Friday, September 12, 2025

MODULE 2: Childhood Illbeing (2)

RECAP

What are we talking about?

  • Wellbeing over the lifespan
  • Which curve is correct?
  • In this module--focus on childhood


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Objective List Theory -- intrinsic goods (aka positives) relevant to wellbeing are:

  1. Pleasure
  2. Accomplishment (more in adults)
  3. Self-knowledge (more in adults)
  4. Loving relationships
By this yardstick: the blue line is right -- children are worse off than adults

But some have thought:  there's something wrong with that view. Isn't childhood a special time of life? 
They propose....

Enhanced Objective List Theory--intrinsic goods (aka positives) relevant to wellbeing are:

  1. Pleasure
  2. Accomplishment (more in adults)
  3. Self-knowledge (more in adults)
  4. Loving relationships
  5. Innocence
  6. Carefreeness
  7. Tendency to love and trust          THE GOODS OF CHILDHOOD
  8. Play and imagination.                      (more abundant in children)
  9. Openness to the future

By that yardstick: the pink line (or something like it) is right.  Children on a par with adults.

Childhood is restored to a place of honor!

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ENTER: Sarah Hannan, "Why Childhood is Bad for Children"

Challenges this "enhanced objective list" defense of childhood

STEP 1 (section 3 of article): The GOODS of childhood

Each of the "goods of childhood" postulated by the enhanced objective list theory is...

    1. not really good  OR
    2. not really absent in adults  OR
    3. not enough to outweigh the bads of childhood 
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STEP 2 (section 4 of article): The BADS of childhood

I now turn to some features of being a child that are bad for children: impaired capacity for practical reasoning, lack of an established practical identity, a need for interference and domination, and profound and asymmetric vulnerability. I argue that these traits, which are essential features of childhood, are sufficiently bad to outweigh whatever goods of childhood we can reasonably put on the other side of the scale. This suggests childhood is overall bad for children. (Section 4, p. 18)

  1. impaired capacity for practical reasoning
  2. lack of an established practical identity
  3. need for interference and domination
  4. profound and asymmetric vulnerability 
How does she define these things?
How does she argue that each one is seriously bad for children?
How did you respond to her argument?



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Practice essays