The book contains contributions from thirteen distinguished moral and political philosophers on the subject of children. These are new essays and are devoted to a subject that until recently has not been extensively discussed by philosophers. Too often philosophers restrict themselves to the consideration only of the relations between adults. Yet the topic of children is an important one for moral and political philosophy. Recent years have seen an increased concern with the needs and interests of young people. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child which accords a wide range of fundamental rights to children was adopted in 1989 and many states have subsequently ratified the Convention. In this context it is timely and appropriate to ask various questions. If children do not have rights what exactly is their moral status? If they do have rights do they have all the rights that adults have? What rights if any do parents have over children and what is their justification? What duties do parents have towards their own children and towards others in society? How should we educate those who will be the future citizens and workers of our society? What values and what dispositions of character is it appropriate to instil in children? Is the family an obstacle to the realisation of full social justice? Can we in pursuit of justice contemplate the abolition of the family? The book covers the themes of children's rights, parental rights and duties, the family and justice, and civic education.

Now available in three thematic volumes, the second edition of Moral Issues in Global Perspective is a collection of the newest and best articles on current moral issues by moral and political theorists from around the globe. Each volume seeks to challenge the standard approaches to morality and moral issues shaped by Western liberal theory and to extend the inquiry beyond the context of North America. Covering a broad range of issues and arguments, this collection includes critiques of traditional liberal accounts of rights, justice, and moral values, while raising questions about the treatment of disadvantaged groups within and across societies affected by globalization. Providing new perspectives on issues such as war and terrorism, reproduction, euthanasia, censorship, and the environment, each volume of Moral Issues in Global Perspective incorporates work by race, class, feminist, and disability theorists. Moral and Political Theory, the first of the three volumes, surveys a number of traditional Western liberal approaches to moral theory, human rights, justice, and democracy, as well as contemporary critiques of these approaches. With nineteen new essays, three of which were written especially for this edition, this volume covers the necessary theories for understanding moral issues in a global context. Moral Issues in Global Perspective is available in three separate volumes—Moral and Political Theory, Human Diversity and Equality, and Moral Issues.

More than a quarter of a century has passed since Canada promised to recognize and respect the rights of children under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Ratification of the Convention cannot, however, guarantee that everyone will abandon proprietary notions about children, or that all children will be free to enjoy the substance of their rights in every social and institutional context in which they find themselves, including—and perhaps especially—within families. This disconnect remains one of the most important challenges to the recognition of children’s rights in Canada. The authors argue that social toxins are as harmful to children’s independent welfare and developmental interests as environmental toxins, and that both must be eradicated if Canada is to fulfill its commitments under the Convention. They also argue that if Canada wishes to ensure the substance of the rights outlined in the Convention are socially guaranteed, an attitudinal or cultural shift is required concerning the moral and legal status of children. This revised, expanded, and updated edition of the bestselling Challenge of Children’s Rights for Canada will be of interest to academics, policymakers, parents, teachers, social workers, and human service professionals—indeed to anyone who cares about and for children.

Offering a for-and-against look at surrogacy, this book focuses on questions which bear on its justifiability: Is providing gestational services a permissible way of employing a woman's body? Indeed, is it a legitimate form of work? Are the children born out of surrogacy in any way wronged by surrogacy agreements?

The articles in this volume shed light on some of the major tensions in the field of children?s rights (such as the ways in which children?s best interests and respect for their autonomy can be reconciled), challenges (such as how the CRC can be made a reality in the lives of children in the face of ignorance, apathy or outright opposition) and critiques (whether children?s rights are a Western imposition or a successful global consensus). Along the way, the writing covers a myriad of issues, encompassing the opposition to the CRC in the US; gay parenting: Dr Seuss?s take on children?s autonomy; the voice of neonates on their health care; the role of NGO in supporting child labourers in India, and young people in detention and more.

Rethinking Children's Rights explores attitudes towards and experiences of children's rights. Phil Jones and Sue Welch draw on a wide range of thought, research and practice from different fields and countries to debate, challenge and re-appraise long held beliefs, attitudes and ways of working and living with children. This second edition contains updated references to legislation and research underpinning children's rights, reflecting on recent scholarship and on the current world context. New research and examples are discussed around: - online protection and privacy - evaluating UK progress and the children's rights review by the United Nations - recent insights on the implementation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) - new debates about the construction and development of children's rights - new debates about the relationships between social exclusion and children's rights Recent developments in the definition of rights are considered from a variety of perspectives and in relation to different arenas of children's lives. This second edition brings an increased focus on exploring the notion of disjunction between the rhetoric of policy and legislation and the enacted and perceived experiences of children's rights. Themes discussed include power relations between adults and children, the child's voice, intercultural perspectives, social justice, gender and disability. Examples of research, activities, interviews with researchers and guidance on further reading make this an essential text for those studying childhood.

Artistic Creation and Ethical Criticism, a study in philosophical aesthetics, investigates an idea that underpins the ethical criticism of art but that is rarely acknowledged and poorly understood - namely, that the ethical criticism of art involves judgments not only of the attitudes a work endorses or solicits, but of what artists do to create the work. The book pioneers an innovative production-oriented approach to the study of the ethical criticism of art - one that will provide a detailed philosophical account of the intersection of ethics and artistic creation as well as conceptual tools that can guide future philosophizing and criticism. Ted Nannicelli offers three arguments concerning the ethical criticism of art. First, he argues that judgments of an artwork's ethical value are already often made in terms of how it was created, and examines why some art forms more readily lend themselves to this form of ethical appraisal than others. He then asserts that production-oriented evaluations of artworks are less contested than other sorts of ethical criticism and so lead to certain practical consequences-from censure, dismissal, and prosecution to shifts in policy and even legislation. Finally, Nannicelli defends the production-oriented approach, arguing that it is not only tacit in many of our art appreciative practices, but is in fact rationally warranted. There are many cases in which we should ethically critique artworks in terms of how they are created because this approach handles cases that other approaches cannot and results in plausible judgments about the works' relative ethical and artistic value. The concise, powerful arguments presented here will appeal to moral philosophers, philosophers of art and aesthetics, and critics interested in the intersection of artistic production and criticism and ethics.

The book contains original essays by distinguished moral and political philosophers on the topic of the moral and political status of children. It covers the themes of children's rights, parental rights and duties, the family and justice, and civic education.

Exploring the ethical questions posed by, in, and about children’s literature, this collection examines the way texts intended for children raise questions of value, depict the moral development of their characters, and call into attention shared moral presuppositions. The essays in Part I look at various past attempts at conveying moral messages to children and interrogate their underlying assumptions. What visions of childhood were conveyed by explicit attempts to cultivate specific virtues in children? What unstated cultural assumptions were expressed by growing resistance to didacticism? How should we prepare children to respond to racism in their books and in their society? Part II takes up the ethical orientations of various classic and contemporary texts, including 'prosaic ethics' in the Hundred Acre Wood, moral discernment in Narnia, ethical recognition in the distant worlds traversed by L’Engle, and virtuous transgression in recent Anglo-American children’s literature and in the emerging children’s literature of 1960s Taiwan. Part III’s essays engage in ethical criticism of arguably problematic messages about our relationship to nonhuman animals, about war, and about prejudice. The final section considers how we respond to children’s literature with ethically focused essays exploring a range of ways in which child readers and adult authorities react to children’s literature. Even as children’s literature has evolved in opposition to its origins in didactic Sunday school tracts and moralizing fables, authors, parents, librarians, and scholars remain sensitive to the values conveyed to children through the texts they choose to share with them.

In Moral and Political Dimensions of Critical-Democratic Citizenship Education, Wiel Veugelers analyses theory, policy and practice of moral education and citizenship education in the past few decades. He shows that there are different orientations in national and global moral education and citizenship education. He criticises the strong orientation on the individual and on adaptation, and argues for more emphasises on social justice, equity and democracy. This volume brings together articles Veugelers published in the past 25 years. Each article is introduced by a reflection on the reasons for the article, its responses, and lessons that are still relevant. The book ends with a large chapter that overviews central developments and presents a programme for future theory, research, policy and practice in moral education and citizenship education with a strong focus on democracy and empowerment: the moral should become more political and the political more moral.