David Archard

The Moral and Political Status of Children

Introduction I. CHILDREN AND RIGHTS Do Children Have Rights? What Rights (If Any) Do Children Have? Childrens Choices of Childrens Interests: Which Do Their Rights Protect? Being versus Becoming: A Critical Analysis of the Child in Liberal Theory II. AUTONOMY AND EDUCATION Special Agents: Childrens Autonomy and Parental Authority Autonomy, Child Rearing, and Good Lives Children, Multiculturalism, and Education Answering Susan: Liberalism, Civic Education, and the Status of Younger Persons III. CHILDREN, FAMILIES, AND JUSTICE Silver Spoons and Golden Genes: Talent Differentials and Distributive Justice Equality and the Duties of Procreators Liberal Equality and the Affective Family What Children Really Need: Towards a Critical Theory of Family Structure Family, Choice, and Distributive Justice

Balancing a Child's Best Interests and a Child's Views

We consider the problem of reconciling the two commitments to hear a child and to promote a childs best interests by identifying the principal issues at stake and illustrating them by reference to legal decision-making in the domains of health in the United Kingdom and custody and child protection in Norway. We agree that a childs views are not authoritative but dispute Harry Brighouses claim that they are only of consultative value, affirming the fundamental right of a child capable of expressing a view of doing so and of thereby participating in the procedures where decisions affecting his or her interests are made. In conclusion we offer a checklist of questions that need to be asked about the way in which jurisdictions combine their explicit commitments to the two principles of best interests and hearing the childs views.

Why Moral Philosophers are Not and Should Not Be Moral Experts

Professional philosophers are members of bioethical committees and regulatory bodies in areas of interest to bioethicists. This suggests they possess moral expertise even if they do not exercise it directly and without constraint. Moral expertise is defined, and four arguments given in support of scepticism about their possession of such expertise are considered and rejected: the existence of extreme disagreement between moral philosophers about moral matters; the lack of a means clearly to identify moral experts; that expertise cannot be claimed in that which lacks objectivity; and that ordinary people do not follow the advice of moral experts. I offer a better reason for scepticism grounded in the relation between moral philosophy and common-sense morality: namely that modern moral philosophy views even a developed moral theory as ultimately anchored in common-sense morality, that set of basic moral precepts which ordinary individuals have command of and use to regulate their own lives. Even if moral philosophers do nevertheless have a limited moral expertise, in that they alone can fully develop a set of moral judgments, I sketch reasons - grounded in the values of autonomy and of democracy - why moral philosophers should not wish non-philosophers to defer to their putative expertise.

Should We Teach Patriotism

This article examines a particular debate between Eamonn Callan and William Galston concerning the need for a civic education which counters the divisive pull of pluralism by uniting the citizenry in patriotic allegiance to a single national identity.The article offers a preliminary understanding of nationalism and patriotism before setting out the terms of the debate. It then critically evaluates the central idea of Callan that one might be under an obligation morally to improve ones own patriotic inheritance, pointing to the ineliminable tension between the valuation of ones own patria by its own terms and a detached critical reason.It concludes by suggesting that we are, in advance of our education, members of a particular patria and that any education must be particularistic. Finally, the danger is noted of presuming that, in each case, there is a single, determinate national tradition.

The Family: A Liberal Defence

Preface Introduction The Nature of the Family The Right to a Family The Constitution of the Family The Ideal of the Family and the Ideal Family Just Families The Future of the Family Concluding Thoughts Bibliography Index

Myths, Lies and Historical Truth: a Defence of Nationalism

This article examines the charge that nationalism is simply mistaken about the way the world is. It argues that it would be better to talk of national myths which are not myths proper, nor complete falsities, and which bear a complex relation to the truth. They may contain some truth, and give rise to true beliefs. National myths may also be justifiable for serving cognitive and affective purposes. They may be condemned for giving rise to unjustifiable false beliefs, for requiring the unjustified manipulation of the facts, or for sustaining unjustifiable states of affairs.

How Should We Teach Sex

In the face of differences about how sex should be taught to young persons, and consistent with a liberal principle of neutrality, educationalists can adopt one of two strategies. The ‘retreat to basics’ consists in teaching only a basic agreed code of sexual conduct, or a set of agreed principles of sexual morality. The ‘conjunctive–disjunctive’ strategy consists in teaching the facts of sexual activity together with the various possible evaluations of these facts. Both strategies are beset with significant and insuperable difficulties. Perhaps one should presume only to teach sex in a way that maximises the foundational liberal ideal of autonomy.

Children, adults, best interests and rights

This article seeks, first, to disarm some of the principal criticisms of the best interests principle as having an indeterminate content. It then considers how a best interests principle stands in relation to other principles, in particular according to the child a ‘voice’ on matters affecting its interests. It seeks to show that there is an important distinction between a ‘threshold’ and ‘weighting’ view of a child’s capacities, which has significant implications for how we think from a rights perspective both about the child and about the adult. The article contrasts its own approach from that of John Eekelaar’s ‘dynamic self-determinism’, and concludes by suggesting ways in which the case of children can illuminate the broader understanding of adult rights to autonomy and of liberal anti-paternalism.

Political Disagreement, Legitimacy, and Civility

Abstract For many contemporary liberal political philosophers the appropriate response to the facts of pluralism is the requirement of public reasonableness, namely that individuals should be able to offer to their fellow citizens reasons for their political actions that can generally be accepted. This article finds wanting two possible arguments for such a requirement: one from a liberal principle of legitimacy and the other from a natural duty of political civility. A respect in which conversational restraint in the face of political agreement involves incivility is sketched.The proceduralist view which commends substantive disagreement within agreement on procedures is briefly outlined, as is the possible role for civic virtue on this view.

Children, Adults, Autonomy and Well-Being

I explore the implications of a view – that children and adults enjoy a markedly different moral and political status, wherein the latter can and should be permitted to make choices as to how they lead their lives, whereas the former should not be permitted to make such choices – for how we think about the relationship between autonomy and welfare, and in particular, in consequence, for how we evaluate paternalism. I discuss the problem of drawing a line and the ‘threshold problem’, and consider how one might, as the UNCRC requires, give a weighted role to the views of the child on matters affecting its own interests.