“[If the justification for coercion is that young children are] less capable, then why should one have any more right to override their judgement than one does for any adult who happens to be less capable than oneself?”
– Tim Starr
From the archives: 21st December, 1994
I had said:
“I think that there’d have to be a difference in kind in order for there to be any justification for children to have a special, limited status as persons…, and that if the only differences are in degree then there can be no such justification.”
Steve replied:
“I don’t see why a difference in kind is necessary at all.”
If there is only a difference in degree, then such differences in degree as exist between adult and adult would also justify the same treatment of adults by adults, and thus put adults and children on equal terms with each other. Children wouldn’t have any special status that was different from that of adults.
“…All that is necessary is for the difference in degree to be sufficient that the child can’t perform necessary survival functions alone.”
That’s a difference in kind.
“…The point is that an infant or toddler can’t make decisions for itself.”
The point Sarah and I are trying to make is that you say that the child can’t make such decisions, whereas their behavior could also be interpreted as that they simply don’t decide the way you think they ought to, and you infer from that that they are either so incapable of doing or so radically misguided that it’s perfectly justifiable for you to intervene to correct their conduct and thus negate their own judgement.
The point is: how do you know that children can’t make those decisions? How do you know that they’re not simply deciding differently than you’d prefer?
Saying that they can’t decide is a difference in kind between them and adults. If, on the other hand, they’re only different in degree, then you’d have to say that, at most, they were less capable of making their own decisions than adults.
And if they’re only less capable, then why should one have any more right to override their judgement than one does for any adult who happens to be less capable than oneself?
See also:
Tim Starr, 1994, ‘Less capable justifies coercion?’, https://takingchildrenseriously.com/less-capable-justifies-coercion