In his comments, Daniel Nicholls succeeds in saying more than a few things that I had scarcely realized about the ways in which I write and, therefore, of what I tend to take for granted. He sees in what I write a capacity ‘to utilize the “obvious” whilst at the same time saying something about it.’ Not every philosopher would take that as a compliment. Many philosophers and philosophies have quite other pretensions – to transcend the illusions of common thought (...) and perception towards a higher plane of metaphysical philosophy – or of physics and mathematics. I find that Nicholls’s remark both compliments and complements my work, however. The use of everyday language and example to disturb that everyday world to ‘bring it into high relief’ as Nicholls puts it – is a significant part of philosophical method. To juxtapose the esoteric language of metaphysics (being-in-itself, being-for-itself, being-for-others) with the everyday (what there is, living for oneself, living for others) is to haunt the everyday with a metaphysical imagination even as it reveals what metaphysics had erased from the coinage of common words. (I am thinking, of course, of Derrida’s remarks about Anatole France’s satirical view of philosophical language as coinage from which all marking has been erased). (shrink)

In this brief text we look at one instance of how gender norms continue to inform institutional treatment of parents regarding care for children: specifically, at how the exercise of fathers’ responsibilities for their children can be discouraged or altogether blocked.

At present, many countries have lowered the minimum age of criminal responsibility to deal with the trend of juvenile crime. In practical terms, whether countries advocate for lowering the age of criminal responsibility along with early puberty, or regulating the minimum age of juvenile criminal responsibility through their policies, their deep-rooted hypothesis is that age is tied to adolescents’ psychological growth, and, with the rise in age, the capacity for dialectical thinking, self-control, and empathy gradually improves. With (...) this study, we aimed to test whether this hypothesis is valid. The participants were 3,208 students from junior high school, senior high school, and freshman in the S province of the People’s Republic of China. We subjected the gathered materials to independent-samples t-tests, one-way analysis of variance, linear regression analysis, and Bonferroni post hoc test. The influence of the age variable upon dialectical thinking, self-control, and empathy was significant, but only empathy was positively correlated with age variable ; dialectical thinking ability, and self-control ability were negatively correlated with the age variable. Bonferroni post hoc test confirmed these findings. Therefore, we concluded the following: Juvenile criminal responsibility, based on the capacity for dialectical thinking, self-control, and empathy, is not positively correlated with age. Age is not the only basis on which to judge a juvenile’s criminal responsibility. More research that directly links age differences in brain structure and function to age differences in legally relevant capacities and capabilities is needed. Political countries should appropriately raise the minimum age of criminal responsibility and adopt the doli incapax principle in the judicial process. (shrink)

Cardiff Law School, Museum Avenue, Cardiff CF10 3AX, UK. Tel: +44(0)2920875447, Fax: +44(0)2920874097; Email: Holms{at}cardiff.ac.uk ' + u + '@' + d + ' '//--> Abstract The paper presents a brief overview of current knowledge about (i) the link between parental behaviour and lifestyle and childhood obesity, (ii) the many other factors influencing overweight and obesity rates in children and (iii) the effectiveness of interventions in children who are already overweight and obese. On the basis of this, it (...) is analysed to what extent it is meaningful to attribute causal and moral responsibility to parents in theory and in practice. It is argued that although there is a sense in which many parents are causally and morally responsible for the obesity of their children, most parents are not blameworthy and the attribution of parental responsibility in most cases does not justify intervention in the family context by society on behalf of the children. In the analysis of the possible justification of more general interventions, parallels are drawn to the distinction between hard and soft forms of paternalism. Train up a child in the way he should go; and when he is old, he will not depart from it. (Proverbs 22: 6) For I have told him that I will judge his house for ever for the iniquity which he knoweth; because his sons made themselves vile, and he restrained them not. 1. (Samuel 3: 13) CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

In this paper I provide a forward-looking account of the difference between the responsibility of children and the responsibility of adults. I do so by means of criticizing agency-cultivation accounts of responsibility. According to these accounts, the justification for holding a person to a norm is the cultivation of their moral agency, and children are, just like adults, considered responsible to the extent that they can have their moral agency cultivated in this manner. Like many (...) forward-looking accounts, these accounts claim that the purpose of holding adults to norms is similar to the purpose of holding children to norms. I argue that the justifications for holding adults to norms are different because of the particular ways in which adults can be in moral disagreement with one another, and the consequences that this has. Moral disagreement is relevant to consequentialist accounts because it impacts on whether and how we can secure beneficial outcomes via holding someone to a norm. One of the upshots of this analysis is that the forward-looking justification for holding adults to norms is qualitatively different from how and why we should hold children to norms. (shrink)

What do we as a society, and as parents in particular, owe to our children? Each chapter in Taking Responsibility for Children offers part of an answer to that question. Although they vary in the approaches they take and the conclusions they draw, each contributor explores some aspect of the moral obligations owed to children by their caregivers. Some focus primarily on the responsibilities of parents, while others focus on the responsibilities of society and government. The (...) essays reflect a mix of concern with the practical and the philosophical aspects of taking responsibility for children, addressing such topics as parental obligations, the rights and entitlements of children, the responsibility of the state, the role and nature of public education in a liberal society, the best ways to ensure adequate child protection, the licensing of parents, children’s religious education, and children’s health. Taking Responsibility for Children will be of interest to philosophers, advocates for children’s interests, and those interested in public policy, especially as it relates to children and families. (shrink)

This study investigated the understanding of underinformative sentences like “Some elephants have trunks” by children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The scalar term ‘some’ can be interpreted pragmatically, ‘Not all elephants have trunks’, or logically, ‘Some and possibly all elephants have trunks’. Literature indicates that adults with ASD show no real difficulty in interpreting scalar implicatures, i.e., they often interpret them pragmatically, as controls do. This contrasts with the traditional claim of difficulties of people with ASD in other pragmatic (...) domains, and is more in line with the idea that pragmatic problems are not universal. The aim of this study was to: a) gain insight in the ability of children with ASD to derive scalar implicatures, and b) do this by assessing not only sensitivity to underinformativeness, but also different degrees of tolerance to violations of informativeness. We employed a classic statement-evaluation task, presenting optimal, logical false, and underinformative utterances. In Experiment 1, children had to express their judgment on a binary option ‘I agree’ vs ‘I disagree’. In Experiment 2, a ternary middle answer option ‘I agree a bit’ was also available. Sixty-six Flemish-speaking 10-year-old children were tested: 22 children with ASD, an IQ-matched group, and an age-matched group. In the binary judgment task, the ASD-group gave more pragmatic answers than the other groups, which was significant in the mixed effects logistic regression analysis, although not in the non-parametric analysis. In the ternary judgment task, the children with ASD showed a dichotomized attitude towards the speaker’s meaning, by tending to either fully agree or fully disagree with underinformative statements, in contrast with TD children, who preferred the middle option. Remarkably, the IQ-matched group exhibited the same pattern of results as the ASD group. Thanks to a fine-grained measure such as the ternary judgment task, this study highlighted a neglected aspect of the pragmatic profile of ASD, whose struggle with social communication seems to affect also the domain of informativeness. We discuss the implications of the dichotomized reaction towards violations of informativeness of these two groups in terms of the potential role of ASD and of cognitive and verbal abilities. (shrink)

This book provides a multidisciplinary analysis of the potential conflict between a government’s duty to protect children and a parent’ right to raise children in a manner they see fit. Using philosophical, bioethical, and legal analysis, the author engages with key scholars in pediatric decision-making and individual and religious rights theory. Going beyond the parent-child dyad, the author is deeply concerned both with the inteests of the broader society and with the appropriate limits of government interference in the (...) private sphere. The text offers a balance of individual and population interests, maximizing liberty but safeguarding against harm. Bioethics and law professors will therefore be able to use this text for both a foundational overview as well as specific, subject-level analysis. Clinicians such as pediatricians and gynecologists, as well as policy-makers can use this text to achieve balance between these often competing claims. The book is written by a physician with practical and theoretical knowledge of the subject, and deep sympathy for the parental and family perspectives. As such, the book proposes a new way of evaluating parental and state interventions in children's’ healthcare: a refreshing approach and a useful addition to the literature. (shrink)

THE ETHICAL GROUNDS OF HUMAN RIGHTS FROM THE ENLIGHTENMENT TO today have been almost exclusively centered on the experiences of adults. This essay argues that human rights are not fully "human" unless their very bases are transformed in response to the third of humanity who are children. The essay is an exercise in what is broadly termed "childism": not just applying ethical norms to children but restructuring norms themselves in light of children's experiences. Human rights in particular (...) should be reimagined along postmodern and religious lines, not as protections of autonomy but as responses to difference. This notion is illustrated through the ethics of political representation, including conceptions of democratic citizenship and voting. (shrink)

This study presents the evaluation of a computer-based learning program for children with developmental dyscalculia and focuses on factors affecting individual responsiveness. The adaptive training program Calcularis 2.0 has been developed according to current neuro-cognitive theory of numerical cognition. It aims to automatize number representations, supports the formation and access to the mental number line and trains arithmetic operations as well as arithmetic fact knowledge in expanding number ranges. Sixty-seven children with developmental dyscalculia from second to fifth grade (...) (mean age 8.96 years) were randomly assigned to one of two groups (Calcularis group, waiting control group). Training duration comprised a minimum of 42 training sessions à 20 minutes within a maximum period of 13 weeks. Compared to the waiting control group, children of the Calcularis group demonstrated a higher benefit in arithmetic operations and number line estimation. These improvements were shown to be stable after a 3-months post training interval. In addition, this study examines which predictors accounted for training improvements. Results indicate that this self-directed training was especially beneficial for children with low math anxiety scores and without an additional reading and/or spelling disorder. In conclusion, Calcularis 2.0 supports children with developmental dyscalculia to improve their arithmetical abilities and their mental number line representation. However, it is relevant to further adapt the setting to the individual circumstances. (shrink)

The present study examines 1- to 5-year-old children’s emotion socialization in an early childhood educational setting (a preschool) in Sweden. Specifically, it examines social situations where teachers respond to children’s negative emotional expressions and negatively emotionally charged social acts, characterized by anger, irritation and distress. Data consist of 14 hours of video observations of daily activities, recorded in a public Swedish preschool, located in a suburban middle-class area and include 35 children and five preschool teachers. By adopting (...) a sociocultural perspective on children’s development and socialization, the study examines the communicative practices through which the expressions of negative emotions are responded to and the norms and values that are communicated through these practices. The data are analysed by using multimodal analysis of interaction that provides a tool for detailed analysis of participants’ verbal and embodied actions and sense-making. The analyses show that teachers responded to children’s negatively charged emotional expressions as social acts (that were normatively evaluated) and the adults instructed children how to modify their social conduct (rather than deploying explicit discussions about emotions). The teachers used communicative genres that prioritized general moral principles and implemented the non-negotiability of norms over individual children’s emotional-volitional perspectives and individual preferences. The teachers’ instructive socializing activities were characterized by movement between multiple temporal horizons, i.e., general (emotional) discourse that transcended the here-and-now, and specific instructions targeting the children’s conduct in a current situation. The study discusses how emotion socialization can be related to the institutional characteristics and collective participatory social conditions of early childhood education. (shrink)

The philosophical problem of personal identity has been widely discussed in contemporary analytic philosophy. The disputes over identity throughout time abound in references to thought experiments, excluding any connection to practical problems or to scientific knowledge and biotechnological practices. Nevertheless, some real cases challenge the pure metaphysical formulation of the problem and also show how science has an indubitable impact on the issue of identity. I will discuss the case of approximately 500 children who were appropriated during the most (...) recent Argentinian dictatorship, as well as their restitution thanks to Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo’s fight and certain genetics outcomes. I will examine an alleged notion of genetic identity thought to have stemmed from the restitution phenomenon; and I will argue against some criticisms to that notion departing from contemporary philosophy of biology and philosophy of science. Particularly, I will discuss if a genetic stance of personal individual identity can be considered as supported by contemporary biological knowledge; and if a pluralistic perspective on scientific practice that appraises the role of values allows us to maintain the reference to DNA regarding identity but overcoming aforementioned criticisms. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThe retrospective evaluation of an event tends to be based on how the experience felt during the most intense moment and the last moment. Two experiments tested whether this so-called peak-end effect influences how primary school students are affected by peer assessments. In both experiments, children assessed two classmates on their behaviour in school and then received two manipulated assessments. In Experiment 1, one assessment consisted of four negative ratings and the other of four negative ratings with an extra (...) moderately negative rating added to the end. In Experiment 2, one assessment consisted of four positive ratings, and the other added an extra moderately positive rating to the end. Consistent with the peak-end effect, the extended assessment in Experiment 1 and the short assessment in Experiment 2 were remembered as more pleasant and less difficult to deal with, which shaped children’s peer assessment preferences and prospective choices of which assessm... (shrink)

Should parents aim to make their children as normal as possible to increase their chances to “fit in”? Are neurological and mental health conditions a part of children’s identity and if so, should parents aim to remove or treat these? Should they aim to instill self-control in their children? Should prospective parents take steps to insure that, of all the children they could have, they choose the ones with the best likely start in life? -/- This (...) volume explores all of these questions and more. Against the background of recent findings and expected advances in neuroscience and genetics, the extent and limits of parental responsibility are increasingly unclear. Awareness of the effects of parental choices on children’s wellbeing, as well as evolving norms about the moral status of children, have further increased expectations from (prospective) parents to take up and act on their changing responsibilities. -/- The contributors discuss conceptual issues such as the meaning and sources of moral responsibility, normality, treatment, and identity. They also explore more practical issues such as how responsibility for children is practiced in Yoruba culture in Nigeria or how parents and health professionals in Belgium perceive the dilemmas generated by prenatal diagnosis. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Moral Responsibility in a Context of Scarcity:the Journey of a Haitian PhysicianPaul PierreAlmost all Haitian physicians have been involved in some sort of "social movement" at one point in their professional life. In a country characterized by a natural inclination to question authority, fighting the status quo of the ineffective, corrupt and disorganized [End Page 89] Haitian health system often appears to be the right thing to do.In (...) 2002, I played an active role in a large protest movement for better working conditions at the largest health facility in Port-au-Prince: the General Hospital (GH). Port-au-Prince is the capital and economic center of Haiti. It is home to close to a third of Haiti's ten million people. At that time, the situation at the GH facility was dire. All of the 400 beds at the GH were dirty. The staff was underpaid and unhappy. Drug and medical supply stock-outs were routine. Medical equipment was rarely maintained and only one of the six operating theatres in the surgery block was working. Unsupervised physicians in training (like me) were the main health care providers. Attending physicians were busy running their own private clinics, and most of them would come to the hospital solely to "recruit" the less poor patients for their clinics. As physicians-in-training, we had the responsibility of caring for the poor, but we had no means. We grew frustrated and angry witnessing our powerless patients losing legs, arms and their lives for lack of care. On many occasions, I had the parents of my patients buy the gloves that I would use to examine their sick relatives. I've seen patients fighting for the inheritance of medications left by others who had just passed away. There was no way for this hospital to fulfill its mission, and no way for its staff to deliver anything other than mediocre care. We could not accept that situation at such an early stage in our medical development, and so we refused to continue to work. We went on a strike, which completely paralyzed the delivery of care at the hospital for nearly two months. After intense negotiation, the strike ended with a signed agreement with the Minister of Health that addressed, more or less, the reasons of our movement. However, the implementation of the agreement was permanently delayed by other competing "state emergencies" including a general insurrection.At the time of our movement, I thought we were making history. After witnessing 11 "social movements" that similarly paralyzed the GH in the following decade for reasons identical to ours, I am now convinced that we were not. We were temporary actors performing in the cynical play of scarcity on permanent display in Port-au-Prince. The social movement that we started ended up hurting the very same people that we were trying to help.Extending access to heath care to poor people seemed to me at that time to be too complicated and too expensive for an unorganized state like Haiti. I realized that local protests could, at best, influence the allocation of local resources. But so-called local resources are so limited in "resource-limited" countries. Haiti spends only $40 U.S. dollars per capita for health care. This is not enough for good care. The options we were provided were not real ones—since all of them would end in more suffering. The case of providing health care to poor people needed to be approached differently.I was born in Port-au-Prince at the same general hospital in which I would later work. I am the third of four children, and the first male child in my family. My father made me understand very clearly that my first responsibility was for my siblings. My sisters made me understand equally clearly that I had no authority over any of them. I ended up with a lot of responsibility but with very little authority. The few of us who completed school, entered university, studied abroad and "emerged" were considered, to some extent, responsible for the others—the ones who couldn't go to school, university, or abroad, the ones who had "sunk... (shrink)

In this paper, we discuss the lack of consideration given to children in the COVID-19 health systems policy response to the pandemic. We do this by focusing on the case of children with complex medical needs. We argue that, in broad terms, health systems policies that were implemented during the pandemic failed adequately to meet our obligations to both children generally and those with complex medical needs by failing to consider those needs and so to give them (...) fair protection against harm and disadvantage. We argue that justice requires that the distinct needs and vulnerabilities of children with medical complexities are explicitly integrated and prioritised in decisions concerning healthcare and operational planning in the recovery phase and beyond. (shrink)

Changes in Metaphor Comprehension in Children The aim of the study was to follow the implicit patterns in children's responses to metaphor describing human by means of a name of animal. The main problem in present study was: which traits of topic would be spontaneously used by children from three age groups? The study followed a quasi-experimental design. The subjects were 77 children from three age groups: 5;6-6;0, 8;0-8;6, 9;6-10;0. The dependent variable: the level of comprehension (...) of 18 metaphors with vehicles from the animal domain and one topic - human. The variable was measured through individual Piagetian interviews. The study confirmed the hypothesis that the ability to activate metaphorical thinking in order to describe human attributes increases with age, with a turning point around 8 year of life. The traits mentioned by subjects could be classified into five categories: unambiguous evaluations, physical features, behavior, behavioral traits, dispositions and agency. Older children assigned more human dispositional traits, thoughts and preferences to the objects of metaphors. Younger ones often focused on the physical features of animals. With age, the tendency to give positive evaluations to the objects of metaphors increases. (shrink)

Some parents have taken steps to ensure that they have deaf children, a choice that contrasts with the interest that other parents have in enhancing the traits of their children. Julian Savulescu has argued that, morally speaking, parents have a duty to use assisted reproductive technologies to give their children the best opportunity of the best life. This view extends beyond that which is actually required of parents, which is only that they give children reasonable opportunities (...) to form and act on a conception of a life that is good for them. Does the selection of deaf children violate that responsibility? Morally speaking, parents should refrain from using assisted reproductive treatments or prenatal interventions in order to have a child with a disability. Deafness and other disabilities represent intrinsic disadvantages that cannot be offset by other advantages that families and society can offer to people. By the same token, neither should parents seek enhancements of intelligence or physical traits that would undercut intrinsic goods of human life in similar ways. These moral arguments do not, however, sustain the judgment that the law should necessarily interfere with parents' decisions in these matters, even if those choices are morally unwise. (shrink)

Drawing on qualitative interviews with parents of preschool children, the author addresses parental responses to children’s gender nonconformity. The author’s analyses indicate that parents welcome what they perceive as gender nonconformity among their young daughters, while their responses in relation to sons are more complex. Many parents across racial and class backgrounds accept or encourage some tendencies they consider atypical for boys. But this acceptance is balanced by efforts to approximate hegemonic ideals of masculinity. The author considers these (...) patterns in the context of gender as an interactional accomplishment, demonstrating that parents are often consciously aware of their own role in accomplishing gender with and for their sons. Heterosexual fathers are especially likely to be motivated in that accomplishment work by their own personal endorsement of hegemonic masculinity, while heterosexual mothers and gay parents are more likely to be motivated by accountability to others in relation to those ideals. (shrink)

BackgroundYouth are increasingly aware of the negative effects of climate change on the planet and human health, but this knowledge can often come with significant affective responses, such as psychological distress, anger, or despair. Experiencing major “negative” emotions, like worry, guilt, and hopelessness in anticipation of climate change has been identified with the term eco-anxiety. Emerging literature focuses on adults' experience; however, little is known about the ways in which children and youth experience eco-anxiety.ObjectivesThe aim of this review was (...) to: identify the available evidence on the topic of eco-anxiety in children, clarify the mental health consequences brought by the awareness of climate change in this population, and identify knowledge gaps in the literature and considerations for future research.MethodsGiven that the research on the topic of eco-anxiety in children is limited, that there are very few randomized controlled trials, and that the goal is not to analyze individual studies in-depth, a scoping review was used. Keywords pertaining to the themes of eco-anxiety, climate change and children were used as search terms in five databases. Journal articles using qualitative and quantitative methods, as well as gray literature were examined by two independent reviewers. A descriptive-analytical method was used to chart the data that emerged from the literature. Eighteen articles were considered in the final analysis.ResultsEvidence confirms that children experience affective responses and eco-anxiety in reaction to then awareness of climate change. Mental health outcomes include depression, anxiety, and extreme emotions like sadness, anger, and fear. Youth from vulnerable communities, like indigenous communities, or those who have strong ties to the land are often identified as being emotionally impacted by climate change. The literature analyzed also describes how children and youth are coping with eco-anxiety, including maladaptive and adaptive responses. Preliminary considerations for parents, teachers and educators, mental health care providers, school systems, adults and people of power include adding age-appropriate climate education to the school curriculum, considering youth's emotions, and promoting healthy coping through empowerment. Important gaps exist in the definition of eco-anxiety in youth, as various characterizations of this emerging concept are found across articles. (shrink)

We extend Tomasello's discussion of children's developing sense of obligation to testimonial learning. First, we review a battery of behaviors in testimonial exchanges that parallel those described by Tomasello. Second, we explore the variable ways in which children hold others accountable, suggestive that children's evaluations of moral and epistemic responsibilities in joint collaborative activities are distinct.

The philosophical problem of personal identity has been widely discussed in contemporary analytic philosophy. The disputes over identity throughout time abound in references to thought experiments, excluding any connection to practical problems or to scientific knowledge and biotechnological practices. Nevertheless, some real cases challenge the pure metaphysical formulation of the problem and also show how science has an indubitable impact on the issue of identity. I will discuss the case of approximately 500 children who were appropriated during the most (...) recent Argentinian dictatorship (1976–1983), as well as their restitution thanks to Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo’s fight and certain genetics outcomes. I will examine an alleged notion of genetic identity thought to have stemmed from the restitution phenomenon; and I will argue against some criticisms to that notion departing from contemporary philosophy of biology and philosophy of science. Particularly, I will discuss if a genetic stance of personal individual identity can be considered as supported by contemporary biological knowledge; and if a pluralistic perspective on scientific practice that appraises the role of values allows us to maintain the reference to DNA regarding identity but overcoming aforementioned criticisms. (shrink)

Child custody evaluators frequently encounter 3 complex problems: assessment of highly contested cases; how to help the court, attorneys, and clients struggle with the ambiguity of the "best interest" standard; and ethical issues in assessing the children's preferences for their primary custodial parent. The purpose of this article is to describe the methodological implications of recent custody evaluation guidelines and recent research. Recommendations include reliance on family-process oriented diagnostic approaches and functional assessment methods, use of evaluation methods in which (...) relevant parties have an opportunity to state their views and rationale concerning the children's best interests, and understanding of the content areas relevant to assessing children's custodial preferences at different developmental levels. (shrink)

Children and adults with autism do worse on tests of inferences than controls. This fact has been attributed to poor language skills, a tendency to focus on detail, and poor social understanding. This study examines whether children with autism with age-appropriate language and cognitive skills have difficulties drawing inferences from academic, expository texts. Sixteen children with autism and a control group of twenty-four children were matched on language skills, nonverbal cognitive ability, and auditory and nonverbal working (...) memory and compared on their responses to questions that require inferences. The children with autism scored significantly lower on inference questions than the controls. Although language skills explain much of the variance in inference scores, diagnostic background also made a contribution. The results are discussed in the light of theories of suppression of irrelevant information and recognition of text writers’ communicative intention. (shrink)

I defend two main theses. First, I argue that Aristotle’s account of voluntary action focuses on the conditions under which one is the cause of one’s actions in virtue of being (qua) the individual one is. Aristotle contrasts voluntary action not only with involuntary action but also with cases in which one acts (or does something) due to one’s nature (for example, in virtue of being a member of a certain species) rather than due to one’s own desires (i.e. qua (...) individual). An action can be attributed to one qua individual in two distinct ways depending on whether one is a rational or a non-rational animal. One is responsible for one’s action in both cases, but only in the former case is one also responsible for being the sort of individual that performs it. Aristotle also distinguishes two ways in which an action can be compelled while still being an action of the agent. In the first case, one is compelled by (physically) external forces or circumstances to act against one’s internal impulse. In the second case, one is compelled to act on (internal) impulses that are fixed by one’s nature against one’s own individual impulse. This latter kind of compelled action is only possible in the case of rational agents. Secondly, I argue that Aristotle’s conception of what it is to be a cause of an action inevitably brings in certain normative features which support evaluative judgments and the practice of praise and blame. On Aristotle’s view, any goal-directed behavior that is properly attributable to an individual is (normally) subject to standards that pertain to behavior of that sort. At the most basic level, these standards establish what counts as a successful realization of the goal that one aims at. Thus even in the case of non-rational animals (or children), one can judge the success of what they are doing and encourage (or discourage) similar behavior by praise or blame. These standards are applicable to one’s conduct simply insofar as one is the controlling origin (or efficient cause) of one’s action qua individual. In the case of rational agents the practice of praise and blame can involve a further normative layer since they can be praised or blamed not only for acting in a certain way so as to encourage or discourage them with a view to the future, but also for being – and having become – individuals of a certain sort. Nevertheless, the applicability of such evaluative judgments and of praise and blame is still warranted by one’s being the controlling origin of one’s actions qua the individual one is (in this case, qua rational individual). (shrink)

The future of any society, its moral climate, is determined by what happens in the souls of the younger generation. The most responsible mission for the formation of a spiritually developed personality, and therefore the level of spirituality of society as a whole, is entrusted to education as a social branch. The main task of the modern school is to form a new person of the biosocial level, who would live and act in accordance with the universal laws of the (...) Cosmos. It is for this purpose that education must be made so that the priority in it belongs to the question of the formation and development of the spiritual ideal. This issue has always been at the forefront of time and has been given considerable attention. There are many views on the ways and methods of accomplishing this task. (shrink)