Short Abstract:

In this session, capability scholars working on issues of philosophy and childhood within the Capabilities Approach will engage in a critical discussion of Brando's book, "Childhood in Liberal Theory". The session tackles questions of what does 'childhood equality' mean, and how would children's rights be understood within a capabilities framework.

Long Abstract:

“Childhood in Liberal Theory” (Oxford University Press, 2024) aims to provide the first comprehensive analysis of 'childhood' in contemporary political philosophy. It explores what 'childhood' means, how children's rights be understood, and how they should be applied to particular contexts. It relies strongly on the capabilities approach (especially Sen) as its conceptual framework for understanding 'equality', 'freedom', 'agency' and 'well-being'.

Children are systematically treated differently as political and legal subjects due to their assumed weaknesses, incapacities, and special needs. How does this differential status fit in with the principles of justice that structure our society, law, and morality? Any theory of justice that meets up to its name ought to be able to give an appropriate answer to this question. Despite an exponential growth in the literature on childhood and justice, a systematic study on the equal moral and political status of children is absent. Childhood in Liberal Theory fills this gap, and offers a novel look at the concept of ‘childhood’ and children’s rights within the tradition of liberal theories of justice from a capability perspective.

The core intuition that guides the reflections in this book is that a theory of justice which distinguishes children and adults as categorically different types of humans, with categorically different needs and interests, must be getting something wrong. Especially within theories of justice (such as the Capabilities Approach) that commit themselves to protecting the freedom of all, and to treating all as equals, establishing a system which restricts the freedoms of children, and which systematically provides a differential treatment to children would require a very strong justification. How can a theory of justice committed to equal freedom and equal treatment for all humans (which can be termed as liberal egalitarian justice) justify the systematic exclusion of one-quarter of the world’s population categorised as ‘children’ from equal freedom and treatment? This is the core question which this book aims to answer.

This book aims to explore the concept of ‘childhood’, its interpretations in contemporary liberal theories, and its translation into policy and practice in different global contexts. By doing so, it seeks to establish a stronger conceptual and principled foundation for further studies on justice for children by standing on Amartya Sen's approach to freedom, agency and equality. It tackles this task by breaking the question into three:

1 Should the concept of ‘childhood’ be revised to ensure its compliance with liberal principles of justice? (Part I).

2 What does a theory of rights require in order to accommodate to the needs of a revised conception of ‘childhood’? (Part II).

3 How should the just treatment of children be effectively implemented in terms of their status as rights-holders and their unique claims? (Part III).

This book argues that children should not be categorised nor treated as systematically different from adults. The traits which justify differential categorisation and treatment exist throughout the life course, and vary greatly from individual to individual. An assessment of justified differential categorisation and treatment requires evaluating the embodied, temporal, and spatial frameworks of the individual to understand what their fundamental interests (capabilities) are, and what is the appropriate treatment owed to them. I label this an ‘Adaptive model of childhood’: differential categorisation and treatment requires understanding an individual’s condition and capabilities based on their vulnerability (embodied framework), their developmental needs (temporal framework), and their embeddedness in their social environment (spatial framework), all this while accounting for the individual’s status as an agent. Strict categories that determine separate regimes of treatment and rights for social groups are not able to abide by the principles of equal treatment and equal freedom of liberal egalitarianism; only a system that is sensitive to the diverse condition of individuals can live up to the standards of a liberal egalitarian political project.

Childhood in Liberal Theory stands out as it presses the reader to question their most basic assumptions about what ‘childhood’ is, and to revise their moral intuitions regarding the appropriate treatment of children within liberal political theory. It provides an invaluable contribution to contemporary political philosophy through its comprehensive analysis of the status of children in liberal theories of justice, and by proposing a novel and consistent methodology grounded on the Capabilities Approach for how to best accommodate children within liberal political theory. The book, moreover, expands the breadth of the discussions about childhood within the liberal tradition thanks to its revisiting of the liberationist literature, and to its inclusion of the ample scholarship in the sociology of childhood, and in the critical legal theory of children’s rights.

Keywords: childhood, children’s rights, agency, freedom, capability-development