Sceptics are resistant and if they want to bite the bullet and avoid a normative agenda then the claim that might is right is hard to derail. However, they — the sceptics — often cannot resist a claim about the promotion of the interests of a specific class and implicitly assert a normative agenda.
Next week, I want to start with a tutorial on paternalism. Read Berlin (available in blackboard) and then think about these berlin tutorial questions. Above all, think about a government with the power to choose what you wear and which job you do. Why shouldn’t it have this power? Answers, puzzles and comments can be posted into the comments/replies below. You only need to log in with your normal university username.
Sandwiches and oppression
Here is an example of the problem of governance and where power should or should not stop. I recently received a letter from my children’s school with a list of requirements for packed lunches. Children cannot take in a thermos flask with hot food, cannot have junk food and cannot have chocolate spread sandwiches. The question is then this: are the school within its rights to decided what the children eat or should that be the decision or right of someone else and who?
My brother has had one of these letters and now instead of taking chocolate he has to take cereal bars.
I think in many ways it helps, some parents fail to see if there child is overweight. However, surely a school should focus on education and leave it at that? I think schools get criticised too much lately for their lack involvement in children’s lives. It is definitely a parents place though in my opinion.
At last a comment. Wo hoo!
But remember the claim about power and the good reason thesis. If I wear a seat belt, the law is legitimate because it is something I should freely do all things being equal. But the seat belt is uncontroversial as a health issue whereas food is largely controversial. Just think about what the healthiest breakfast might be. What you need are experts on nutrition to decide and not the rather ill informed Governors of a school who are largely middle-class and reactionary. As such it is a case of guidance but not oppression. Schools are allowed to decide what the pupils wear (why? I always got told off for wearing trainers not shoes!), but what a child eats should be the concern of the parent. Think of gluten allergy and then also of religious commitments. Could a school interfere with these?