Though the revised edition of A Theory of Justice, published in 1999, is the definitive statement of Rawls's view, so much of the extensive literature on Rawls's theory refers to the first edition. This reissue makes the first edition once again available for scholars and serious students of Rawls's work.

Children: Rights and Childhood is widely regarded as the first book to offer a detailed philosophical examination of children’s rights. David Archard provides a clear and accessible introduction to a topic that has assumed increasing relevance since the book’s first publication. -/- The third edition has been fully revised and updated throughout with a new chapter providing an in-depth analysis of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) and Part 2 has been restructured to move the (...) reader from general theoretical considerations of children’s rights through to practical issues. This volume is ideal reading for advanced studies across Philosophy, Social Work, Law, Childhood Studies, Politics, and Social Policy. (shrink)

The excessive faith liberal theorists have had in the power of rights and rights discourse can have deleterious consequences for children. As vulnerable and dependent beings, children need to be nurtured with love and affection in a setting in which intimate relationships between parents and children can flourish. A rights‐based discourse is conceptually ill‐equipped to accommodate the importance of establishing and supporting caring relationships. An ethic of care, emphasizing responsibilities over rights, provides a better way of conceptualizing and responding to (...) the interests of children than thinking of children as proto‐adults with rights especially that to autonomy. (shrink)

Autonomy is important to leading a good life but a common liberal instrumental construal of the way in which it contributes to the leading of a good life is defective. A one‐sided focus on the development of capacities for revision of conceptions of the good should be corrected by attention to the value of developing capacities permitting a rational adherence to a conception of the good. Exposing children to a diverse but shallow secular and consumer culture might not facilitate goodness‐enhancing (...) autonomy in a way that is superior to the more insular strategies of religious minorities whose child‐rearing practices are criticized by liberals. (shrink)

[This book] develops an account of rationality and justice that is tradition specific.-http://undpress.nd.edu.

The often‐posed dichotomy between the interest and choice theory of rights can obfuscate a proper understanding of children's rights. We need a gradualist model in which the grounds for attributing rights to a being change in response to the development of autonomy. Rights for children initially function to protect their interests but, as they develop into full‐fledged autonomous choosers, rights function to ensure that their choices, even those that do not serve their welfare, are respected.

Whether children have rights is a debate that in recent years has spilled over into all areas of public life. It has never been more topical than now as the assumed rights of parents over their children is challenged on an almost daily basis. David Archard offers the first serious and sustained philosophical examination of children and their rights. Archard reviews arguments for and against according children rights. He concludes that every child has at least the right to the best (...) possible upbringing. Denying that parents have any significant rights over their children, he is able to challenge current thinking about the proper roles of state and family in rearing children. Crucially, he considers the problem of how to define and understand `child abuse'. (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)

Some theorists have argued recently that Berlinian value pluralism points not to liberalism, as Berlin supposed, but, in effect, to some form of communitarianism. To what extent is this true, and, to the extent that it is true, what kind of communitarianism fits best with the pluralist outlook? I argue that pluralists should acknowledge community as an important source of value and as a substantial value in itself, but they should also be prepared to question traditions and to respect values (...) other than community. In particular, pluralism points to personal autonomy as playing a special role when we must choose among incommensurable goods in conflict. Consequently, the pluralist outlook is at odds with conservative communitarianisms that tend to place existing traditions beyond question, and with radical variants of communitarianism, such as Marxism and classical anarchism, which look forward to future communities in which the need to cope with hard public choices has largely been eliminated. Rather, Berlinian pluralism fits best with a liberal or moderate kind of communitarianism that balances community with other goods, especially personal autonomy. (shrink)

Some theorists have argued recently that Berlinian value pluralism points not to liberalism, as Berlin supposed, but, in effect, to some form of communitarianism. To what extent is this true, and, to the extent that it is true, what kind of communitarianism fits best with the pluralist outlook? I argue that pluralists should acknowledge community as an important source of value and as a substantial value in itself, but they should also be prepared to question traditions and to respect values (...) other than community. In particular, pluralism points to personal autonomy as playing a special role when we must choose among incommensurable goods in conflict. Consequently, the pluralist outlook is at odds with conservative communitarianisms that tend to place existing traditions beyond question, and with radical variants of communitarianism, such as Marxism and classical anarchism, which look forward to future communities in which the need to cope with hard public choices has largely been eliminated. Rather, Berlinian pluralism fits best with a liberal or moderate kind of communitarianism that balances community with other goods, especially personal autonomy. (shrink)

Whether children have rights is a debate that in recent years has spilled over into all areas of public life. It has never been more topical than now as the assumed rights of parents over their children is challenged on an almost daily basis. David Archard offers the first serious and sustained philosophical examination of children and their rights. Archard reviews arguments for and against according children rights. He concludes that every child has at least the right to the best (...) possible upbringing. Denying that parents have any significant rights over their children, he is able to challenge current thinking about the proper roles of state and family in rearing children. Crucially, he considers the problem of how to define and understand `child abuse'. (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)

This paper is concerned with Rawls's (1993) account of an overlapping consensus and recent proposals to introduce citizenship education in parts of the UK. It is argued that both Rawls and the proposals mistake the significance and nature of such a consensus. Partly as a result of this mistake the proposals are insufficiently radical.

Postmodernists reject what they call the universalist-rationalist framework of liberalism. When they do defend liberal democracy, they do so in a contextualist manner (within a ‘form of life’) and on the basis of contestation (‘agonism’). Liberals are right to charge postmodernism with self-contradiction, relativism, and immoralism. It is also argued in this article that liberalism and postmodernism are incompatible, and therefore, they cannot be joined together in response to the hegemonic construction of democratic debate. However, liberals are caught in a (...) bind as they insist on impartiality but also believe the exercise of virtue (reasonableness, mutual respect) is a requirement of rational dialogue. This article argues that perfectionism (objectivism) in value judgements is required both to insist that virtuousity is a requirement of rationality and to reject postmodernism. However, it must be possible to separate perfectionism from two features of Alasdair MacIntyre’s Aristotelianism: he is hostile to liberal rights and his contextualism results in relativism. (shrink)