Evaluating Parental Power

When and for what reasons does parents’ power have legitimacy? How do we rationally justify such normative evaluations? A number of specific case studies are examined in detail and an argument is made for a pluralist approach both to the conceptualisation of power and to its normative evaluation. -- .

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Is parents’ power over their children legitimate? And what role does theoretical analysis play when we make such normative evaluations? While this book adds to the growing literature on parents, children, families, and the state, it does so by focusing on one issue, the legitimacy of parents’ power. It also takes seriously the challenge posed by moral pluralism, and considers the role of both theoretical rationality and practical judgement in resolving moral dilemmas associated with parental power.

The primary intended market for this book is advanced undergraduate and postgraduate students and established academics, in particular those with an interest in practical and applied ethics, contemporary political theory, moral theory, social theory, the sociology of childhood, political sociology, social work, and social policy. -- .