TY - JOUR
T1 - Consequentialism and the Responsibility of Children
T2 - A Forward-Looking Distinction between the Responsibility of Children and Adults
AU - Brandenburg, Daphne
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 The Author(s). Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the The Hegeler Institute.
PY - 2021/10/1
Y1 - 2021/10/1
N2 - In this paper I provide a forward-looking account of the difference between the responsibility of children and the responsibility of adults. I do so by means of criticizing agency-cultivation accounts of responsibility. According to these accounts, the justification for holding a person to a norm is the cultivation of their moral agency, and children are, just like adults, considered responsible to the extent that they can have their moral agency cultivated in this manner. Like many forward-looking accounts, these accounts claim that the purpose of holding adults to norms is similar to the purpose of holding children to norms. I argue that the justifications for holding adults to norms are different because of the particular ways in which adults can be in moral disagreement with one another, and the consequences that this has. Moral disagreement is relevant to consequentialist accounts because it impacts on whether and how we can secure beneficial outcomes via holding someone to a norm. One of the upshots of this analysis is that the forward-looking justification for holding adults to norms is qualitatively different from how and why we should hold children to norms.
AB - In this paper I provide a forward-looking account of the difference between the responsibility of children and the responsibility of adults. I do so by means of criticizing agency-cultivation accounts of responsibility. According to these accounts, the justification for holding a person to a norm is the cultivation of their moral agency, and children are, just like adults, considered responsible to the extent that they can have their moral agency cultivated in this manner. Like many forward-looking accounts, these accounts claim that the purpose of holding adults to norms is similar to the purpose of holding children to norms. I argue that the justifications for holding adults to norms are different because of the particular ways in which adults can be in moral disagreement with one another, and the consequences that this has. Moral disagreement is relevant to consequentialist accounts because it impacts on whether and how we can secure beneficial outcomes via holding someone to a norm. One of the upshots of this analysis is that the forward-looking justification for holding adults to norms is qualitatively different from how and why we should hold children to norms.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85116398973&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1093/monist/onab013
DO - 10.1093/monist/onab013
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85116398973
SN - 0026-9662
VL - 104
SP - 471
EP - 483
JO - The Monist
JF - The Monist
IS - 4
ER -