Reading Interrogations for Equality Seminar Week 7. Childhood October 15, 2009 Catherine Willis While a couple readings this week asked how we conceptualize justice or quality as it relates to children, Postman's piece discusses the creation of childhood itself as a category. How should the recognition of the socially constructed nature of the category of childhood affect the way we think about childhood equality? I have tried thinking through it a couple ways with limited success and would appreciate thoughts on it. Here are a couple thoughts on the matter: A first question that we need to ask it the extent to which childhood (in certain countries, like the US), reinforces the inability of children to have moral powers and their inability to assume responsibility for their actions. As a society, even at the global level, we seem quite intent on preserving childhood for all young people. Doing this in many cases would take away responsibilities that children already have (and granted, some we would want to take away). For the most part, is this contrary to what we would want? Would we not prefer that younger adults be moral individuals (and treated as such) sooner. Second, even if we leave the concept of childhood aside, we are still left with young people who are not capable of moral powers or of taking care of themselves. So the necessity to include this group (or other groups that may not be children but may lack moral powers and agency, like some elderly or the mentally ill) somehow in our theories of equality does not go away. David Calnitsky It seems to me that the concept of family in “Legitimate Parental Partiality” by Brighouse and Swift was somewhat underspecified. It is claimed that it plays an “irreplaceable role in human flourishing,” (80) though I’m not sure where its bounds are. On p. 53 there are a number of relationship goods that the family is said to potentially realize (three for children, one for parents), though as the authors acknowledge on the next page, alternative institutions may achieve them as well. The authors then seem to relax the claim: those goods must be connected to “family life, or to something very like it” (54). Is a kibbutz enough like a family? To me the underspecification of the family makes it difficult to compare to alternate arrangements that might be functionally equivalent but do not undermine equality. I think the argument needs a comparison with some alternate institutions real or imagined. Of course, we don’t necessarily know how imaginary alternatives would function, but I don’t see why “nothing else can be an adequate substitute” (52). It seems plausible that relationship goods realizable within the family are only non-substitutable because it is hard to see past the bounds of contemporary kinship structures. But, kibbutzim that built strong internal kinship bonds might also generate new and seemingly irreplaceable communal relationship goods. This and other counterfactuals need to be discredited to strengthen the contention above. I see the likely inadequacy of state-institutions combined with labor-contracts to meet the relationship goods outlined on p. 53, but I don’t see why the family is privileged. Especially since itSociology 915 & Philosophy 955. Reading Interrogations 2 often requires the clause “appropriately structured” (53) or “appropriately arranged” (52). This perhaps gets at an important aspect of the family, there are limits to the possibility that it’s arrangement can be intervened in and made more appropriate. If relationship good outcomes are important, it seems that replacements, like the kibbutz, might better realize—in contrast to allowing ample space for—things like bedtime stories (here, parents but not children would be deprived, though presumably their functional equivalent would benefit). I think one of the stronger parts of the essay is when the authors argue that “If people could pursue their own well-being and could impartially act to promote the well-being of others, but were not allowed to pursue that of their loved ones in particular, they would indeed suffer a loss” (61). Next they argue that being free to further particular interests of one’s children allows expression of a distinctive kind of love. Would this really dissolve in alternate equality-enhancing institutions? Might not the kibbutz’s care-giving figures vigorously pursue the interests of the collectivity of children they are responsible for, especially given transformed kinship relations? It seems that here it would not be important to favor any particular child in much the same way that Brighouse and Swift would probably not be concerned with a given parent’s ability to pursue partiality among children within a family. Eunhee Han This week readings raise two different but related questions: 1. Brenna asks about the value of childhood. As she argues that childhood goods do not have merely instrumental value (for adult goods) but also have intrinsic value. I totally agree with her, but philosopher may offer an alternative question like “whether children are private or public goods?” since this question implies important social policy implications regarding the distribution of cares and resources. As I understand, Nancy Folbre (feminist economist, cited in Brenna, p. 1) said that children were not pets of parents in order to emphasize the public value or instrumental value of childhood (i.e., the children will become future labor force and tax payers, especially they will pay for the Social Security tax for the old generation). Society should be interested in investing for children and sharing care responsibility because children are not private property/goods like a pet but also public goods. Then, who should provide to children? 2. Even in an ideal egalitarian society, we have to permit some parental partiality with considering special familiar relationship between parents and children (Brighouse and Swift, 2009). However, in the contemporary society with high divorce rate and prevalence of un-marital birth and single-parent families, many children do not receive appropriate care and nurturing from their both biological parents. Social scientists continuously alarm the significant (economical/psychological/developmental) disadvantages of children growing up in single-parent (mostly mothers) families. If a society distributes resources