Includes bibliographical references (p. 211-228) and index.
Contents:
A sense of justice and political stability -- Non-Rawlsian ISJs and self-respect -- Family egalitarianism -- What is a family? -- Licensing parents -- Rights and duties -- The Constitution, due process, and prior restraint -- Unintended consequences, trust, stability, evil, and utopia.
Summary:
"In Licensing Parents, Michael T. McFall argues that political structures, economics, education, racism, and sexism are secondary in importance to the inequality caused by families, and that the family plays the primary role in a child's acquisition of a sense of justice. He demonstrates that examination of the family is necessary in political philosophy and that informal structures (families) and considerations (character formation) must be taken seriously. McFall advocates a threshold that should be accepted by all political philosophers: children should not be severely abused or neglected because child maltreatment often causes deep and irreparable individual and societal harm. The implications of this threshold are revolutionary, but this is not recognized fully because no philosophical book has systematically considered the ethical or political ramifications of child maltreatment."--BOOK JACKET.
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