Me: What do you think about early children’s rights advocates? They advocated for incremental reforms on child labour(restrictions on number of hours, banning children from working during school hours etc.) even though using child labour is morally forbidden. What they did seems to be commendable. So it looks like in some cases it’s commendable to get other people to do less bad things.
This seems like an odd example to me because child labour is legal and common almost everywhere (to my knowledge) and people generally do not think this is very bad, let alone morally forbidden. There are regulations about the type of work children can do but no blanket ban; I do not see any significant inherent problems with children having paper rounds or working as a babysitter or similar.
My understanding is that there are often minimum age limits for minor employment with a blanket ban below a certain age. When I use the expression “child labour”, I don’t mean 17 years olds. But you’re right that my phrasing isn’t precise there. I also agree people won’t mind children selling lemonades on their own. But in my conversations there was a general agreement that you shouldn’t make your 10 years old child work full-time and you absolutely shouldn’t employ any kid of that age as an employer.
Even less controversially, since there is agreement that early children’s rights legislation was way below the acceptable standard, it serves as an example for “getting someone to do something less bad but still forbidden”.
I don’t think this is correct; most of the US doesn’t have any age limit on informal jobs like babysitting and yard work. It’s typically legal for children of any age to work for their parents’ business. My ten-year-old is sometimes keen to earn money by washing windows or raking leaves for our neighbors, and I don’t see anything wrong with this as long as she can opt out when she wishes.
Thank you. Particularly the section with “It’s typically legal for children of any age to work for their parents’ business.” is new to me. I will replace the examples.
This seems like an odd example to me because child labour is legal and common almost everywhere (to my knowledge) and people generally do not think this is very bad, let alone morally forbidden. There are regulations about the type of work children can do but no blanket ban; I do not see any significant inherent problems with children having paper rounds or working as a babysitter or similar.
My understanding is that there are often minimum age limits for minor employment with a blanket ban below a certain age. When I use the expression “child labour”, I don’t mean 17 years olds. But you’re right that my phrasing isn’t precise there. I also agree people won’t mind children selling lemonades on their own. But in my conversations there was a general agreement that you shouldn’t make your 10 years old child work full-time and you absolutely shouldn’t employ any kid of that age as an employer.
Even less controversially, since there is agreement that early children’s rights legislation was way below the acceptable standard, it serves as an example for “getting someone to do something less bad but still forbidden”.
I don’t think this is correct; most of the US doesn’t have any age limit on informal jobs like babysitting and yard work. It’s typically legal for children of any age to work for their parents’ business. My ten-year-old is sometimes keen to earn money by washing windows or raking leaves for our neighbors, and I don’t see anything wrong with this as long as she can opt out when she wishes.
Thank you. Particularly the section with “It’s typically legal for children of any age to work for their parents’ business.” is new to me. I will replace the examples.