Abstract
Are children the equals of adults, and if not, why not? The aim of this article is to defend one type of answer to this fundamental philosophical question concerning children's moral and legal status. In Part I, I lay out the conception of children's status which is implicit in our moral and legal practice. This is a conception according to which children, as a class, do not share the same status as adults. In Part II, I distinguish between two ways of attempting to justify this inequality: the proficiency argument and the attributability argument. According to the proficiency argument, children are subject to adult authority because they are incapable of making good choices. According to the attributability argument, the inequality is justified by the fact that children are incapable of making their own choices, whether good or bad. I claim that these strategies, though distinct, tend to be conflated in the literature on adult-child relations. Moreover I maintain that only the attributability argument offers a satisfying justification of our conventional adult-child distinction. In Parts III and IV, I draw on Kant's conceptions of childhood and personhood to indicate how such an argument might be developed.
How to Cite
45 Ariz. L. Rev. 575 (2003)
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