Abstract
This paper defends a reasonably controversial view about how we should understand the morally appropriate relationship between parent and child, which I call parental anti-perfectionism. On this view, parents act illegitimately if they enroll their child into religious practices that are controversial in society. The paper clarifies and sketches an argument for parental anti-perfectionism, and defends it against the charges that the ideal is too vague, provides for only an insipid upbringing, or that it requires parents to neglect their children.
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Notes
- 1.
For a discussion of dignity and self-respect that suggests this view, see Dworkin (2011: pp. 202–209).
- 2.
The distinction between the three different kinds of permissibility draws on Parfit (2011: pp. 150–151).
- 3.
Brighouse and Swift (2009) set out a conception of familial relationship goods, which might be thought to rescue the compatibility of perfectionism and parents sharing their values with their child. However, it is not obvious that the value of parents and children having common goals is wholly independent of the intrinsic value of the goals that they pursue together.
- 4.
Many liberal educational theorists endorse what I call the popular view. Perhaps the most prominent statement of it is Feinberg (1992).
- 5.
For the observation that this view permits parents to encourage their child to adopt goals that diminish her well-being, see Fowler (2010). Perhaps it is consistent with the popular view for the state to prohibit parents acting with an inappropriate attitude towards their child. For example, suppose I am a devout Christian but regard my child as not entitled to an upbringing that introduces her to Christianity, because children are morally inferior to adults and, therefore, their well-being matters less. In that case, the state might legitimately claim that I have the wrong attitude towards my children that is revealed by the fact that I refuse to offer my child the opportunity to pursue what I take to be the right way to live. That attitude might be wrongful and, perhaps, an appropriate basis for creating a criminal wrong, even if refusing my child an introduction to Christianity does, in fact, improve her life (because, suppose, Christian lifestyles diminish people’s well-being). For discussion of the right to an attitude, as applied to human rights, see Dworkin (2011: pp. 335–339).
- 6.
- 7.
One objection to my focus on enrolment is that it rests on the controversial view that the permissibility of acts is not independent of the aims that motivate the agent. For a critique of that view, see Scanlon (2008). I lack the space to deal with this objection here. However, I simply note that, like its political counterpart, anti-perfectionist parenting is primarily an account of the reasons that ought to motivate individuals. The precise relationship between parental motivation and the permissibility of their actions, I leave to discuss on another occasion.
- 8.
I am conscious that the position I expound here differs in many important respects from the way in which Rawls deploys the capacity for a conception of the good. For an examination of those differences and an argument for departing from Rawls, see Clayton (2006: pp. 24–27).
- 9.
- 10.
Consider, for example, 1 Corinthians 13: 11, ‘When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, and reasoned like a child; when I became a man, I gave up childish ways’.
- 11.
This is a familiar strategy within liberal thought. For an analogous argument for prohibiting trade on Sundays, see Mill ([1859] 2008: Ch. IV, par. 20).
- 12.
For their instructive written comments, I thank Alex Bagattini, Sarah Hannan, Colin Macleod, Tom Parr, and Andrew Williams. I am also grateful for valuable discussions with Paul Bou-Habib, Chiara Cordelli, Tim Fowler, Hugh Lazenby, R. J. Leland, Adam Swift, Debra Satz, Victor Tadros, and audiences in Oxford and Stanford.
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Clayton, M. (2015). Anti-perfectionist Childrearing. 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_8
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