The Best Interest of Children – a Core Battleground of the Secular Society

1. The Best Interest of Children – a Core Battleground of the Secular Society Christian Munthe Department of Philosophy www.filosofi.gu.se

2. A ’Down-up’ Strategy for Research on Secularisation and Secularism • • Avoid to base analyses and arguments on general positions under debate (i.e., avoid begging the question) • Identify particular contested issues that seem to be important parts of the ’battle’ over what a secular society is supposed to be • Analyse what opposing views and arguments boil down to in terms of underlying key issues (mostly of an evaluative or normative sort). Sort the thus identified key areas into groups. • Analyse implied opinions, underlying values and norms, conceptual frameworks, argumentative structures of each such group of key areas. • Investigate the possibilities of finding ’hidden common grounds’ from which the wider issue of what a secular society should be can be approached

3. Why? • • Top-down strategies are intellectually inferior • Beg the questions (by assuming a preconceived allocation of power and authority between religious and other institutions, communities and discourses). • Void of Capacity to Solve the Issues • Impregnated by Epistemological Problems • Top-down strategies lack sustainable practical leverage • Shuffle the basic problems in front while they continue to grow • Globalisation and the ’inner logic’ of liberal societies will continue to produce new, ever more demanding challenges. • Risks of violent confrontation and societal unrest

4. Three Debates • • Neonatal male circumcision • No health benefits, several health risks + risk of autonomy infringement • Interests of an existential, psychological, communitarian etc. nature. • What types of interests do children have, how should they be balanced, who is in a position to identify and weigh them, manage them, etc.? • Religion in Basic Education • Information vs. Preaching, Science vs. Faith, Disciplining Practice • Dito regarding the interests of children • The Homosexual Family • The Mosaic family ideal and hostility towards homosexuality traditionally embedded in liberal societies • Given this backdrop children may suffer harm, but changing the backdrop may save children from harm • Changing the backdrop may require some intermediate harm to children • Something has to be used as a backdrop for assessment of the best interest of children, but what?

5. The Best Interest of Children • • No surprise that this theme is central in the debates: shared interests of religions and wordly powers. • Procreation of the population • Procreation of culture • Formal frameworks (CRC, UDHR) • Formal frameworks (CRC, UDHR) create both the room for basic conflict and a hope for a common ground that remains to be created • A non-question begging scheme for ’picking apart’ different versions of the concern for the best interest of children is needed (i.e. analysis should not side with any position that implies a particular view on the secularism issue) • The resulting ’parts’ must be possible to combine in various new ways, thus crossing the borderlines of established ideas

6. A Basic Distinction • • BIC-1 • There is something about the interests of children that make these interests extra morally important • BIC-2 • Some group(s) are especially suitable for judging what the best interest of children are in particular contexts, how well they would be observed, how they should be balanced, etc. • Tricky conceptual issues that have to be analysed in relation to a (varying) normative context • BIC-2 can, but need not, be based on BIC-1 • First step: an initial map of how important constituents of BIC-1 and BIC-2 may be varied

7. • The Nature of the Child… • …as incompetent or immature • …as vulnerable and needy • …as growing into adulthood • …as a resource for the family • …as a resource for community and society • The Interest… • …of being respected • …of being provided for and not being harmed • …of being adequately prepared for adulthood • …of being a part of a well-functioning family • …of being a part of a well-functioning community and society • The Role of a Group in Society to Handle a Matter… • …on the basis of delegation • …on the basis of authority • …on the basis of efficiency • …on the basis of ’constitution’ • …on the basis of an adequate scheme for the division of social labour All of these have constituents that need to be further analysed!