Premium
Family Education, State Intervention and Political Liberalism
Author(s) -
Steutel J.,
Spiecker B.
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
journal of philosophy of education
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.501
H-Index - 41
eISSN - 1467-9752
pISSN - 0309-8249
DOI - 10.1111/1467-9752.00143
Subject(s) - liberalism , neutrality , intervention (counseling) , state (computer science) , politics , classical liberalism , perspective (graphical) , law and economics , sociology , law , political science , positive economics , epistemology , psychology , economics , philosophy , algorithm , artificial intelligence , psychiatry , computer science
This paper tries, from the perspective of political liberalism, to answer the question whether parents can fail in the moral upbringing of their children to the extent that the state has the right to intervene or to override their legal authority over their children. It is argued that state intervention must meet the liberal criterion of justificatory neutrality, and, on the basis of a discussion of the notion of ‘reasonable citizens’, that only serious parental failure to inculcate basic rules can justify judicial intervention in the family that meets this criterion. It is concluded that political liberalism burdens the state with incompatible demands.