Child soldiers, who often appear to be both victims and perpetrators, present a vexing moral and legal challenge: how can we protect the rights of children while seeking justice for the victims of war crimes? There has been little stomach, either in domestic or international courts, for prosecuting child soldiers—but neither has this challenge been systematically addressed in international law. Establishing a uniform minimum age of criminal responsibility would be a major step in the right direction; (...) we argue that such a standard ought to be guided by the best evidence from neuropsychology about the development, during childhood and adolescence, of the executive functions that give rise to morally and legally responsible agents. In light of that evidence, which suggests that the brain’s executive functions are still maturing into early adulthood, we recommend a graded structure of culpability for child soldiers. (shrink)

(2011). CHILD SOLDIERS AND KILLING IN SELF-DEFENCE: CHALLENGING THE ‘MORAL VIEW’ ON KILLING IN WAR. Journal of Military Ethics: Vol. 10, No. 1, pp. 36-51. doi: 10.1080/15027570.2011.561639.

Child soldiers are generally perceived as faultless, passive victims. This ignores that the roles of child soldiers vary, from innocent abductee to wilful perpetrator. This book argues that child soldiers should be judged on their actions and that treating them like a homogenous group prevents them from taking responsibility for their acts.

This article reviews and also compares developments within international humanitarian law and human rights law in regard to matters relating to child soldiers. Beginning with the Geneva Conventions and early twentieth century legal developments for children in general, this article identifies the legal and conceptual discrepancies in the child soldiers issue and how they relate to and affect each other. It also includes an overview of the child soldiers issue, followed by summary discussions of (...) the respective strengths and weaknesses of international humanitarian law and human rights law in regard to child soldiers. Following from that, conceptual problems in the field that are problematic in regard to law are also considered, and some concluding observations are then offered. Among them is how the patch-work developments of the past still prevail, as evidenced by the ongoing two-tiered age division that exists within the under-18 category. (shrink)

The use of child soldiers in armed conflict is an increasing global concern. Although philosophers have examined whether child soldiers can be considered combatants in war, much less attention has been paid to their moral responsibility. While it is tempting to think of them as having diminished or limited responsibility, child soldiers often report feeling guilt for the wrongs they commit. Here I argue that their feelings of guilt are both intelligible and morally appropriate. (...) The feelings of guilt that child soldiers experience are not self-censure; rather their guilt arises from their attempts to come to terms with what they see as their own morally ambiguous motives. Their guilt is appropriate because it reaffirms their commitment to morality and facilitates their self-forgiveness. (shrink)

in Scott Gates and Simon Reich, eds., Building Knowledge About Children in Armed Conflict (forthcoming in the University of Pittsburgh’s Ridgway/Ford security studies series).

The existence of child soldiers is a problem of the ages, and there are no positive signs that it is abating. The difference now is that, with the development of modern weapons technology, children can be involved in large scale and horrific acts during conflicts. The circumstances surrounding the use of children to wage war will vary from situation to situation. Yet, it has been suggested that many people seem to have a ‘single focussed’ view of what (...) class='Hi'>child soldiers look like, what their motivations are, and why they are engaged in activities associated with conflict. This article reflects on the recent views expressed by Mark A. Drumbl, who argues that we should ‘reimagine’ child soldiers, and offers some further views as to how this issue should best be addressed. (shrink)

This article presents a novel theory of noncombatant immunity that can serve as a practical guide for soldiers in the field. It improves on existing theories by justifying why and when an innocent...

This paper critically examines different formulations of the view that the crime of using child soldiers is less serious than other international crimes. The first formulation presents a sociological argument toward this conclusion and the second a deontological argument. After arguing that the second formulation is stronger, because it is grounded in a coherent ethical framework, I then construct a deontological argument to counter it, which construes the wrong of child soldiering as an attack on the developing (...) child's right to dignity, where dignity is understood through a Kantian lens as a person's moral agency. (shrink)

International humanitarian law and international human rights law both prohibit the use of child soldiers in armed conflict. The protection afforded to children is problematic because the age a child may become a soldier and what constitutes child “soldiering” fluctuates between States and cultures. Differing levels of children soldiers’ protection leave them vulnerable to particular abuses. This paper examines some different attitudes and approaches towards the use of child soldiers and concludes that international (...) human rights law and international humanitarian law does not adequately protect children. (shrink)

A question opens up a space between self and other in the very act of expecting a response. As such, it can be a form of world-building. Posing a question might reveal what is or it might push interlocutors to revise what is. Levinas counsels us to question the first attitude toward questioning in order to open ourselves up to the second. Using questions and answers from a trial of a former child soldier at the International Criminal Court, this (...) paper explores the ethical ramifications of the choices we make when we pose and respond to questions. (shrink)

Social reintegration of self-demobilised child combatants can be seriously imperilled by the lack of accountability for human rights violations allegedly carried out during their soldiering life and the failure to pursue reconciliation with their respective communities. This paper examines the circumstances leading young soldiers to voluntarily exit armed groups and militias and the extent to which resettling in the community can be facilitated by restorative justice mechanisms. The findings suggest a large support by war-affected communities for restorative justice (...) peacemaking circles as potential accountability and reconciliation measures to help reintegrate self-demobilised soldiers into society. These results were obtained from interviews, focus group discussions and descriptive statistics in which 1447 respondents participated. These included young ex-soldiers, students, educators, government official, members on NGOs, traditional leaders and councils, Security Services, and the Police. The inquiry was conducted between 3 May and 17 December 2014 in North Kivu Province, Democratic Republic of Congo. (shrink)

Why are veterans entitled to special benefits, such as free medical care? Not because such a benefit is an inducement to military service, or because a soldier accepts risk. Rather, the relationship of the Army, to use one service as an example, to a soldier is like that of a parent to a child. The right to health care, even carried beyond the term of service, is an extension of this quasi‐familial relationship.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Ethos in Steig’s and Sendak’s Picture Books: The Connected and the Lonely ChildEllen Handler SpitzThere was the child, listening to everything...—Yasunari Kawabata1IntroductionPicture-book characters spring to life in both verbal and visual registers. Moving about the page before our eyes as well as speaking and acting in their respective stories, they often make a long-lasting impact on children. Pictures and words, moreover, may overlap but are never commensurate; like (...) the words and notes of a song, they mean and evoke differently even while being experienced together. This brief essay considers a small selection of works by two distinguished twentieth-century American authors-artists: William Steig (1907–2003) and Maurice Sendak (b. 1928). It argues that, with their artful words and pictures, Steig and Sendak construct very different—even contrasting—visions of childhood. By “ethos” in this context I mean to suggest a vision of what a child is, a sense of what it means both to be a child and to address one. Such visions differ not only through the ages and from one culture and locale to another but also from one author-artist of the same period and locale to another. Invited to speak on Sendak’s and Steig’s respective works at meetings scheduled just a week apart in New York City during the winter of 2007, I found in these paired invitations a fortuitous opportunity to juxtapose several of their works and thereby discover some arresting contrasts and formulate the following readings.2First, a word on the topic of methodology. Nearly one hundred years have elapsed since Freud published his celebrated-cum-notorious foray into psychobiography with Leonardo da Vinci and a Memory of His Childhood,3 wherein shards of circumstantial biographical evidence were laid out in seductive mosaic patterns secured with a grout of ingenious speculation. Despite subsequent decades of critical reflection, Freud’s method soldiers on nonetheless as a modus operandi in the psychological interpretation of art and literature.4 By bracketing a small selection of Steig’s and Sendak’s works here and limiting myself to extracting a tentative underlying ethos from them, I am [End Page 64] taking the position that to write psychologically one need not mention or exploit a creator’s personal life. This essay points gently toward psychological approaches that ask what we can see when we look carefully at the pages of works. What can we find when we share children’s books with children? Why, for example, has Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are sold over seventeen million copies (and its Amazon rank last time I checked was around 145, which means that only 144 other books in the United States were selling more copies at that particular moment), whereas his later work Outside Over There—a book that apparently figures prominently in his personal life—comes nowhere close?5 While market figures do not correlate flawlessly with children’s actual preferences (adults, not children, are the buyers), I would aver that, in this case, they do reflect the success and beloved status of Where the Wild Things Are, since the figures tally with additional facts: the book continues to appeal in its fifth decade post publication; it is known and has been translated worldwide, dramatized, and set to music6; and its characters have been fashioned into ubiquitous stuffed toys. On the other hand, in my (limited) experience, young children seem to find Outside Over There unsettling, unintelligible, even “creepy” and often have trouble sitting still through a full rendition. Some adults, on the other hand, praise that book as poetic and admire its more complex art. Such discrepancies in reception deserve our attention; they hint at fallow fertile fields lying over the rainbow, far beyond the much-plowed tracts of authorial psychobiography. This essay gestures casually toward those fields.The Connected Child“My dear Deborah,” said Doctor De Soto, “you must have been reading my mind.7Let’s begin with William Steig, who is best known for his New Yorker cartoons. His work for children extends back to 1968,8 however, when he was already a man in his sixties. Setting aside the... (shrink)

Ender’s Game, Orson Scott Card’s award-winning 1985 novel, has been discovered and rediscovered by generations of science fiction fans, even being adopted as reading by the U.S. Marine Corps. Ender's Game and its sequels explore rich themes — the violence and cruelty of children, the role of empathy in war, and the balance of individual dignity and the social good — with compelling elements of a coming-of-age story. Ender’s Game and Philosophy brings together over 30 philosophers to engage in wide-ranging (...) discussion on issues such as: the justifiability of pre-emptive strikes; how Ender’s disconnected and dispassionate violence is mirrored in today’s drone warfare; whether the end of saving the species can justify the most brutal means; the justifiability of lies and deception in wartime, and how military schools produce training in virtue. The authors of Ender’s Game and Philosophy challenge readers to confront the challenges that Ender’s Game presents, bringing new insights to the idea of a just war, the virtues of the soldier, the nature of childhood, and the serious work of playing games. (shrink)

Ender’s Game, Orson Scott Card’s award-winning 1985 novel, has been discovered and rediscovered by generations of science fiction fans, even being adopted as reading by the U.S. Marine Corps. Ender's Game and its sequels explore rich themes — the violence and cruelty of children, the role of empathy in war, and the balance of individual dignity and the social good — with compelling elements of a coming-of-age story. Ender’s Game and Philosophy brings together over 30 philosophers to engage in wide-ranging (...) discussion on issues such as: the justifiability of pre-emptive strikes; how Ender’s disconnected and dispassionate violence is mirrored in today’s drone warfare; whether the end of saving the species can justify the most brutal means; the justifiability of lies and deception in wartime, and how military schools produce training in virtue. The authors of Ender’s Game and Philosophy challenge readers to confront the challenges that Ender’s Game presents, bringing new insights to the idea of a just war, the virtues of the soldier, the nature of childhood, and the serious work of playing games. (shrink)

In this article, I contribute to the debate between two philosophical traditions—the Kantian and the Aristotelian—on the requirements of criminal responsibility and the grounds for excuse by taking this debate to a new context: international criminal law. After laying out broadly Kantian and Aristotelian conceptions of criminal responsibility, I defend a quasi-Aristotelian conception, which affords a central role to moral development, and especially to the development of moral perception, for international criminal law. I show than an implication of this view (...) is that persons who are substantially and non-culpably limited in their capacity for ordinary moral perception warrant an excuse for engaging in unlawful conduct. I identify a particular set of conditions that trigger this excuse, and then I systematically examine it as applied to the controversial case of former-child-soldier-turned leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army, Dominic Ongwen, who is currently at trial at the International Criminal Court. (shrink)

Philosophers of mind have long been interested in the relation between two ideas: that causality plays an essential role in our understanding of the mental; and that we can gain an understanding of belief and desire by considering the ascription of attitudes to people on the basis of what they say and do. Many have thought that those ideas are incompatible. William Child argues that there is in fact no tension between them, and that we should accept both. He (...) shows how we can have a causal understanding of the mental without having to see attitudes and experiences as internal, causally interacting entities and he defends this view against influential objections. The book offers detailed discussions of many of Donald Davidson's contributions to the philosophy of mind, and also considers the work of Dennett, Anscombe, McDowell, and Rorty, among others. Issues discussed include: the nature of intentional phenomena; causal explanation; the character of visual experience; psychological explanation; and the causal relevance of mental properties. (shrink)

Life and works -- The Tractatus, language and logic -- The Tractatus, reality and the limits of language -- From the Tractatus to philosophical investigations -- Intentionality and rule-following -- Mind and psychology -- Knowledge and certainty -- Religion and anthropology -- Legacy and influence.

What is the relation between meaning and use? This chapter first defends a non-reductionist understanding of Wittgenstein’s suggestion that ‘the meaning of a word is its use in the language’; facts about meaning cannot be reduced to, or explained in terms of, facts about use, characterized non-semantically. Nonetheless, it is contended, facts about meaning do supervene on non-semantic facts about use. That supervenience thesis is suggested by comments of Wittgenstein’s and is consistent with his view of meaning and rule-following. Semantic (...) supervenience is then defended against two criticisms: first, John McDowell’s suggestion that the supervenience thesis falsifies the epistemology of meaning and fails to accommodate common-sense truths about meaning; second, a series of counter-examples proposed by Stephen Kearns and Ofra Magidor, who argue that worlds may differ semantically without differing non-semantically. It is argued that neither criticism is convincing: we should accept the thesis that semantic facts supervene on non-semantic facts. (shrink)

It is natural to say that when we acquire a new concept or concepts, or grasp a new theory, or master a new practice, we come to see things in a new way: we perceive phenomena that we were not previously aware of; we come to see patterns or connections that we did not previously see. That natural idea has been applied in many areas, including the philosophy of science, the philosophy of religion, and the philosophy of language. And, in (...) reflecting on the character of philosophy itself, Wittgenstein himself associates the introduction of a new concept in philosophy with the discovery of a new way of looking at things (PI §401), and says that the point of presenting us with an imagined example may be to change our way of looking at things (PI §144). The paper considers four interrelated questions about this association between seeing-as and change, novelty, or innovation. 1. Is there an important difference between the case where the change in someone’s way of seeing things involves the invention or discovery of a completely new concept, a completely new theory etc., and the case where it involves the person’s coming to understand an existing concept or theory? 2. Is there a special connection between seeing-as and conceptual or theoretical change or creativity: a connection that does not obtain between seeing-as and using or applying a familiar theory or system of concepts? 3. In cases where seeing-as is associated with novelty or creativity, is there any sense in which the fact that someone sees things in a new way can help to explain their conceptual or theoretical creativity? 4. To the extent that there is some association between seeing-as and novelty or creativity, why if at all does it matter that one experiences things in a certain way? Would someone who was aspect-blind be any worse off with respect to creativity or innovation than the rest of us? And if so, why? (shrink)

William Child; IV*—On the Dualism of Scheme and Content, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 94, Issue 1, 1 June 1994, Pages 53–72, https://doi.org/.

(1992). Donald Davidson and section 2.01 of the model penal code. Criminal Justice Ethics: Vol. 11, No. 1, pp. 31-43. doi: 10.1080/0731129X.1992.9991909.

William Child; IV*—On the Dualism of Scheme and Content, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 94, Issue 1, 1 June 1994, Pages 53–72, https://doi.org/.