory of liberal education defended in Justice and Legitimacy in Upbringing. First, it replies to his claim that the theory is too individualistic and pays insufficient attention to considerations of ‘care’. Second, it recapitulates and clarifies the argument that the ideal of autonomy supports the conclusion that it is illegitimate for parents to enrol their children into controversial conceptions of the good life, and seeks to rebut Morgan's criticisms of (...) that argument. (shrink)