Not Just for Kids: Childhood, Equality and the Limits of Freedom in Liberal Theory

Being labelled as a 'child' has important consequences on how others perceive and treat you. Clarifying what is meant when we talk about 'childhood,' and how this reflects on the way children are treated in practice, is a fundamental part of social justice. The standard practice in philosophy, law and every-day life is to conceptualise children as fundamentally different from adults. This assumption of difference leads to a system of justice in which children are treated in a particular way: children are provided with certain protections not guaranteed to the rest of the human community, and they have restricted their freedom to exercise certain fundamental rights, which are guaranteed to all others. In short: children are treated differently as subjects of social justice. If one stands on an assumption of equality and freedom as the grounding commitments of a liberal theory of justice, a strong argument is needed to respond to two pressing questions: (1) what makes children categorically different from other humans (in a morally relevant way)?; and (2) how does this assumption of difference legitimises the particular treatment of children which diverges from the assumption of equality and freedom? The fundamental objective in this manuscript is, thus, to explore the most relevant ways in which 'childhood' has been conceptualised in contemporary liberal philosophy, and to evaluate how particular conceptions of 'childhood' frame the way that children should be treated as a matter of justice. In this respect, this manuscript intends to give an answer to the question 'What kind of treatment does a liberal theory owe as a matter of justice to individuals rightfully categorised as 'children'?' The manuscript claims that there are certain constitutive features especially prominent during childhood (framed as vulnerabilities and inabilities) which can legitimise the need to grant differential rights and the exclusive restriction of certain freedoms to some individuals and not others. However, it should be the factual existence or absence of these features (and the correlate granting or restricting of rights) regardless of age what legitimises differential treatment; there is, thus, no principled reason for treating children differently from other individuals. Relying on an assumption of equality and freedom, to which all liberal theories of justice are committed, the manuscript argues that the current differential regime of childhood does a great injustice to children due to the arbitrary standards through which it judges what is owed to them. By shifting the justificatory focus of differential treatment from 'childhood' in itself to the features possessed by children which make them a particular case of justice, we can ensure what is owed to them as particularly vulnerable and unable beings, while guaranteeing their just treatment as equal moral and political agents.status: publishe