Moral Agendas For Children's Welfare

215 Pages·1999·1.55 MB·English

by  Michael King

Moral Agendas for Children’s Welfare
Moral outpourings over what children get up to and the dreadful things that adults do to
children are part of the daily diet that is fed to us by newspapers and the broadcasting
media. Moral Agendas for Children’s Welfare goes behind the sensational headlines to
question the meaning of morality and moral responsibility towards children in today’s
society.
By raising uncomfortable questions about the moral justifications for current social
practices, such as male circumcision, restrictions on child sexual activities and the
exclusion of children from school, this book discusses the problems of how to improve
the way that social institutions deal with children so as to make them more responsive to
moral principles and judgements on their performance.
Moral Agendas for Children’s Welfare addresses the key issue: what is morality and
how can it be translated into guiding principles for children’s welfare? It will be essential
reading for those studying social policy, social work or undertaking socio-legal studies.
Michael King is Professor in the Department of Law and Co-Director of the Centre
for the Study of Law, the Child and the Family at Brunei University, Uxbridge.

Moral Agendas for Children’s
Welfare
Edited by Michael King

London and New York
First published 1999 by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005.

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© 1999 Michael King, selection and editorial matter; individual chapters, the
contributors
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or
by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission
in writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from
the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Moral agendas for children’s welfare/edited
by Michael King. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Child welfare—Moral and
ethical aspects. I. King, Michael, 1942–. HV715.M65 1999 362.7–dc21 98–27632 CIP
ISBN 0-203-00451-5 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0-203-26579-3 (Adobe e-Reader Format)
ISBN 0-415-18012-0 (hbk)
ISBN 0-415-18013-9 (pbk)
Contents

Notes on contributors vii
Acknowledgements viii

1 Introduction 1

MICHAEL KING
2 Images of children and morality 12

MICHAEL KING
3 Moral campaigns for children’s welfare in the nineteenth century 25

CHRISTINE PIPER
4 Liberalism or distributional justice? The morality of child welfare laws 41

TERRY CARNEY
5 Can child abuse be defined? 57

DAVID ARCHARD
6 Is male circumcision morally defensible? 69

ILAN KATZ
7 Meditations on parental love: the transcendence of the rights/welfare 81
divide
MAKINGS DIAMANTIDES
8 Justice and childhood: reflections on refashioned boundaries 92
ALISON DIDUCK
9 Moral agendas for psychoanalytic practice with children and families 105
JUDITH TROWELL AND GILLIAN MILES
10 With justice in mind: complexity, child welfare and the law 117
ANDREW COOPER
11 What is good and bad sex for children? 136
WENDY STAINTON ROGERS AND REX STAINTON ROGERS
12 Identity, religious fundamentalism and children’s welfare 151
STEPHEN FROSH
13 Failing children: responding to young people with ‘behavioural 161
difficulties’
DANIEL MONK

Bibliography 175
Author index 187
Subject index 195
Contributors
David Archard Department of Moral Philosophy, University of St Andrews, Scotland.
Terry Carney School of Law, The University of Sydney, Australia.
Andrew Cooper The Tavistock Clinic, London.
Marines Diamantides Lecturer, Law Department, Birkbeck College, University of
London.
Alison Diduck Centre for the Study of Law, the Child and the Family, Brunei University,
Uxbridge.
Stephen Frosh Psychology Department, Birkbeck College, University of London, and
The Tavistock Clinic, London.
Ilan Katz National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, London.
Michael King Centre for the Study of Law, the Child and the Family, Law Department,
Brunei University, Uxbridge.
Gillian Miles Child and Family Department, The Tavistock Clinic, London.
Daniel Monk Law Department, Keele University.
Christine Piper Centre for the Study of Law, the Child and the Family, Law
Department, Brunei University, Uxbridge.
Rex Stainton Rogers Psychology Department, University of Reading.
Wendy Stainton Rogers School of Health and Social Welfare, Open University, Milton
Keynes.
Judith Trowell Child and Family Department, The Tavistock Clinic, London.
Acknowledgements
This book began its life as a workshop on Moral Agendas for Children’s Welfare in the
Nineties, which took place at The Tavistock Centre over two days in July 1996. I should
like to thank Judith Trowell for her help in organizing the event. I am also very grateful
to the Law Department of Brunei University for their financial contribution towards the
workshop, and to The Tavistock Centre for making their facilities available. Finally, my
thanks to all those who participated in the workshop, including those who, for one reason
or another, have not contributed to the book.
Michael King
1
Introduction
Michael King
What is the point of bringing out a book on children and morality at a time when so many
different people already claim to know what is good and bad for children? Ask the editors
of tabloid newspapers. They know, as they scream out their knowledge in their reports of
the latest paedophile scandal. Ask the Home Secretary. He knows, as he announces yet
more measures to punish juvenile offenders and make parents accept responsibility for
their children’s crimes. Ask those lawyers who represent children in court. They know as
they campaign for more rights for children and for more notice to be taken of what
children want. Ask social workers, guardians ad litem and child psychiatrists—the
experts in child abuse. They know what harms children, whether smacking them is good
or bad. As they write their reports and make their recommendations, they know with
whom children should live, and if and how often they should see their parents. Ask the
educationalists. They know, as they set out to identify in the National School Curriculum,
what is essential spiritual and moral knowledge for every child at every age. They know
that morality can be taught and learnt like any other subject so that every child will, like
themselves, know the difference between right and wrong.1 When these children, these
students of morality become parents they will know what is good and bad for their own
children, and so we will evolve into more moral beings and the world will become a more
moral place.
With so much moral knowledge around in the media, books, videos, CD-ROMS, the
Internet, anyone with a few hours to spare can find out all they need about the right and
the wrong way to treat children in every imaginable situation. In todays world, morality
has become a commodity like any other. If you do not already have it, it is something you
can acquire by going through the proper channels, by making the necessary commitment,
by doing a course on it, by watching a video about it, by knowing the right people to give
you the right answers. Moral mazes may exist, but their existence confirms that there are
those who know their way through the maze and all we have to do is ask them for
directions.
If this brief account of society’s ability to deal with moral issues concerning children
appears comforting and reassuring, it might be wise to stop reading at this point, for
much of the remainder of the book should perhaps carry a warning that it could seriously
damage your peace of mind. Moral Agendas for Children’s Welfare brings together
contributors from different disciplinary backgrounds who share in common an ability to
raise disturbing questions about many of our current ideas, beliefs, values and
assumptions in relation to children and what is good and bad for them. But this is not all.
Several of the chapters in this book do not merely question whether we ‘have got things
right’ or are ‘on the right path’. More fundamentally, taken together, they raise the issue
as to whether there can be in today’s society any notion of notion of absolute right or