Published by De Gruyter

Volume 7 Issue 2 - Special Issue: Children’s and Adolescents’ Rights; Guest Editors: Anca Gheaus und Sabine Hohl

Issue of Moral Philosophy and Politics

Contents
Journal Overview

Publicly Available November 9, 2020

Frontmatter

Page range: i-iii

Download PDF

November 9, 2020

Introduction to the Special Issue on Children’s and Adolescents’ Rights

Anca Gheaus, Sabine Hohl

Page range: 191-197

Abstract

Recent philosophical work on children and childhood has revealed many new questions concerning minors’ rights. This special issue of Moral Philosophy and Politics offers new contributions to the topics of paternalism, the nature of the right to parent and children’s voting. It also contains articles about the so far less explored questions of adolescents’ parental rights, minors’ rights against the harms of parental imprisonment, and their right to veto their own parents’ decision to relocate.

Open Access September 21, 2020

Respecting Children’s Choices

Kalle Grill

Page range: 199-218

More Download PDF

Abstract

The traditional liberal view on conflicts between care for wellbeing and respect for choice and desire is that we should look to degrees of competence and voluntariness to determine which moral imperative should take priority. This view has likely influenced the common view that children’s choices should be considered only to the extent that this promotes their future autonomy and helps us determine their best interests. I reject both the general traditional liberal view and its application to children. Competence and voluntariness, as well as maturity, are at best proxies for what really matters, which is wellbeing, choice and desire. We typically have reason to respect children’s choices, irrespective of any further positive consequences. If we should more often make children do what they do not want to do, this is mainly because, though we should care about respecting their choices, we should care even more about their wellbeing and future autonomy.

August 17, 2020

The Trust Model of Children’s Rights

Kenneth R. Pike

Page range: 219-237

Abstract

Is parental control over children best understood in terms of trusteeship or similar fiduciary obligations? This essay contemplates the elements of legal trusts and fiduciarity as they might relate to the moral relationship between children and parents. Though many accounts of upbringing advocate parent-child relationship models with structural resemblance to trust-like relationships, it is unclear who grants moral trusts, how trustees are actually selected, or how to identify proper beneficiaries. By considering these and other classical elements of relationships of trust, this essay seeks to clarify and explore the trust model’s role, if any, in understanding children’s rights. Such exploration raises the possibility that another element of common law, the duty to rescue, may serve to enhance the trust model of children’s rights.

May 28, 2020

Gestationalism and the Rights of Adolescent Mothers

Teresa Baron

Page range: 239-254

Abstract

In this paper, I explore the ways in which consideration of adolescent parents forces us to confront and question common presuppositions about parental rights. In particular, I argue that recognising the right of adolescent mothers not to be forcibly separated from their newborn children justifies rejecting the notion that parental rights are (a) all acquired in the same manner and (b) acquired as a ‘bundle’ of concomitant moral rights. I conclude that children and adolescents who conceive and give birth have some parental rights concerning their newborn children – in particular, the right not to be forcibly separated from those children – even if they do not have the ‘full complement’ of parental rights as we generally characterise these.

August 11, 2020

Disenfranchisement and the Capacity/Equality Puzzle: Why Disenfranchise Children but Not Adults Living with Cognitive Disabilities

Attila Mráz

Page range: 255-279

Abstract

In this paper, I offer a solution to the Capacity/Equality Puzzle. The puzzle holds that an account of the franchise may adequately capture at most two of the following: (1) a political equality-based account of the franchise, (2) a capacity-based account of disenfranchising children, and (3) universal adult enfranchisement. To resolve the puzzle, I provide a complex liberal egalitarian justification of a moral requirement to disenfranchise children. I show that disenfranchising children is permitted by both the proper political liberal and the proper political egalitarian understandings of the relationship between cognitive capacity and the franchise. Further, I argue, disenfranchising children is required by a minimalistic, procedural principle of collective competence in political decision-making. At the same time, I show that political equality requires the enfranchisement of all adults, regardless of cognitive capacities, and that the collective competence principle does not ground adult disenfranchisement. This justifies the progressive legal trend that holds the capacity-based disenfranchisement of adults to be incompatible with liberal democratic principles.

August 8, 2020

Equality, Self-Government, and Disenfranchising Kids: A Reply to Yaffe

Michael Cholbi

Page range: 281-297

Abstract

Gideon Yaffe has recently argued that children should be subject to lower standards of criminal liability because, unlike adults, they ought to be disenfranchised. Because of their disenfranchisement, they lack the legal reasons enfranchised adults have to comply with the law. I critically consider Yaffe’s argument for such disenfranchisement, which holds that disenfranchisement balances children’s interest in self-government with adults’ interest in having an equal say over lawmaking. I argue that Yaffe does not succeed in showing that these two values need to be balanced, nor that disenfranchising children is a justifiable method of achieving this balance. In my conclusion, I sketch an alternative contractualist approach to disenfranchising children that, like Yaffe’s, appeals to the implications that enfranchisement has for political relations among citizens, but, unlike Yaffe’s, rests on empirical claims about the influence of parents on children’s voting patterns rather than on a priori claims regarding who has a rightful say over lawmaking.

Open Access September 18, 2020

The Social Injustice of Parental Imprisonment

William Bülow, Lars Lindblom

Page range: 299-320

More Download PDF

Abstract

Children of prisoners are often negatively affected by their parents’ incarceration, which raises issues of justice. A common view is that the many negative effects associated with parental imprisonment are unjust, simply because children of prisoners are impermissibly harmed or unjustly punished by their parents’ incarceration. We argue that proposals of this kind have problems with accounting for cases where it is intuitive that prison might create social injustices for children of prisoners. Therefore, we suggest that in addition to the question of whether children of prisoners are impermissibly harmed, we should ask whether the inequalities that these children endure because of their parent’s incarceration are objectionable from a social justice perspective. To answer this latter question, we examine the negative effects associated with parental imprisonment from the perspective of luck egalitarianism. We develop a luck egalitarian account that incorporates insights from the philosophy of childhood. On our account, children of prisoners might endure two different types of objectionable inequalities, since they are often deprived of resources that are important for ensuring fair equality of opportunity in adulthood, but also because they are likely to suffer inequalities in terms of childhood welfare. After defending this account, we explore its implications for policy.

Open Access August 4, 2020

Should Children Have a Veto over Parental Decisions to Relocate?

Bouke de Vries

Page range: 321-334

More Download PDF

Abstract

Many people move house at some point during their childhood and not rarely more than once. While relocations are not always harmful for under-aged children, they can, and frequently do, cause great disruption to their lives by severing their social ties as well as any attachments that they might have to their neighbourhood, town, or wider geographical region, with long-lasting psychological effects in some cases. Since it is increasingly recognised within normative philosophy as well as within Western societies that older minors should have the final say over certain issues that significantly affect their lives (think, for instance, of custody disputes, decisions about whether to get specific vaccinations or use contraceptives), this raises the question: Can it be morally incumbent upon parents to give their minor children a veto over family relocation? This article argues that the answer is affirmative. Specifically, it suggests that such duties exist if and only if (i) parents are not morally required to either relocate their families or stay put, (ii) the stakes of the decision about a family relocation are fairly low, and (iii) the children have the competence to make these decisions, as many older minors do.

About this journal

Moral Philosophy and Politics (MOPP) is an international, peer-reviewed journal that publishes original philosophical articles addressing matters of public relevance. The notion ‘public relevance’ is construed broadly to encompass various domains and aspects. The journal has a special focus on the philosophical assessment of policies and their normative foundations, analyses of the philosophical underpinnings or implications of political discourse, and discussions of the justice or injustice inherent in social and political structures that govern human conduct.

MOPP is committed to the ideals of clarity, evidence-based reasoning, and intellectual openness. interdisciplinary work and historical approaches are encouraged when they are relevant to contemporary issues. MOPP considers both theoretical and meta-ethical works, as well as those tackling conceptual problems, provided they offer insights into political, moral, economic or social issues that characterize contemporary societies. Contributors are expected to make clear how their work relates to these issues.

Follow MOPP on Twitter!

Current Calls for Papers

‘Relational Equality and Migration’, ed. by Daniel Sharp (for more information, click here)

‘Longtermism: Philosophical Questions’, ed. by Stefan Riedener (for more information, click here)
‘Ontic Injustice’, ed. by Christine Bratu, Mirjam Müller (for more information, click here)

‘Power and Sovereignty Across Generations’, ed. by Devon Cass, Manuel Valente (for more information, click here)

Call for Special Issues and Symposia

Moral Philosophy and Politics welcomes guest editors who are interested in organizing special issues for our journal. If you have a topic in mind that aligns with the scope and focus of MOPP and would like to collaborate with us, please get in touch with our editorial team. Interested guest editors are kindly requested to include a one-page proposal outlining their envisioned special issue. For more information about the process of publishing a special issue with MOPP, please click here.