Abstract
I distinguish between three different ideas that have been recently discussed under the heading of ‘the intrinsic goods of childhood’: that childhood is itself intrinsically valuable, that certain goods are valuable only for children, and that children are being owed other goods than adults. I then briefly defend the claim the childhood is intrinsically good. Most of the chapter is dedicated to the analysis, and rejection, of the claim that certain goods are valuable only for children. This has implications about how a just society should trade off economic productivity on the one hand and goods such as play and unstructured time on the other hand.
I am grateful to Monika Betzler, Matthew Clayton, Jurgen De Wispelaere, Tim Fowler, Colin Macleod, Thomas Parr, Lindsey Porter, Norvin Richards, Adam Swift and Patrick Tomlin for helpful comments on earlier drafts. While writing the last version of this paper I have benefited from a De Velling Willis Fellow at the University of Sheffield.
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Notes
- 1.
This is the focus of Brennan’s paper, who also raises the second question but engages with it to a lesser extent.
- 2.
‘Possible’ both metaphysically and practically. Some will think it is a metaphysical impossibility to ‘skip’ childhood, since the identity of adults is constituted, in part, by memories and experiences that presuppose childhood.
- 3.
I cast my argument, and its terminology, in terms of goods that make an important contribution to a good childhood rather than goods that are necessary for a good childhood, in an attempt to minimise the contentious nature of the claims I make.
- 4.
This seems to be the main concern of Brighouse and Swift (forthcoming 2014).
- 5.
And has been discussed by Macleod (2010).
- 6.
And I am grateful to several readers of previous drafts, who brought it to my attention.
- 7.
I address this question more fully in paper ‘Unfinished adults and defective children’ (work in progress).
- 8.
A classical text in analytical philosophy that can be interpreted as advancing this view is Tamar Schapiro (1999).
- 9.
Brennan raises these questions in her forthcoming paper.
- 10.
A variation on this question qualifies it: if individuals are given adulthood-time instead of childhood-time, would this make it rational to skip childhood? To show that it wouldn’t, one would have to explain not only why childhood has intrinsic value, but why it has a value that is of a different kind than that of adulthood, such that skipping childhood would impoverish one’s life in a way that cannot be made up for with the extra years of adulthood. Indeed, this seems to be the more interesting and difficult issue, since few people would think it rational to just skip childhood. Here I gesture towards such an explanation, which I discuss at length in ‘Unfinished adults and defective children’.
- 11.
Or, at least, the characteristic that matters morally and legally; thus, adult human beings lacking sufficient rationality and autonomy have traditionally been deemed on a par – morally and legally – to children.
- 12.
Amongst contemporary philosophers, Schapiro herself holds this Kantian view.
- 13.
- 14.
Gopnik repeatedly uses the image of children as experimental scientists in order to convey the typical mental abilities of babies and small children, which is another way of saying that scientists and children share a high level of curiosity and imagination. Imagination has also been closely connected to artistic creativity. And Plato and Aristotle famously claimed that wonder is the distinctive reaction of philosophers to the world: philosophy begins in wonder (see, for instance, Aristotle, Metaphysics, Book 1,2: 982b.)
- 15.
Note that on a moral view, once very widespread, according to which sex is evil, sexual innocence could be good for both children and adults.
- 16.
It is not easy to see, in the first place, why sexual innocence is a childhood good. A plausible interpretation may be to see sexual awareness as either a body of knowledge or a disposition that may, but need not, afford more benefits than burdens. Since an active sexual life does not benefit children, they have no need of sexual awareness, which would therefore be a net burden to them. But the same is true about full knowledge of the traffic code: we do not need this knowledge as children because as children we are not supposed to drive cars, so it would be an unnecessary burden. Yet, it would be odd to suggest that ignorance of the traffic code is a specific good of childhood.
- 17.
And, if Bertrand Russell (1935) in his In Praise of Idleness was right, we have since long reached the technological development to afford the leisure necessary for the enjoyment of childhood goods.
- 18.
See the discussion in Richards (2010), at page 156.
- 19.
Nor does Richards claim that it is; his argument is an argument about what children are owed in the world as it is, given contingent social expectations.
- 20.
At times, however, the world of my own childhood was similar to the world in Three.
- 21.
Children here do a bit more work – such as shovelling snow – than in the first world; I assume the added ‘care’ is however very small, since adults, not children, bear the ultimate responsibility for getting things done.
- 22.
There are several complications in these comparisons that I would like to leave on the side. A main complication is that perhaps One-people and Two-people will participate in common competitive quests as adults, and that Two-people will then have a competitive advantage over One-people. To avoid this additional complication, let us assume that they will never meet in competitive contexts. Another complication for comparisons that I shall not consider at this stage is that adults’ sharing play with children can impact on the evaluation of both childhood and adulthood.
- 23.
She writes: ‘When we enquire whether a particular practice or policy is good for children our usual entry into that problem is in terms of its long term effects.’
- 24.
This belief is encoded in article 31 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989), which stipulates a ‘right of the child to rest and leisure, to engage in play and recreational activities appropriate to the age of the child and to participate freely in cultural life and the arts.’
- 25.
Even adults who wholeheartedly prefer world Three may experience this hesitation, if there is not enough prosperity in world Three. To avoid complicating the examples too much, I assume that conditions in world Three are such that everybody can enjoy a decent living standard even if adults as well as children play occasionally.
- 26.
I assume the antecedent of this conditional is true in the real world, but I cannot argue for this belief here.
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Gheaus, A. (2015). The ‘Intrinsic Goods of Childhood’ and the Just Society. In: Bagattini, A., Macleod, C. (eds) The Nature of Children's Well-Being. Children’s Well-Being: Indicators and Research, vol 9. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-9252-3_3
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