Welfare across the Lifespan
Welfare across the Lifespan
This chapter considers how welfare or advantage ought to be distributed within a single lifespan, rather than between lives. A possibility is that people can make up for a bad childhood via compensating factors in adulthood, and thus there is no need to prioritise the interests of children. Through a consideration of what are termed ‘the intrinsic goods of childhood’ I make the argument that there is a basic case for seeing the start of a person’s life as the most important life stage, because gains in childhood are by their nature longer lasting and likely to lead to further advantages later in life. This provides a powerful, though potentially outweighed, reason for thinking that justice requires devoting more attention and resources to children than is recognised by most accounts.
Keywords: Intrinsic goods of childhood, Shape of life thesis, flourishing
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