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249Children's Human RightsIn Jesse Tomalty & Kerri Woods (eds.), Routledge Handbook for the Philosophy of Human Rights, Routledge. forthcoming.There is wide agreement that children have human rights, and that their human rights differ from those of adults. What explains this difference which is, at least at first glance, puzzling, given that human rights are meant to be universal? The puzzle can be dispelled by identifying what unites children’s and adults’ rights as human rights. Here I seek to answer the question of children’s human rights – that is, rights they have merely in virtue of being human and of being children – by explorin…Read more
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442Enabling children to learn from religions whilst respecting their rights: against monopolies of influenceJournal of Philosophy of Education 58 (1): 120-127. 2024.John Tillson argues, on grounds of children’s well-being, that it is impermissible to teach them religious views. I defend a practice of pluralistically advocating religious views to children. As long as there are no monopolies of influence over children, and as long as advocates do not use coercion, deceit, or manipulation, children can greatly benefit without having their rational abilities subverted, or incurring undue risk to form false beliefs. This solution should counter, to some extent, …Read more
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3Die normative Bedeutung der Schwangerschaft stellt Leihmutterschaftsverträge in FrageIn Olivia Mitscherlich-Schönherr (ed.), Das Gelingen der Künstlichen Natürlichkeit: Mensch-Sein an den Grenzen des Lebens Mit Disruptiven Biotechnologien, De Gruyter. pp. 37-50. 2021.
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369Adultos inacabados y niños defectuosos: sobre la naturaleza y el valor de la infanciaSociedad e Infancias 6 (1): 77-89. 2022.Defiendo la opinión de que la infancia es intrínsecamente valiosa en lugar de tener valor solo en la medida en que conduce a una buena edad adulta. Ni la visión de los “niños como adultos inacabados” ni la más extravagante de “los adultos como niños defectuosos” son convincentes por sí mismas porque ambas son formas incompletas de contar la historia de la infancia y la edad adulta. Un breve artículo no puede resolver la cuestión del valor relativo de la niñez y la adultez, pero sugiero que es pl…Read more
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11Introduction to the Special Issue on Children’s and Adolescents’ RightsMoral Philosophy and Politics 7 (2): 191-197. 2020.Recent philosophical work on children and childhood has revealed many new questions concerning minors’ rights. This special issue of Moral Philosophy and Politics offers new contributions to the topics of paternalism, the nature of the right to parent and children’s voting. It also contains articles about the so far less explored questions of adolescents’ parental rights, minors’ rights against the harms of parental imprisonment, and their right to veto their own parents’ decision to relocate.
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211Childhood after COVID: Children’s Interests in a Flourishing Childhood and a More Communal ChildrearingPhilosophical Inquiry in Education 29 (1). 2022.This article brings into relief two desiderata in childrearing, the importance of which the pandemic has made clearer than ever. The first is to ensure that, in schools as well as outside them, children have ample opportunities to enjoy goods that are particular to childhood: unstructured time, to be spent playing with other children, discovering the world in company or alone, or indeed pursuing any of the creative activities that make children happy and help them learn. I refer to these as “spe…Read more
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475Republican Families?In Frank Lovett & Mortimer Sellers (eds.), Oxford Handbook of Republicanism, Oxford University Press. 2024.What would the institution of the family look like, if it were reformed according to republican desiderata? Would it even survive such re-shaping?
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5Seen and not Heard: Why Children’s Voices Matter (review)The Philosophers' Magazine 98 114-116. 2022.
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480The Role of Solitude in the Politics of SociabilityIn Kimberley Brownlee, David Jenkins & Adam Neal (eds.), Being Social: The Philosophy of Social Human Rights, Oxford University Press. 2022.This chapter explores a so-far neglected way of avoiding the bads of loneliness: by learning to value solitude, where that is understood as a state of ‘keeping oneself company’, as J. David Velleman puts it. Unlike loneliness, solitude need not involve any deprivation, whether subjective or objective. This chapter considers the various goods to which solitude is constitutive or instrumental, with a focus on the promise that proper valuing of solitude holds for combating loneliness. The overall a…Read more
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1207“Let them be children”? Age limits in voting and conceptions of childhoodIn Greg Bognar & Axel Gosseries (eds.), Ageing Without Ageism: Conceptual Puzzles and Policy Proposals, Oxford University Press. 2023.This paper explains alternative views about the nature and value of childhood, and how particular conceptions of childhood matter to a practical issue relevant to the topic of the book: children's voting rights. I don't defend any particular view on this matter; rather, I explain how recent accounts of what is uniquely good or bad about being a child bear on arguments for and against enfranchising children. I also explain why children who live in a society in which many adults fail to comply wi…Read more
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510Political liberalism and the dismantling of the gendered division of labourOxford Studies in Political Philosophy. forthcoming.Women continue to be in charge of most childrearing; men continue to be responsible for most breadwinning. There is no consensus on whether this state of affairs, and the informal norms that encourage it, are matters of justice to be tackled by state action. Feminists have criticized political liberalism for its alleged inability to embrace a full feminist agenda, inability explained by political liberals’ commitment to the ideal of state neutrality. The debate continues on whether neutral state…Read more
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747Against private surrogacy: a child-centred viewOxford University Press. forthcoming.Surrogacy involves a private agreement whereby a woman who gestates a child attempts to surrender her (putative) moral right to become the parent of that child such that another person (or persons), of the woman’s choice, can acquire it. Since people lack the normative power to privately transfer custody, attempts to do so are illegitimate, and the law should reflect this fact.
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275Sufficientarian Parenting Must be Child-CenteredLaw, Ethics and Philosophy 5 189-197. 2017.Liam Shields’ sufficientarian commitments mean that he should subscribe to a child-centered account of the right to parent. This point most likely generalizes: sufficientarians who acknowledge children’s full moral status must embrace a child-centered account of the right to parent.
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994Unrequited Love, Self-victimisation and the Target of Appropriate ResentmentThe Journal of Ethics 25 (4): 487-499. 2021.In “Tragedy and Resentment” Ulrika Carlsson claims that there are cases when we are justified in feeling non-moral resentment against someone who harms us without wronging us, when the harm either consists in their attitude towards us or in the emotional suffering triggered by their attitudes. Since they had no duty to protect us from harm, the objectionable attitude is not disrespect but a failure to show love, admiration, or appreciation for us. I explain why unrequited love is the wrong examp…Read more
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422The (dis)value of commitment to one's spouseIn After Marriage?, Oxford University Press. 2015.The chapter advances two claims: first, that commitment to one’s spouse is only instrumentally valuable, adding no intrinsic value to the relationship. Moreover, commitment has costs: it partially forecloses the future, thus making one less attentive to life’s possibilities; therefore, it would be desirable for people to achieve the same goods without commitment. The second, more ambitious, claim is that commitment in general, and marital commitments in particular, are problematic instruments fo…Read more
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590Could There Ever Be a Duty to Have Children?In Sarah Hannan, Samantha Brennan & Richard Vernon (eds.), Permissible Progeny?: The Morality of Procreation and Parenting, Oxford University Press Usa. pp. 87-106. 2015.This chapter argues that there is a collective responsibility to have enough children in order to ensure that people will not, in the future, suffer great harm due to depopulation. Moreover, if people stopped having children voluntarily, it could be legitimate for states to incentivize and maybe even coerce individuals to bear and rear children. Various arguments against the enforceability of an individual duty to bear and rear children are examined. Coercing people to have children would come a…Read more
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375Childhood: Value and dutiesPhilosophy Compass 16 (12). 2021.In philosophy, there are two competitor views about the nature and value of childhood: The first is the traditional, deficiency, view, according to which children are mere unfinished adults. The second is a view that has recently become increasingly popular amongst philosophers, and according to which children, perhaps in virtue of their biological features, have special and valuable capacities, and, more generally, privileged access to some sources of value. This article provides a conceptual m…Read more
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2777Feminism without "gender identity"Politics, Philosophy and Economics 22 (1). 2023.Talk of gender identity is at the core of heated current philosophical and political debates. Yet, it is unclear what it means to have one. I examine several ways of understanding this concept in light of core aims of trans writers and activists. Most importantly, the concept should make good trans people’s understanding of their own gender identities and help understand why misgendering is a serious harm and why it is permissible to require information about people’s gender identities in public…Read more
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77Ordeals, women and gender justiceEconomics and Philosophy 37 (1): 8-22. 2021.Rationing health care by ordeals is likely to have different effects on women and men, and on distinct groups of women. I show how such putative effects of ordeals are relevant to achieving gender justice. I explain why some ordeals may disproportionately set back women’s interest in discretionary time, health and access to health care, and may undermine equality of opportunity for positions of advantage. Some ordeals protect the interests of the worse-off women yet set back the interests of bet…Read more
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999The Best Available ParentEthics 131 (3): 431-459. 2021.There is a broad philosophical consensus that both children’s and prospective parents’ interests are relevant to the justification of a right to parent. Against this view, I argue that it is impermissible to sacrifice children’s interests for the sake of advancing adults’ interest in childrearing. Therefore, the allocation of the moral right to parent should track the child’s, and not the potential parent’s, interest. This revisionary thesis is moderated by two additional qualifications. First, …Read more
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163Token worriesForum for European Philosophy Blog. 2015.There are many grounds to object to tokenism, but that doesn’t mean we should always avoid being the token woman, argues Anca Gheaus.
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839The feminist argument against supporting careJournal of Practical Ethics 8 (1): 1-27. 2020.Care-supporting policies incentivise women’s withdrawal from the labour market, thereby reinforcing statistical discrimination and further undermining equality of opportunities between women and men for positions of advantage. This, I argue, is not sufficient reason against such policies. Supporting care also improves the overall condition of disadvantaged women who are care-givers; justice gives priority to the latter. Moreover, some of the most advantageous existing jobs entail excessive benef…Read more
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387Child-rearing With Minimal Domination: A Republican AccountPolitical Studies 69 (3). 2021.Parenting involves an extraordinary degree of power over children. Republicans are concerned about domination, which, on one view, is the holding of power that fails to track the interests of those over whom it is exercised. On this account, parenting as we know it is dominating due to the low standards necessary for acquiring and retaining parental rights and the extent of parental power. Domination cannot be fully eliminated from child-rearing without unacceptable loss of value. Most likely, r…Read more
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131Paternal Responsibility for Children and Pediatric Hospital Policies in RomaniaIn Daniela Cutas & Anca Gheaus (eds.), What About the Family? Practices of Responsibility in Care, . 2019.In this brief text we look at one instance of how gender norms continue to inform institutional treatment of parents regarding care for children: specifically, at how the exercise of fathers’ responsibilities for their children can be discouraged or altogether blocked.
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8Review of Moral Repair Reconstructing Moral Relations after Wrongdoing, by Margaret Urban Walker (review)Essays in Philosophy 9 (2): 270-273. 2008.
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8Review of Frontiers of Justice: Disability, Nationality and Species Membership, by Martha Nussbaum (review)Essays in Philosophy 8 (1): 196-205. 2007.
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180The chain of love and dutyForum for European Philosophy Blog. 2017.Anca Gheaus considers the reasons we owe our children a sustainable world.
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490More Co-parents, Fewer Children: Multiparenting and Sustainable PopulationEssays in Philosophy 20 (1): 3-23. 2019.Some philosophers argue that we should limit procreation – for instance, to one child per person or one child per couple – in order to reduce our aggregate carbon footprint. I provide additional support to the claim that population size is a matter of justice, by explaining that we have a duty of justice towards the current generation of children to pass on to them a sustainable population. But instead of, or, more likely, alongside with, having fewer children in in each family, we could also cr…Read more
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89Gender JusticeJournal of Ethics and Social Philosophy 6 (1): 1-25. 2012.I propose, defend and illustrate a principle of gender justice meant to capture the nature of a variety of injustices based on gender:A society is gender just only if the costs of a gender-neutral lifestyle are, all other things being equal, lower than, or at most equal to, the costs of gendered lifestyles.The principle is meant to account for the entire range of gender injustice: violence against women, economic and legal discrimination, domestic exploitation, the gendered division of labor and…Read more
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252Unfinished Adults and Defective ChildrenJournal of Ethics and Social Philosophy 9 (1): 1-22. 2015.Traditionally, most philosophers saw childhood as a state of deficiency and thought that its value was entirely dependent on how successfully it prepares individuals for adulthood. Yet, there are good reasons to think that childhood also has intrinsic value. Children possess certain intrinsically valuable abilities to a higher degree than adults. Moreover, going through a phase when one does not yet have a “self of one’s own,” and experimenting one’s way to a stable self, seems intrinsically val…Read more