Children, Deliberative Democracy, and Temporal Epistemic Injustice

• In Event: 41.069 - Deliberation, Democracy, and Justice

Abstract

Deliberative democrats see agreement as an epistemic criterion for the justice of political principles, where all affected are owed an equal opportunity to contest such principles. Does this stipulation apply to children? I argue that children are owed the presumption that their claims have epistemic value to a degree appropriate to their discursive competence, leading to the concern that in practice children may be assigned little or no epistemic credibility. However, I also argue that the conditions necessary for citizens to contest a norm require temporal epistemic justice. I offer an account of temporal epistemic justice and claim that it entitles children to a higher level of epistemic credibility than an assessment of their discursive competence alone would justify.

Author

• Christopher Martin, The University of British Columbia - Okanagan