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The Child in the Moral Order

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 January 2009

Francis Schrag
Francis Schrag
Affiliation:
University of Wisconsin–Madison
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Extract

In the early 1700s the Flemish explorer Sicnarf Garhcs discovered a society, the Namuh, which he described in his two-volume compendium of primitive societies. As this society bears on my present topic, I begin with a summary of its salient features:

(i) It consists of two classes of people, the Tluda and the Dlihc, whom I shall hereafter refer to as the T's and the D's. Relative to the D's, the T's are (on the average) strong, intelligent and knowledgeable about the world. The D's are (with some exceptions) weak, ignorant and dim-witted.

Type
Articles
Information
Philosophy , Volume 52 , Issue 200 , April 1977 , pp. 167 - 177
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy 1977

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References

1 Berlin, Isaiah, ‘Two Concepts of Liberty’, Four Essays on Liberty (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1969), 134.Google Scholar

2 Contemporary exemplars of this perspective, in addition to Berlin and Rawls, would include Wasserstrom, Richard in ‘Rights, Human Rights, and Racial Discrimination’, Human Rights, Melden, A. I. (ed.) (Belmont, Cal.: Wadsworth Publishing Company, 1970), 96–110Google Scholar; and Nozick, Robert, Anarchy, State and Utopia (New York: Basic Books, Inc., 1974).Google Scholar

3 The one philosopher I have located who perceives this point plainly is Stephen, J. Fitzjames, Liberty, Equality, Fraternity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1967), 141–142.Google Scholar

4 I have discussed the justification for using chronological age as a criterion in ‘The Child's Status in the Democratic State’, Political Theory, 11 1975.Google Scholar

5 See Mussen, Paul, The Psychological Development of the Child, Chap. III (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1973).Google Scholar

6 Warnock, G. J., The Object of Morality (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1973), 144.Google Scholar

7 Ibid.

8 Ginzberg, Herbert and Opper, Sylvia, Piaget's Theory of Intellectual Development: An Introduction (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1969), 181.Google Scholar

9 Ibid.

10 Ibid., 195.

11 See Stephens, Beth et al. , The Development of Reasoning, Moral Judgment, and Moral Conduct in Retardates and Normals, Interim Progress Report (Philadelphia, Pa., Temple University, 01, 1972), 42.Google Scholar

12 Ginzberg, and Opper, , op. cit., 133.Google Scholar

13 Lawrence Kohlberg's scheme of stages of moral development, which might be thought to be a plausible candidate, does not really bear on the question ol paternalistic rule.

14 Kant, Immanuel, The Philosophy of Law, trans, Hastie, W. (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1887), 118.Google Scholar

15 Dworkin, Gerald, ‘Paternalism’, Morality and the Law, Wassertrom, R. A. (ed.) (Belmont, Cal.: Wadsworth Publishing Company, 1971), 117.Google Scholar

16 Ibid., p. 126.

17 Stephen, , op. cit., p. 193.Google Scholar

18 Mill, J. S., On Liberty, McCallum, R. B. (ed.) (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1947), 11.Google Scholar

19 Dworkin, , op. cit., pp. 118–126.Google Scholar

20 Geertz, Clifford, ‘Ideology as a Cultural System’, Ideology and Discontent, Apter, David (ed.) (New York: The Free Press of Glencoe, 1964), 62.Google Scholar