Children of the State: How the Concept of Childhood

Influences Political Philosophy

Laura Wildemann Kane
The Graduate Center, CUNY

Abstract:
Political philosophy presents a static conception of childhood as a state of lack, a
condition where intellectual, physical, and more capacities are undeveloped. This view,
referred to by David Kennedy as the deficit view of childhood, is problematic because it
systematically disparages certain universal features of humanity dependency and
growth and incorrectly characterizes them as features of childhood only. Thus, there is
a strict separation between childhood and adulthood because adults are characterized as
fully autonomous agents that have reached the end of their moral and cognitive
development. I argue that this view is mistaken, and limits both the developmental
abilities of adults and ongoing moral development within an organized state. I propose
that we view dependency as a human condition. By doing so, children and adults form
the kind of relationship with one another that encourages the growth and development of
our moral sense in both childhood and adulthood.

Most philosophers believe that childhood is a distinct, universal feature of life for
human beings. 1 So, it is surprising to discover that the concept of childhood in
philosophical thought has not been adequately developed, especially within political
philosophy. This is problematic because political theories have been heavily shaped by
underlying assumptions about childhood assumptions about their intellectual and moral
capacities that determine a childs place within an organized state. These underlying
assumptions have neglected the cultural and social attitudes toward children that Philippe
Aris identifies in his Centuries of Childhood.
Aris presents a compelling account of the metamorphosis of the Western
conception of childhood from the early medieval period through modernity, arguing that

1

Kennedy, David. The Well of Being: Childhood, Subjectivity, and Education. Albany: State
University of New York, 2006. Print. P. 8.

the evolving understanding of childhood has depended upon advances in hygiene and
medicine, the development of Christianity, and shifting views of publicity and privacy in
daily life.2 Although Aris concludes that the concept of childhood has remained in flux,
political philosophy has primarily presented a static conception of childhood as a state of
lack that is, as a state of incomplete development that must be guided to an approved
end-state.3 This deficit view of childhood, as David Kennedy refers to it, not only informs
a limiting conception of childhood, but also a limiting conception of moral development
within an organized state. The deficit view of childhood maintains a strict adult-child
dichotomy, defining adulthood as an end-stage of physical, cognitive, and moral
development, and defining childhood as a series of incomplete developmental stages on
the way to adulthood.4 Thus, the deficit view of childhood supposes that adults possess,
among other capacities, a fully developed moral sense. In turn, the deficit view of
childhood must also be committed to the view that the state, comprised of and legitimized
by adults, condones an end-point for the moral development of its citizens.
In this paper I argue that the deficit view of childhood is unsound because it
systematically disparages certain universal features of humanity dependency and
growth and incorrectly characterizes them as features of childhood only. This mistaken
approach renders the relationship between the concepts of childhood and adulthood
nonexistent, insisting on a sharp distinction between the two concepts. If instead these
universal features are viewed positively and characterized as belonging to the experiences

2

Aris, Philippe. Centuries of Childhood: A Social History of Family Life. New York: Alfred A.
Knopf, 1962. Print.
3
Arneil, Barbara. Becoming versus being: a critical analysis of the child in liberal theory, in
The Moral and Political Status of Children. Archard, David, and Colin M. Macleod (ed.).
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002. Print. P. 70.
4
See Kennedy, Chapter 1.

of children and adults alike, the renewed relationship between the concepts of childhood
and adulthood benefits an organized state by encouraging the moral development of its
citizens beyond childhood.

I propose that we view dependency as a human condition.

By doing so, children and adults form the kind of relationship with one another that
encourages the growth and development of our moral sense in both childhood and
adulthood.

1. The Concept of Childhood in Political Philosophy

Early portrayals of children in political philosophy are defined by their attempt to
relate the status of childhood to other statuses within an organized state, specifically, the
statuses of non-citizens (or in some extreme cases, non-persons). These comparisons
were used to demarcate the boundaries of a childs cognitive and moral development, and
provide reasons for (temporarily) denying them full citizenship. For instance, Plato
characterizes children as being consumed by desires and needs similar to the appetitive
part of the soul, which is the part of the soul that is concerned with acquiring and
satisfying pleasures. For Plato, children have an uncontrolled sense of appetite and are
unable to make rational choices.

He argues that this disposition is similar to the

dispositions of women, slaves, and animals they are all driven by more natural
desires and needs, and hence, they all lack the rational capacity for political decisionmaking.5
Aristotle similarly categorizes children as appetitive as being lead by their
desires for pleasure only. Likewise, he also compares them to women, slaves, and
animals, claiming that each group has an underdeveloped (or completely absent) capacity

5

Plato, Theaetetus 171e; Republic IV 431c; 441a-b

for deliberation.6 Thus, for Plato and Aristotle, children were thought to be deficient
when compared to adults they lack the fully developed moral and cognitive rationality
of adulthood that both philosophers judged so integral to decision-making, citizenship,
and personhood. This view of childhood, referred to by David Kennedy as the deficit
view of childhood, supposes that adulthood represents an end to certain incapacities of
childhood be they cognitive, psychological, physical, moral, legal, etc. in such a way
that it is as if the child is overcoming a deficit condition, something they must rid
themselves of.7 The deficit view of childhood also appears in various forms within the
writing of Augustine, Kant, Hegel, and then more prominently in early-modern and
contemporary liberal views of the state, as childhood education and moral training
became a dominant feature of political philosophy.8
In his Confessions, Augustine describes children not as pure and untainted, but as
naturally marred with original sin.9 This characterization of deficiency in childhood was
a move away from traditional views of the child as naturally pure, and provided
motivation for emphasizing a system of education aimed at the moral development of the
youth. For Augustine, children were inherently flawed, wicked, and naturally sinful;
their only hope for attaining moral purity was to be rid of this original sin through
rigorous moral training.10 Thus, Augustine described children as lacking some capability
or characteristic of adulthood, namely, a moral education. His focus on education was
influential not just to his contemporaries, but also to Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

6

Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 1119a 35, 1144a 25 1145a 12.

Kennedy, p. 5.
8
See: Arneil, pp. 70-75; and Rawls, John. A Theory of Justice. Cambridge, Mass: Belknap Press,
2005. pp. 459-467.
9
Augustine, Of Marriage and Concupiscence; Book I, Ch. XII.
10
Augustine, City of God; Book XIV, Ch. XI.
7

Robbie Duschinsky argues that Rousseau gained many insights on childhood by

engaging in Augustines work on the subject, and considerably mirrored Augustines
Confessions in his own work under the same name.11 Despite his adherence to an
Augustinian style of self-analysis, Rousseau argued in other works, most notably Emile,
that children are inherently good and need to be kept that way by experiencing childhood
to the fullest. For Rousseau, there was something inherently valuable about childhood12
that was crucial to the development of a well-adjusted citizenry. His primary concern
was to allow children to participate in childhood so that they are able to retain the sense
of freedom that he thought was so important for the eventual formation of the general
will.13 Rousseaus Emile is a testament to his educational aspirations: Emile is taught to
avoid the conflict between the natural and social elements of a mans psyche (to avoid the
conflict between ones own will and the general will) by being kept an asocial
savage.14

The carefully crafted social education that Emile receives in childhood

preserves his original goodness completely so he cannot be corrupted by society before

reaching adulthood.15 Thus, for Rousseau, childhood was an essential, yet temporary,
condition of naivety; children must be kept in the dark about the corrupting forces of
society until they are mature enough to handle them.

Rousseaus conception of

11

Duschinsky, R. "Augustine, Rousseau, and the Idea of Childhood." Heythrop Journal Quarterly Review of Philosophy and Theology. 54.1 (2013): 77-88. Print.
12
It should be noted that for most of these philosophers, including Rousseau, there was a focus on
male childhood and male moral and cognitive development. The development of female
children, like the potential of female adults, was limited to reproductive labor. See: Scholz, Sally
J. "That All Children Should Be Free: Beauvoir, Rousseau, and Childhood." Hypatia. 25.2
(2010): 394-411. Print.
13
Riley, Patrick, and Jennifer Welchman. "Rousseau, Dewey, and Democracy." In A Companion
to the Philosophy of Education. Curren, Randall R. (ed.). Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2003. 94-112.
P. 102.
14
Duschinsky, p. 83.
15
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, Christopher Kelly, and Allan D. Bloom. Emile, Or, on Education:
Includes Emile and Sophie, Or, the Solitaries. Hanover, N.H: University Press Of New England,
2009. Print.

childhood, then, continues the adherence to the deficit view of childhood within political
thought.

Whats more, Rousseaus account of the purpose of education and its

relationship to child development adds a specific kind of content to the concept of

childhood that is particular to liberal theories of the state.
Rousseaus system of education aims at restoring the liberty and independence to
a child who has grown up dependent upon others.16 Liberal political philosophers see
dependency, along with cognitive and moral underdevelopment, as a universal condition
of childhood.17 For liberal theorists, part of what it means to overcome the deficiency of
childhood is to overcome the dependency one has on others. Adulthood is characterized
primarily by the autonomy one achieves through moral and intellectual education that
separates the mature (autonomous) from the immature (dependent). Thus, liberal
political theory has been shaped by a conception of childhood that encompasses a
negative view of dependency (among other capacities) and supports a program that
encourages the development of full autonomy in all citizens.18
To return to Rousseau, his insistence on the importance of childhood and the
necessity of proper social education has had staying power precisely because it so heavily
relies on institutional methods of enforcement. 19 Institutions such as the family,
nurseries, and schools became focused on and defined by their ability to educate children

16

See: Scholz, Sally J. "That All Children Should Be Free: Beauvoir, Rousseau, and Childhood."
Hypatia. 25.2 (2010): 394-411. Print.
17
See: Arneil, p. 88. A more thorough discussion of the universal features of childhood will be
discussed in the next section.
18
Tamar Schapiro acutely makes this point. Employing a Kantian framework, Schapiro argues
that childhood should be thought of as 1) a condition of undeveloped agency, and 2) a temporary
deviation from the norm of adulthood. She concludes that we ought to regard the predicament of
childhood as on obstacle to morality, and that it is the job of adults to do whatever is in our power
to help children work themselves out of childhood. See: Schapiro, Tamar. "What Is a
Child?" Ethics. 109, no. 4 (1999): 715-738.
19
Duschinsky, p. 79.

to become more independent, emphasizing the deficiency of dependency that, for liberal
political theories, remains a fixture of childhood.20 Barbara Arneil argues that Lockes
theory of education is also fundamentally tied to this cause, as childhood education is a
central focus of his political theory.21 Locke writes that children will remain dependent
upon their parents, who are responsible for their childs education, until they mature and
fully develop the capacities that they lack as children.22 Once they have overcome their
deficiency, they can be recognized as citizens as autonomous members of the state.
The emphasis on the proper upbringing of children towards an autonomous, yet
civically minded, adults is present in contemporary political works such as John Rawls A
Theory Of Justice. However, Rawls is somewhat skeptical of this program of education
(though he nevertheless endorses it). He worries that the type of attitudes that must be
instilled in children so that they develop the right moral sense can only be successfully
imparted when the proper conditions are met.23 His skepticism leads a general worry for
liberal theory that many children will not have the kind of developmental upbringing that,
despite the institutionalization of education, instills in them the combination of autonomy
and the right kind of moral sentiments as adults.24 Arneil uses this general worry about
the moral status of adults, and its ramifications for the rights of children under a liberal

20

This concept of childhood is also found in Hegels Elements of the Philosophy of Right.
Therein, Hegels express purpose for the family and the civil elements of school are to instill
independence in children, who are to leave their temporary state of dependency to become
independent citizens of the state. See: Hegel, Georg W. F, Allen W. Wood, and H B. Nisbet.
Elements of the Philosophy of Right. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1991.
Print.
21
Arneil, p. 72.
22
Locke, John, and J W. Gough. The Second Treatise of Civil Government: And a Letter
Concerning Toleration. Oxford: B. Blackwell, 1946. Print. Ch. 6, 58.
23
These conditions are heavily dependent upon the role of parenting. See: Rawls, John. A Theory
of Justice. Cambridge, Mass: Belknap Press, 2005. pp. 459-467
24
Coleman, Joe. Answering Susan: Liberalism, Civic Education, and the Status of Younger
Persons, in The Moral and Political Status of Children. Archard, David, and Colin M. Macleod
(ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002. Print. pp. 170-173.

state, to motivate an argument for adopting the ethics of care as a better framework for
conceptualizing the relationship between child and adult and, consequently, the kind of
relationship that parents should have with their children.25 Before fully discussing her
view, I will turn more thoroughly to David Kennedys analysis of the adult-child
dichotomy and John Deweys account of dependency, as I believe they provide the right
conceptual foundation for engaging with, and building upon, Arneils account.

2. Dependency and the Deficit View of Childhood

In The Well Of Being, David Kennedy provides an account of the historical and
conceptual attitudes toward childhood and adulthood, focusing especially on the
relationship between the two concepts.

He attempts to show how childhood and

adulthood are involved in a symbiotic, contingent relationship with one another.

Specifically, his goal is to establish that our characterizations of childhood affect the way
we characterize adulthood, and vice versa.

Kennedy remarks that adults believe

implicitly in the universality of childhood; that there is some distinct class of human
beings who are not quite persons (in the robust sense described in the previous section),
yet not quite non-persons either.26 However, when children are described as lacking
particular capacities synonymous with adulthood (namely, maturity, rationality, and
autonomy), the nature of the child is not being described; rather, the relation between the
adult and the child is being described.27

25

Arneil, p. 88.
Kennedy, p. 8.
27
Kennedy claims that there is no such thing as a child apart from and adult to observe,
categorize, and classify it as lacking properties distinct form the adult. See: Kennedy, p. 3.
26

Kennedys position follows that of John Dewey, who claims in Democracy and
Education that our tendency to equate immaturity with lack and growth or development
as something that paves the way from immaturity to maturity is attributable to viewing
childhood comparatively instead of intrinsically. 28

Dewey argues that we treat

immaturity as a privation because we equate maturity with adulthood and, consequently,

we view maturity as a static end-point of development. By doing so, we come to believe
that adults no longer have any responsibility to develop themselves further.29 This is
problematic, for it limits the potential that adults have to continue to develop not just their
cognitive abilities, but also their moral sense as they encounter new and unfamiliar
situations as adults. Dewey suggests that we understand the concept of immaturity
differently, that we view it not as a privation, but as a power. Immaturity is the power to
grow, and its two primary traits dependency and plasticity are integral to harnessing
that power.
Dewey argues that dependency is actually a constructive component for ones
ability to grow.30 However, dependency has been historically maligned as an undesirable
trait in political thought because it is consistently conflated with helplessness a type of
deficiency when measured against autonomy. This view of dependency-as-deficiency
may be related to what Kennedy terms adultism. Similar to racism, sexism, and
ethnocentrism, adultism takes on a negative attitude of subspeciation toward children
that is initially based on empirical differences between children and adults, such as size,

28

Dewey, John. Democracy and Education: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education.

New York: Free Press, 1997. P. 45
29
Ibid. p. 46.
30
Ibid. pp. 47-48.

neural development, physical strength, and ego-structure.31 This subspeciation manifests

as the tendency to treat and regard certain human others (in this case, children) as
belonging to members of a different species. A boundary is drawn (with children, a
temporary boundary) between us (adults) and the other (children) that further separates
both classes, and makes one the object (the child) for the observer (the adult). Adultism
views the child as difference, as unformed or unshaped. Thus, any behaviors or needs
that arise as a result of this unformed or unshaped condition are themselves looked upon
as deficient.32 Because children have needs that they are unable to fulfill themselves,
they are looked upon as being totally dependent, and dependency is consequently viewed
as a deficiency.
Dewey believes that this is the wrong way to view dependency. Dependency is a
social phenomenon that, when viewed as a strength and not a weakness, encourages
interdependence beyond childhood. I think this shift in the concept of dependency is a
move in the right direction. The push for autonomy that liberal theories in particular
focus on has the potential to decrease the social capacity of an individual, isolating them
from being more attentive to the needs of their fellow citizens. When we lose sight of the
needs of our fellow citizens we also lose sight of the responsibilities we have as fellow
citizens. Dewey claims that a heavier focus on the positive elements of dependency in
childhood may help to alleviate much of the remedial suffering in the world.33 Barbara
Arneil holds the same high hopes for dependency as a feature of childhood that is worth
embracing. We turn now to her account of childhood and development. After presenting

31

Kennedy, p. 63.
Ibid. p. 70.
33
Dewey, p. 48.
32

10

Arneils argument and its shortcomings, I will use Kennedys proposal for a renewed
approach to education to extend her account beyond childhood.

3. Dependency and the Becommings View of Childhood

As noted in the previous two sections, the separation of childhood from adulthood
is determined by the belief that adults are fully developed and autonomous, whereas
children are incomplete in both respects. The process of maturation is typically defined
as a set of developmental stages that a child must go through before reaching adulthood.34
These stages do not take their cues solely from biological factors. There are structural
elements to the stages of development that are socially constructed, and those structural
elements fit very comfortably within the liberal framework for schooling and
socialization.35 Barbara Arneil identifies this trend in liberal thought and calls it the
becomings view of childhood. She argues that this way of conceptualizing childhood
leads to three worries for liberal political theory. Firstly, she notes that, from Locke
onwards, liberal theories have failed to view the political world through the lens of
childhood. Instead, the political world has been viewed through the lens of adulthood,
and children factor in only insofar as they can be educated and shaped into alreadyexisting models of adulthood.36 This diminishes the importance of the qualities of
childhood qua childhood.
Secondly, Arneil argues that the becommings view of childhood is problematic
for the underlying view of society, for it excludes children as members of the society

34

See: Ginsburg, Herbert, and Sylvia Opper. Piaget's Theory of Intellectual Development.
Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1979.
35
Kennedy, pp. 22-25.
36
Arneil, p. 74.

11

because they lack the rationality to consent to being a part of a political community.37
Thus, children are seemingly born without rights, and they neither possess rights, nor are
they entitled to any claims within their own society, throughout childhood.38 Lastly,
Arneil argues that the conception of the state suffers by holding children in this particular
non-citizen status, for it creates an antagonistic relationship between the state and the
families within it.
In response to these issues, Arneil argues that we need to stop viewing the child as
a becomming and instead as a being that is, as the child is now, and not in relation
to a future self.39 This means recognizing that there are certain universal features of
childhood, and that these universal features are not deficiencies. The first universal
characteristic of childhood is growth. Just as Dewey sees growth as an ability, Arneil
understands growth as a non-limiting (i.e. not definitively ending) process that
encompasses social, emotional, and intellectual development.40 Thus, growth is a process
of development that yields positive results (the expansion of our knowledge and
experience), and is not strictly limited to ones childhood years. A second universal
characteristic of childhood is dependency and its correlating need for care part of being
a child is to be dependent upon others, necessitating care from adults.

However,

37

This is the associational element of liberal theory. See Rawls, pp. 467-472.
Though the focus of this paper is not on childrens rights, the question of what rights children
have, or may potentially have, will surely be affected to alternative views of childhood and
alternative views of the relationship between childhood and adulthood. For some in-depth
discussions of childrens rights (and, relatedly, parental rights), see: Narayan, Uma, and Julia J.
Aaron. Having and Raising Children: Unconventional Families, Hard Choices, and the Social
Good. University Park, Penn: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1999; and Matthews, Gareth
B. The Philosophy of Childhood. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1994 (especially
chapter 6); and Eekelaar, John. The emergence of children's rights. Oxford Journal of Legal
Studies, 6 (2) (1986):161-182.
39
Arneil, p. 88.
40
Ibid. p. 88.
38

12

dependency here is not viewed as a deficit; instead, it is viewed as a motivating factor for
incorporating the ethic of care into liberal political thought.

Part of recognizing

dependency means recognizing that the success of parental care is dependent upon a
wider social structure that supports the robust notion of growth that Arneil has in mind,
and that social structure, Arneil argues, can only arise through an ethics of care.41
Arneils conception of childhood as being provides a justification for why the
ethics of care is so important for liberal thought: it gives an explicit directive to the state
as a social structure to ensure that children are properly cared for. However, the limited
focus of Arneils account how care should be implemented to best serve the growth of
children does not challenge the notion of adulthood as the end of maturation. Although
Arneil expands the notion of growth beyond childhood, she does not relate the
importance of growth in adulthood to the cultural change that will be necessary to
perpetuate a focus on care in an organized state. While I agree that a reconceptualization
of childhood that leads to improved care for children is indeed a step in the right direction
for liberal theory, I believe we can gain much more from this conceptual evolution if we
also take into account what changes the concept of adulthood will undergo when growth
is seen as an essential part of adulthood as well.

4. What Does the Concept of Childhood Say About Adults?

The two universal features of childhood dependency and growth have been
discussed both positively and negatively throughout this paper. Arneils positive account
of these features places a greater emphasis on the ethics of care within liberal theory as a
means on improving overall conditions for children in a liberal state. However, Arneil

41

Ibid. p. 88.

13

does not focus on how a reconceptualization of childhood consequently affects how we

view adulthood. I will argue in this section that the reformulated concept of childhood
that Arneil employs has positive implications for our concept of adulthood if we
approach the relationship between childhood and adulthood similarly to Dewey and
Kennedy. A concept of childhood that 1) defines dependency as something positive
because of the kind of care it necessitates, and 2) defines growth as an on-going process
of development with no definitive end-point, will advance the concept of adulthood in
two ways. Firstly, care and dependency will come to be viewed as positive traits of
cooperation and responsibility. Secondly, a focus on growth in adulthood, especially the
on-going development of ones moral sense in response to interactions with dependents
and caregivers, will replace the cultural norm of autonomy in liberal theory with the
acceptance of dependency, and the care it necessitates, as a human condition.
Adults tend to believe that, because they have experienced and emerged from
childhood, they know what path to adulthood is best for a child. Kennedy notes that this
ideology of adulthood implies a set of cultural norms, and these norms in turn determine
beliefs, institutions, and behaviors that come to define the ways adults see and the world
(and a childs place in it).42 Prima facie, this does not seem problematic; however, these
cultural norms fix the adult worldview and, coupled with adherence to the deficit view of
childhood, fix the norms and values that are imparted into children. This makes social
progress extremely difficult to achieve, for every new generation is being raised as near
mirror images of the generation that preceded it. So, instead of viewing education as
completely asymmetrical, Kennedy proposes that education take the form of a dialog
between adult and child.

42

Kennedy, p. 14.

14

A dialogical form of education would ensure that the prevailing ideology [of
adulthood] is challenged by new information, which leads to social and cultural
transformation.43 By taking a different stance toward childhood, we come to value the
features of childhood that were once thought to be deficient and incorporate those
features into our cultural norms, which in turn affect the beliefs, institutions, and
behaviors of adults.

Kennedy argues that social transformation occurs when the

normative style of subjectivity, understands itself as an open, developmental structure,

as a subject-in-process rather than a presumptive finality 44 So, by viewing the
relationship between childhood and adulthood as a symbiotic relationship, and by not
privileging the experience of adulthood over the experiencing of childhood, a shifting
concept of childhood can also produce a cultural change for adulthood and for society at
large.
I believe that this is the next logical step for Arneils account. Though she does
not mention the way in which a changed view of dependency will affect how the concept
of adulthood relates to it, a push for the ethic of care in liberal theory will not be
sustained without a fundamental shift in adult responsibilities of care toward one another
as adults.
Part of the condition of being a human being is that we are all, at times, incapable
of caring for ourselves and require care from another. This circumstance does not only
happen when we are children; adults require care from others when they are ill, injured,
or aged beyond self-sufficiency. So, adults have periods of dependency as well. If
dependency is construed as helplessness, and thus as a deficiency, then surely we will

43
44

Ibid. p. 14.
Ibid. p. 73.

15

view a childs dependency as something unfortunate, as something that must be

remediated and transformed into independence. However, if dependency is understood
as not merely a childhood affliction, then we will continue to value care and the caring
attitudes of our fellow citizens beyond their childhood years.
Additionally, viewing dependency as an essential feature of both childhood and
adulthood also encourages adults to continue their moral growth as adults. Care work
involves being responsive to the needs of others, which means knowing about those
needs, and knowing the best way to respond to them.45 This type of learning can be
thought of as dialogical, for the care receiver communicates what they need to grow and
develop, and the caregiver learns the best way to respond to those needs. The receiver is
not thought of as deficient, and the caregiver does not occupy a privileged position.
Instead, both care receiver and caregiver are members of a caring relationship. Thus,
moral growth does not end at adulthood, but is continually developed and honed as adults
and children alike form new caring relationships with one another.
Dewey argues that life itself is development; children and adults are both engaged
in growing. The difference between them is not growth and no growth, but between
modes of growth appropriate to different conditions.46 Thinking of the roles that human
beings occupy with respect to the caring relationships they form throughout life is what it
means to be in these different conditions.

45

See: Gilligan, Carol. In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women's Development.
Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1982. Print; and Tronto, Joan C. Moral Boundaries:
A Political Argument for an Ethic of Care. New York: Routledge, 1993. Print.
46
Dewey, p. 54.

16

5. Concluding Remarks
The strict adult-child distinction that has remained a constant fixture in political
philosophy has not only hindered the development of a more robust concept of
childhood; it has placed undue restrictions on moral development period. This is due, in
part, to the emphasis on the development of autonomy that appears in liberal thought
especially. By reconceptualizing the universal features of childhood dependency and
growth as positive and universally human features, childhood is no longer a deficient
condition.

This renewed view of childhood symbiotically affects the concept of

adulthood by incorporating dependency and growth as positive elements. In turn, this

creates a more promising future for moral development within a liberal state.

17