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The Child's Right To An Open Future Summary

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Autonomy is the greatest right that any one person has. Adults are mature and intelligent enough to choose what they believe to be the best decisions to help them flourish in life. Children, however, are not developed enough to make that decision for themselves. This is why children are dependent upon their parents until they are old enough to make those kinds of decisions for themselves. It is also why parents have a right to raise their child how they see fit since they should have the child’s best interest in mind and have the ability to make those decisions. In the essay “The Child’s Right to an Open Future,” Claudia Mills provides a rebuttal to Joel Feinberg’s essay on “The Child’s Right to an Open Future.” She believes “that it is …show more content…

Feinberg wants the child to be able to pursue whatever version of the good life that the child wants when they get older. Therefore, I think this point against Feinberg is a flawed one to make. Mills also says that giving a child this sort of life is shallow. I would argue that such a life is enriching and valuable. In giving children so many different experiences, however short they may be, will show them what could be and give them valuable life experience that will make them wiser in choosing their own version of the good life. The experience would give children the skills to be even more religiously tolerant.

Mills applies the previous argument to religion, specifically the case of a family raising their kid with an “open” religious future, and I apply the same counterargument. Mills says that such a shopping-mall tour of religions will “provide at best a glib and shallow overview even of the actual propositions that adherents of those religions purport to believe.” (Mills, 2003, pg. 502) In allowing the child to experience many different religions the child will now have the ability to make an informed decision about their own religion. The important issue here is to not trivialize religion, as it is such a deeply meaningful part of many peoples lives. The parents have a responsibility to teach the child the importance and value of a religious life. If the child understands how important religion and spirituality are then the child will

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