{"title":"Conclusion","authors":"T. Fowler","doi":"10.1332/policypress/9781529201635.003.0015","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1332/policypress/9781529201635.003.0015","url":null,"abstract":"The central arguments of this book have been that children are owed a good environment in which to grow up and that adults are owed the stable and supported right to care for children if they so desire. In Part I, I explored how to conceptualize children’s justice and how to measure whether children’s interests are being met by their society. I showed why children’s interests cannot be understood in terms of holding a set of resources, even if resources are understood in a very broad sense. When the subject of justice is understood to be adults, then it makes sense that the role of principles of justice simply be giving each person their fair share. This was the perspective taken by the two most influential liberal thinkers of the last century, John Rawls and Ronald Dworkin. I suggested their approach cannot cope with the needs of children, since children might have a fair share of economic resources yet grow up socialized into beliefs, values and practices that are harmful to their current and future flourishing. A theory of justice must, therefore, take holistic account of the various ways in which upbringing might affect a person’s life, thus looking at its effects on children’s well-being. To meet this challenge, I offered an objective list account of children’s well-being which suggested that this is principally driven by the quality of their relationships with others. This theoretical shift implies a reconceptualization of what justice is about. Instead of justice being understood primarily as economic fairness, it must be seen as fundamentally about creating a society with norms and practice which foster flourishing interpersonal relationships, with a particular concern for the least advantaged children whose interests must be given priority....","PeriodicalId":192204,"journal":{"name":"Liberalism, Childhood and Justice","volume":"15 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-02-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132889928","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Beyond Parents: Collective Duties to Children","authors":"T. Fowler","doi":"10.1332/policypress/9781529201635.003.0012","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1332/policypress/9781529201635.003.0012","url":null,"abstract":"In this chapter, I consider duties non-parents might have to children. I consider empirical evidence which suggests that parents matter less for children than is commonly assumed, and that other members of society matter more. I suggest that this influence on children generates duties to the children that are similar- albeit weaker- to those of parents. All members of society are responsible for the content of children’s character and this impact brings duties to ensure society is not harmful to the child. Further, the intertwined nature of children’s lives means that special duties to one child transfer to others. The implication is that the perfectionist duties explored in chapter 11 apply not just to parents but to all citizens, who have a moral duty to change their conduct in ways that will further the wellbeing of children.","PeriodicalId":192204,"journal":{"name":"Liberalism, Childhood and Justice","volume":"22 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-02-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130334976","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Distributing Parental Duties","authors":"T. Fowler","doi":"10.2307/j.ctvwrm4bm.14","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvwrm4bm.14","url":null,"abstract":"In this chapter, I consider the special duties that some adults have to children and defend what is known as the causal theory. According to this account, people come to have duties to children because they create them in a needy state, and effectively make profound choices on behalf of their children. I show why this view is preferable to both the voluntariness view – according to which people can only have special duties when they agree to them – and to the social conventions account – which suggests that special duties are whatever the social conventions state them to be. Finally, I show how the causal view can dodge the problem of assigning too many people as the relevant causes of children, and thus as that child’s parents.","PeriodicalId":192204,"journal":{"name":"Liberalism, Childhood and Justice","volume":"207 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-02-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115561720","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Children’s Distributive Outcomes: Equality of Opportunity?","authors":"T. Fowler","doi":"10.1332/policypress/9781529201635.003.0013","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1332/policypress/9781529201635.003.0013","url":null,"abstract":"In this chapter, I consider the extent to which my account supports equality of opportunity, understood roughly in the Rawlsian sense known as FEO (Fair Equality of Opportunity). FEO seems inconsistent with the priority view defended in Section 2. However, I argue there are powerful reasons of justice to think that justice requires limiting the ability of parents to pass on economic advantages to their children. I show an argument for equalising opportunity flows from my account of children’s wellbeing. I argue that children’s social relations with one another are dependent upon FEO, and in particular that children interact with the world as agents. This means that their lives take the shape they do because of their own actions and abilities.","PeriodicalId":192204,"journal":{"name":"Liberalism, Childhood and Justice","volume":"32 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-02-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128275900","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Priority, Not Equality, of Welfare","authors":"T. Fowler","doi":"10.2307/j.ctvwrm4bm.9","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvwrm4bm.9","url":null,"abstract":"In this chapter I consider various possible distributive principles, that assess what a fair distribution of welfare would look like. I reject the principle of distributive equality because equality favours levelling down, making the lives of some people go worse while making no one’s life go better. In place I adopt the priority view, which suggests that the concern of justice should be promoting the welfare of the least advantaged children. I then consider the sufficiency principle, which holds that justice is about securing each person ‘enough’ and is unconcerned with advantages above this threshold. I argue that this sufficiency view should be rejected, even in its more plausible moderate forms, but that it does provide a useful intermediary role in working out what are the implications of prioritarianism.","PeriodicalId":192204,"journal":{"name":"Liberalism, Childhood and Justice","volume":"26 2","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-02-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132678108","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Paying for Childcare","authors":"T. Fowler","doi":"10.1332/policypress/9781529201635.003.0014","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1332/policypress/9781529201635.003.0014","url":null,"abstract":"Here, I make the case that each member of society can be expected to do better if more resources are dedicated to child rearing. This is for two reasons; first, it benefits everyone during their life stage as children. Moving resources towards children, and changing norms to be more child friendly, can be expected to benefit everyone, because childhood is a particularly significant part of a person’s life. It matters instrumentally – having good childhood is predictive of a good adulthood – and intrinsically, because people have a strong attachment to their childhood years. Second, it makes the project of raising children more attractive and this option benefits both parents and those who do not become parents.","PeriodicalId":192204,"journal":{"name":"Liberalism, Childhood and Justice","volume":"17 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-02-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127571517","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}