Republican Children

Abstract

Parents appear to dominate their children in ways they cannot with other adults. While it might seem unavoidable, this issue raises important questions about whether children are unfree under parental authority. Republican theories of freedom, such as Philip Pettit's influential account, look especially vulnerable. He claims that we are free only if nondominated and so not under the arbitrary interference by others. Domination is a threat to freedom that republican freedom opposes for all. However, non-domination seems impossible to avoid for everyone, most notably children, which is broadly accepted. If so, it is unclear why domination is permissible for some and not others if it is an evil for all to avoid. In this article, I argue that parental authority need not entail domination where it is subject to legitimacy constraints drawing on Pettit's work on freedom and criminal justice that might also be endorsed by non-republicans. Republican children can enjoy non-domination from the cradle to the grave and this reveals how parental authority need not render children unfree for non-republicans as well.

Keywords: children, freedom, liberalism, Mill, non-domination, parenting, Pettit, republicanism, restorative justice Reference: Thom Brooks (2025). "Republican Children, " Philosophy & Public Affairs, forthcoming

JEL Classification: K0, K39