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)

Traditionally, most philosophers saw childhood as a state of deficiency and thought that its value was entirely dependent on how successfully it prepares individuals for adulthood. Yet, there are good reasons to think that childhood also has intrinsic value. Children possess certain intrinsically valuable abilities to a higher degree than adults. Moreover, going through a phase when one does not yet have a “self of one’s own,” and experimenting one’s way to a stable self, seems intrinsically valuable. I argue that (...) children can have good lives, on several understandings of well-being – as a pleasurable state, as the satisfaction of simple desires or as the realization of certain objective goods. In reply to the likely objection that only individuals capable of morality can have intrinsic value, I explain why it is plausible that children have sufficient moral agency to be as deserving of respect as adults. (shrink)

This paper addresses the issue of paternalism in child-rearing. Since the parent–child relationship seems to be the linguistic source of the concept, one may be tempted to assume that raising a child represents a particularly appropriate sphere for paternalism. The parent–child relationship is generally understood as a relationship that is supposed to promote the development and autonomy-formation of the child, so that the apparent source of the concept is a form of autonomy-oriented paternalism. Far from taking paternalism to be overtly (...) unproblematic in such paradigmatic, pedagogical settings, this article analyzes how an effort should be made to understand a child’s capacities and which standards parents should be held to when deciding whether interference truly serves the child’s interests. (shrink)

I review three existing arguments in favor of having some childcare done by nonparents and then I advance five arguments, most of them original, to the same conclusion. My arguments rely on the assumption that, no matter who provides it, childcare will inevitably go wrong at times. I discuss the importance of mitigating bad care, of teaching children how to enter caring relationships with people who are initially strangers to them, of addressing children's structural vulnerability to their caregivers, of helping (...) children and parents contain the ambivalent feelings of the child-parent relationship, and of distributing the responsibility of care and the ensuing blame for bad care more widely. I conclude that nonparental childcare should be universal. (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 Pragmatism Reader is the essential anthology of this important philosophical movement. Each selection featured here is a key writing by a leading pragmatist thinker, and represents a distinctively pragmatist approach to a core philosophical problem. The collection includes work by pragmatism's founders, Charles Peirce, William James, and John Dewey, as well as seminal writings by mid-twentieth-century pragmatists such as Sidney Hook, C. I. Lewis, Nelson Goodman, Rudolf Carnap, Wilfrid Sellars, and W.V.O. Quine. This reader also includes the most important (...) work in contemporary pragmatism by philosophers like Susan Haack, Cornel West, Hilary Putnam, Richard Rorty, Cheryl Misak, and Robert Brandom. Each selection is a stand-alone piece--not an excerpt or book chapter--and each is presented fully unabridged. The Pragmatism Reader challenges the notion that pragmatism fell into a midcentury decline and was dormant until the advent of "neopragmatism" in the 1980s. This comprehensive anthology reveals a rich and highly influential tradition running unbroken through twentieth-century philosophy and continuing today. It shows how American pragmatist philosophers have contributed to leading philosophical debates about truth, meaning, knowledge, experience, belief, existence, justification, and freedom. Covers pragmatist philosophy from its origins to today Features key writings by the leading pragmatist thinkers Demonstrates the continuity and enduring influence of pragmatism Challenges prevailing notions about pragmatism Includes only stand-alone pieces, completely unabridged Reflects the full range of pragmatist themes, arguments, concerns, and commitments. (shrink)

The author argues that the contributions of Jane Addams and the women of theHull House Settlement to pragmatist theory, particularly as formulated by JohnDewey, are largely responsible for its emancipatory emphasis. By recoveringAddams's own pragmatist theory, a version of pragmatist feminism is developedthat speaks to such contemporary feminist issues as the manner of inclusionin society of diverse persons, marginalized by gender, ethnicity, race, andsexual orientation; the strengths and limitations of standpoint theory; and theneed for feminist ethics to embrace the social (...) nature of morality. The model ofsocial democracy that informs the pragmatist shift from a detached theory ofknowing to an engaged theory of understanding differentiates it from both liberalindividualism and communitarianism. Dewey's repeated attacks on theincoherence of the model of classical liberal individualism, for example, areeven more persuasive when seen in the context of the model of the intersubjectiveconstitution of the individual that Addams develops from examining therelation of personal development to social interaction among the women residentsof Hull House. (shrink)

This paper is concerned with child poverty from an ethical perspective and applies the normative concept of vulnerability for this purpose. The first part of the paper will briefly outline children’s particular vulnerability and distinguish important aspects of this. Then the concept will be applied to child poverty and it will be shown that child poverty is a corrosive situational vulnerability, with many severe consequences. In this part of the paper normative reasoning and empirical literature will be brought together. Then, (...) the next section will establish why this increased vulnerability of poor children and the harm to their well-being and well-becoming, which they suffer for this reason, are of ethical concern. It will be discussed that child poverty is a structural problem based on social, political and economic factors. The concluding section will then briefly outline why it is imperative to protect children from the vulnerabilities associated with poverty. (shrink)

Was macht ein Kind zu einem Kind? Sind Kinder ihren Eltern zur Dankbarkeit verpflichtet? Ist die Schulpflicht eine legitime staatliche Vorgabe? Gibt es ein Recht darauf, Kinder zu haben? -/- Das Handbuch liefert einen systematischen Überblick über die zentralen Konzepte und Theorien sowie die wichtigsten Diskussionsfelder der Philosophie der Kindheit. Zur Debatte stehen neben dem moralischen, rechtlichen und politischen Status von Kindern auch Fragen nach dem instrumentellen oder intrinsischen Wert der Kindheit sowie nach historischen Veränderungen im gesellschaftlichen Umgang mit Kindern.

Kinder werden üblicherweise als in höherem Maße verletzlich als Erwachsene angesehen. Dafür werden vielfältige Gründe angeführt; dies wird in der Regel darauf zurückgeführt, dass Kinder für ihr Überleben und körperliches wie seelisches Wachstum auf die Hilfe und Unterstützung von Erwachsenen angewiesen sind. Diese Abhängigkeit generiert moralische Pflichten, über deren Ausmaß und Adressaten allerdings kontroverse Ansichten bestehen.