Description
Book SynopsisChildhood faces humanity with its own deepest and most perplexing questions. An ethics that truly includes the world's childhoods would transcend pre-modern traditional communities and modern rational autonomy with a postmodern aim of growing responsibility. It would understand human relations in a poetic rather than universalistic sense as openly and interdependently creative. As a consequence, it would produce new understandings of moral being, time, and otherness, as well as of religion, rights, narrative, families, obligation, and power. "Ethics in Light of Childhood" fundamentally reimagines ethical thought and practice in light of the experiences of the third of humanity who are children. Much like humanism, feminism, womanism, and environmentalism, Wall argues, a new childism is required that transforms moral thinking, relations, and societies in fundamental ways. Wall explores childhood's varied impacts on ethical thinking throughout history, advances the emerging interdisciplinary field of childhood studies, and reexamines basic assumptions in contemporary moral theory and practice. In the process, he does not just apply ethics to childhood but applies childhood to ethics - in order to imagine a more expansive humanity.
Trade ReviewThe author takes us on a stimulating journey through considerations of history, theory and practice, and frequently relies on the perceptions of children themselves to illustrate the points he wants to make. He does this through the device of recounting children's stories of their own experience... It is rare for an adult to put a moral and ethical case quite so succinctly. Children & Society Creative, thought-provoking book ... will interest psychologists and philosophers and any others with a serious interest in developmental psychology and ethics. Choice A game-changing book for the field of Christian ethics... Ethics should be read widely, and not only bythose who are explicitely conducting research involving children and childhood. While it has much to offer these scholars, Ethics real benefit lies in the possibilities that it opens up for both fundamental and practical ethics more broadly conceived. Conversations in Religion and Theology
Table of ContentsIntroduction Part I. History 1. Three Enduring Models Part II. Theory 2. What is Human Being? 3. What Is the Ethical Aim? 4. What Is Owed Each Other? Part III. Practice 5. Human Rights in Light of Childhood 6. The Generative Family 7. The Art of Ethical Thinking Conclusion Notes Index
