The Moral and Political Status of Children
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The Moral and Political Status of Children D. Archard and C. Macleod (eds.) Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2002, 304pp. ISBN: 0 19 924268 2. Contemporary Political Theory (2003) 2, 363–365. doi:10.1057/palgrave.cpt.9300086
For those interested in theorizing around children’s rights, a book co-edited by David Archard is essential reading. His seminal book Children, Rights and Childhood in 1993 deserves its frequent referencing, as a philosophical touchstone in the emerging inter-disciplinary areas of childhood studies (Archard, 1993). What then to make of the recent collaboration with Colin Macleod, in an edited collection? As the editors point out, moral and political philosophy traditionally paid scant attention to children and their moral status. If children were considered, they tended to be used as tests to particular theories based around adult norms: an issue aptly put by one of the contributors, Arneil, as ‘Ultimately, the individual child is largely a tool to illuminate the autonomous adult citizen by providing the perfect mirror within which to reflect the negative image of the positive adult form’ (p. 74). This book sets out to reflect upon and challenge this tendency, by bringing together a range of contributions from academics located in North American and British universities. The book is divided into three sections F children and rights, autonomy and education, and children, families and justice. The first section brings together four different stances on children’s moral status, whether they have rights and, if children do, what kind of rights they have. Griffin, for example, argues against a human needs rationale for human rights and instead states that only beings capable of agency can be said to have human rights (a ‘choice theory’ of rights). Children, at least infants and young children, are thus excluded from human rights. In contrast to Griffin, Brighouse argues for an ‘interest theory’ of rights, which is thus inclusive of children’s need for protection. Brennan disagrees with the dichotomization of interest and choice theories of rights and, instead, suggests a gradualist model where protecting children’s interests gives way to rights to autonomy as children develop. Arneil ends the section by arguing that the rights discourse insufficiently establishes and supports caring relationships. This chapter by Arneil justifies a particular reading for all those promoting children’s rights. She perceives a fundamental limit to the usefulness of the concept of rights. She argues that the concept ‘cannot escape it origins’ (p. 86), which are based on individual status, a state committed to principles of both
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non-interference and enforcement, and associational relationships of mutual self-interest. This critique is succinct but not new. What Arneil particularly contributes is a more worked-out alternative than is typically presented in the literature, on an ‘ethic of care’ as it might apply to children. The state would have a proactive and supporting role to parents, rather than a
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