Adam Swift
University College London, Political Science, Faculty Member
This chapter sets out the various kinds of conflict between the value of equality and the value of those parent–child relationships that constitute the family. It offers two reasons not to pursue fair equality of opportunity all the way.... more
This chapter sets out the various kinds of conflict between the value of equality and the value of those parent–child relationships that constitute the family. It offers two reasons not to pursue fair equality of opportunity all the way. On the one hand, we must be prepared for children of similar talent and ability raised by different parents to enjoy somewhat unfairly unequal prospects of achieving the rewards attached to different jobs, since the alternative would cost too much in terms of familial relationship goods. On the other hand, some unfairness in the distribution of those prospects could be beneficial for those who have unfairly less. In both cases, then, there are conflicts between fair equality of opportunity and other values.
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The right to be a parent is a right to a relationship with a child in which one has certain rights with respect to that child. But what are the rights that the right to parent is a right to exercise? Does respecting that right require... more
The right to be a parent is a right to a relationship with a child in which one has certain rights with respect to that child. But what are the rights that the right to parent is a right to exercise? Does respecting that right require that parents be permitted to pursue their children's material interests in ways that harm the interests of other children? If so, in which ways and to what extent? This chapter describes this relationship and the goods it contributes to adult lives in enough detail to support the claim that adults have a right to it, but without getting into the details of what precisely the relationship consists in.
Research Interests: Harm and Family Values
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<p>The family is justified because it produces certain goods that would otherwise not be available, or, in some cases, would be much more difficult to produce. These goods—familial relationship goods—are enjoyed by children and by... more
<p>The family is justified because it produces certain goods that would otherwise not be available, or, in some cases, would be much more difficult to produce. These goods—familial relationship goods—are enjoyed by children and by the adults who are their parents. This chapter focuses on the goods it produces for children, arguing that their interests are such as to support the claim that children have a right to be raised by parents—in families. First, it defines what we mean by children and childhood. It then explains what interests are, and describes the interests that children may have. Next, it makes the argument that children have a right to a parent, which involves three claims: children have rights; children are appropriate objects of paternalistic care; and for a child's vital interests to be met, she must be cared for, consistently, by only a small number of people. The chapter goes on to discuss how a biological connection between parent and child relates to our account of children's right to a parent, and concludes by looking, briefly, at the implied duty to parent.</p>
Research Interests: Duty and Paternalism
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This chapter considers familial relationships as obstacles to the realization of egalitarian ideals. It has been argued that the conflict between the family and equality is in fact much less stark than is commonly recognized. Parents and... more
This chapter considers familial relationships as obstacles to the realization of egalitarian ideals. It has been argued that the conflict between the family and equality is in fact much less stark than is commonly recognized. Parents and children can enjoy healthy familial relationships, and parents can exercise all the rights needed for those relationships to make their distinctive contribution to well-being, without our having to tolerate anything like the kinds of inequalities of opportunity to which familial interactions currently give rise. This argument, however, still has family values on one side of the line and distributive considerations on the other. The chapter suggests the former be incorporated into the latter, as it were, by treating familial relationship goods as distribuenda: that is, as among the goods that people should have opportunities, perhaps equal opportunities, for.
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This chapter sets out the ways in which the family might be thought to pose problems for the liberal framework, and defends the adoption of that framework from the objection that it simply cannot do justice to—or, perhaps, fails... more
This chapter sets out the ways in which the family might be thought to pose problems for the liberal framework, and defends the adoption of that framework from the objection that it simply cannot do justice to—or, perhaps, fails adequately to care about—the ethically significant phenomena attending parent–child relationships. On the one hand, liberalism takes individuals to be the fundamental objects of moral concern, and the rights it claims people have are primarily rights of individuals over their own lives: the core liberal idea is that it is important for individuals to exercise their own judgment about how they are to live. On the other hand, parental rights are rights over others, they are rights over others who have no realistic exit option, and they are rights over others whose capacity to make their own judgments about how they are to live their lives is no less important than that of the adults raising them.
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SEVEN Social justice and the family Harry Brighouse and Adam Swift Introduction The family is a problem for any theory of social justice. On the one hand, children born into different families face very unequal prospects. However those... more
SEVEN Social justice and the family Harry Brighouse and Adam Swift Introduction The family is a problem for any theory of social justice. On the one hand, children born into different families face very unequal prospects. However those prospects are conceivedas chances of ...
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STEPHEN MULHALL AND ADAM SWIFT 13 Rawls and Communitarianism The allegation that liberals neglect the value of community has a long-some would say notorious-history. 1 Rawls&amp;#x27;s A Theory of Justice* immediately acclaimed as the... more
STEPHEN MULHALL AND ADAM SWIFT 13 Rawls and Communitarianism The allegation that liberals neglect the value of community has a long-some would say notorious-history. 1 Rawls&amp;#x27;s A Theory of Justice* immediately acclaimed as the most systematic and sophis-ticated ...
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In Political Theory: Methods and Approache
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The family is hotly contested ideological terrain. Some defend the traditional two-parent heterosexual family while others welcome its demise. Opinions vary about how much control parents should have over their children's upbringing.... more
The family is hotly contested ideological terrain. Some defend the traditional two-parent heterosexual family while others welcome its demise. Opinions vary about how much control parents should have over their children's upbringing. This book provides a major new theoretical account of the morality and politics of the family, telling us why the family is valuable, who has the right to parent, and what rights parents should—and should not—have over their children. The book argues that parent–child relationships produce the “familial relationship goods” that people need to flourish. Children's healthy development depends on intimate relationships with authoritative adults, while the distinctive joys and challenges of parenting are part of a fulfilling life for adults. Yet the relationships that make these goods possible have little to do with biology, and do not require the extensive rights that parents currently enjoy. Challenging some of our most commonly held beliefs about the family, the book explains why a child's interest in autonomy severely limits parents' right to shape their children's values, and why parents have no fundamental right to confer wealth or advantage on their children. The book reaffirms the vital importance of the family as a social institution while challenging its role in the reproduction of social inequality and carefully balancing the interests of parents and children.
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Research Interests: Philosophy and Liberalism
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This chapter focuses on the need to protect children from excessive parental influence, while respecting the interest that both parents and children have in the right kind of parent–child relationship. It challenges widespread views about... more
This chapter focuses on the need to protect children from excessive parental influence, while respecting the interest that both parents and children have in the right kind of parent–child relationship. It challenges widespread views about the extent of parents' rights to influence their children's emerging views of the world and what matters in it. Children are separate people, with their own lives to lead, and the right to make, and act on, their own judgments about how they are to live those lives. They are not the property of their parents. And because they are not property, and yet parents are accorded such power over them, it is wrong for parents to treat them as vehicles for their own self-expression, or as means to the realization of their own views on controversial questions about how to live. The desire to extend oneself into the future, and to influence the shape that future takes, can be satisfied in other ways, without a parent relying on that authority over her ...
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Part 1 Individualism, political theory and the impact of Marx: humanism, theoretical anti-humanism and the individual individualism and social theory Marx and modes of individualism human nature, autonomy and history. Part 2 The... more
Part 1 Individualism, political theory and the impact of Marx: humanism, theoretical anti-humanism and the individual individualism and social theory Marx and modes of individualism human nature, autonomy and history. Part 2 The individual and Marx's theory of change: sources of social change human nature and history thinking about human nature social change and individuality. Part 3 Pre-capitalist societies and the absence of individualism and individuality: feudalism and the individual change in circumstance and nature the feudal individual. Part 4 Individuality in capitalist society: the transition from feudalism to capitalism history, nature and early capitalism the placement of Marx's critique development - human nature and capitalism production social relations capitalism, individualism and individuality bourgeois individuality individuality and change through capitalism. Part 5 The individual under communism: method in communism communism as the end of classes the character of the communist individual exchange, production and the universal individual on being an individual society for the communist individual.
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The article presents a theory of the basis and nature of parents’ rights that appeals to the goods distinctively produced by intimate-but-authoritative relationships between adults and the children they parent. It explores the... more
The article presents a theory of the basis and nature of parents’ rights that appeals to the goods distinctively produced by intimate-but-authoritative relationships between adults and the children they parent. It explores the implications of that theory for questions about parents’ rights to raise their children as members of a religion, with particular attention to the issue of religious schooling. Even if not obstructing the development of their children’s capacity for autonomy, parents exceed the bounds of their legitimate authority in so far as they aim deliberately to influence their children’s religious views. Healthy familial relationships involve some identification of child with parent and require a sphere of spontaneous interaction between parent and child that are in any case likely to influence those views and constitute a standing threat to autonomy. Correcting over-deferential understandings of parents’ rights enables schools better to promote not only children’s autonomy but also other legitimate civic goals.
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We address three critiques of our book Family Values: The Ethics of Parent-Child Relationships (Brighouse and Swift, 2014), published simultaneously with this reply. In response to Stroud (2016), we emphasize the specificity of parents’... more
We address three critiques of our book Family Values: The Ethics of Parent-Child Relationships (Brighouse and Swift, 2014), published simultaneously with this reply. In response to Stroud (2016), we emphasize the specificity of parents’ rights, and the modesty of our claims about them, challenging her laissez faire position on their right to confer advantage on their children, and stressing the merely illustrative role that we give to fair equality of opportunity. In response to Gheaus (2016), we clarify our “dual-interest” approach and the content of the adult interest in parenting, while defending the claim that that interest is relevant to the justification of arrangements for the raising of children. In response to Ferracioli (2016), we explain our views about how many adults may properly parent a child, the significance of children’s autonomy, and the value of continuing relationships between parents and their adult children.
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Educational equality is one important value of justice in education, but it is only one. This article makes a case for a meritocratic principle of educational equality and shows that certain arguments against that principle do not justify... more
Educational equality is one important value of justice in education, but it is only one. This article makes a case for a meritocratic principle of educational equality and shows that certain arguments against that principle do not justify rejecting it. It would be wrong to, for the sake of educational equality, undermine the value of the family or economic growth in ways that damage the prospects for flourishing of the least advantaged. But insofar as educational equality can be improved without harming those other values, it should be pursued; in practice, educational equality can be pursued effectively within the limits set by those values.
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The chapter considers the contributions made by democratic legitimacy and social justice to the question of what may permissibly be enforced. According to the conventional view, democratic decisions forfeit their claim to permissible... more
The chapter considers the contributions made by democratic legitimacy and social justice to the question of what may permissibly be enforced. According to the conventional view, democratic decisions forfeit their claim to permissible enforceability only when they are gravely unjust. That view is rejected here as unduly restrictive, with a “balancing” view proposed instead, according to which the two considerations need to be balanced on a case-by-case basis. Both the provenance and the content of decisions yield pro tanto reasons: which determines the permissibility of enforcement depends on whether we have greater reason in any given case to advance legitimacy or justice. A democratically legitimate law or policy need not be gravely unjust for it to be wrong to enforce it.
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This article articulates a framework suitable for use when making decisions about education policy. Decision makers should establish what the feasible options are and evaluate them in terms of their contribution to the development, and... more
This article articulates a framework suitable for use when making decisions about education policy. Decision makers should establish what the feasible options are and evaluate them in terms of their contribution to the development, and distribution, of educational goods in children, balanced against the negative effect of policies on important independent values. The article articulates a theory of educational goods by reference to six capacities that children should develop – economic productivity, autonomy, democratic competence, healthy personal relationships, treating others as equals, and personal fulfillment. It demarcates three distributive values – adequacy, equality, and benefitting the less advantaged. And it distinguishes several independent values – childhood goods, parents’ interests, respect for democratic processes, and freedom of residence and occupation.