TY - JOUR

T1 - The well- and unwell-being of a child

AU - Schües, Christina

AU - Rehmann-Sutter , Christoph

N1 - Funding Information: Acknowledgments We thank Janice McLaughlin, Thorsten Moos, Lili Schwesinger, Sarah Daubitz and Lina Busch for encouraging discussions. Jackie Leach Scully and Monica Buckland provided textual suggestions that made the argument clearer. The paper originated from a study on the well-being of the child in stem cell transplantation, which is funded by Thyssen Foundation and Karl Peter Ringel.

PY - 2013/10

Y1 - 2013/10

N2 - The concept of the ‘well-being of the child’ (like the ‘child’s welfare’ and ‘best interests of the child’) has remained underdetermined in legal and ethical texts on the needs and rights of children. As a hypothetical construct that draws attention to the child’s long-term welfare, the well-being of the child is a broader concept than autonomy and happiness. This paper clarifies some conceptual issues of the well-being of the child from a philosophical point of view. The main question is how well-being could in practice acquire a concrete meaning and content for a particular issue or situation. A phenomenological-hermeneutic research perspective will be outlined that allows the child’s well-being to be elucidated and specified as an anthropological and ethical idea. It is based on a contextual understanding of generative relationships, a combination of the theory and practice of making sense, here described as ‘generative insight’, which could provide ethical guidance for decision making in families, legal practice, medicine or biomedical research.

AB - The concept of the ‘well-being of the child’ (like the ‘child’s welfare’ and ‘best interests of the child’) has remained underdetermined in legal and ethical texts on the needs and rights of children. As a hypothetical construct that draws attention to the child’s long-term welfare, the well-being of the child is a broader concept than autonomy and happiness. This paper clarifies some conceptual issues of the well-being of the child from a philosophical point of view. The main question is how well-being could in practice acquire a concrete meaning and content for a particular issue or situation. A phenomenological-hermeneutic research perspective will be outlined that allows the child’s well-being to be elucidated and specified as an anthropological and ethical idea. It is based on a contextual understanding of generative relationships, a combination of the theory and practice of making sense, here described as ‘generative insight’, which could provide ethical guidance for decision making in families, legal practice, medicine or biomedical research.

KW - Philosophy

KW - Best interests of the child

KW - Care

KW - Child ethics

KW - Children's rights

KW - Children's well-being

KW - Phenomenological-hermeneutic philosophy

KW - Vulnerability

KW - Well-being

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84884519082&partnerID=8YFLogxK

UR - https://www.mendeley.com/catalogue/48a50b5d-414f-3886-b4c8-b04029f8d272/

U2 - 10.1007/s11245-013-9157-z

DO - 10.1007/s11245-013-9157-z

M3 - Journal articles

VL - 32

SP - 197

EP - 205

JO - Topoi. An International Review of Philosophy

JF - Topoi. An International Review of Philosophy

SN - 0167-7411

IS - 2

ER -