Getting beyond individual rights: Thoughts on liberalism and the welfare of children

This dissertation assesses the status of children in liberal political theory and jurisprudence over the last 150 years, with special attention to possible conflicts between some putative rights of adults and various interests of children. The dissertation advances four main arguments.;Chapter two maintains that contemporary liberal theory differs from nineteenth-century liberal thought partly because of contemporary liberalism's greater wariness of the idea of "positive" freedom. Such wariness stems in significant measure from Isaiah Berlin's "Two Concepts of Liberty." Although Berlin's emphasis on "negative" freedom is unsurprising in view of twentieth-century history, his essay has contributed to the disparagement of positive freedom, a crucial concept for understanding different interests of children.;Chapter three considers recent efforts, notably by Susan Moller Okin, to incorporate elements of feminist theory into liberalism. While Okin's interest in the family as a social institution deserves praise, her work is characterized by an insufficiently critical posture toward controversial putative rights. Presenting herself as deeply concerned about the welfare of children, Okin fails to anticipate how certain freedoms, when exercised, may affect them.;Chapter four reviews three decisions by the Supreme Court of the United States delineating the "right to privacy" in reproductive matters. Despite many interpretations to the contrary, the statutes that were invalidated in Griswold v. Connecticut, Eisenstadt v. Baird, and Populations Services International v. Carey should be regarded as integral to constitutionally defensible schemes to foster family unity and to promote favorable domestic circumstances for children.;Chapter five evaluates a peculiar discrepancy in the Supreme Court's First Amendment jurisprudence. In some instances the Court accepts the traditional view of children as morally impressionable, while it elsewhere characterizes children as morally indistinguishable from adults. This discrepancy seems attributable to the Court's uncritical acceptance of the "negative" concept of freedom and its wariness of the "positive" concept outside the realm of economics.