Something to Cry About: An Argument against Corporal Punishment of Children in Canada (Studies in Childhood and Family in Canada)

339 Pages·2002·1.05 MB·English

by  Susan M. Turner

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Something to Cry About
An Argument against Corporal
Punishment of Children
in Canada
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Studies in Childhood and Family in Canada
Studies in Childhood and Family in Canadais a multidisciplinary
series devoted to new perspectives on these subjects as they evolve.
The series features studies that focus on the intersections of age, class,
race, gender, and region as they contribute to a Canadian understand-
ing of childhood and family, both historically and currently.
Series Editor
Cynthia Comacchio
Department of History
Wilfrid Laurier University
Manuscripts to be sent to
Brian Henderson, Director
Wilfrid Laurier University Press
75 University Avenue West
Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, N2L3C5
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Something to Cry About
An Argument against Corporal
Punishment of Children
in Canada
Susan M. Turner
Studies in Childhood and Family in Canada
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This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Humanities and Social
Sciences Federation of Canada, using funds provided by the Social Sciences and
Humanities Research Council of Canada. We acknowledge the support of the Canada
Council for the Arts for our publishing program. We acknowledge the financial support
of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development
Program for our publishing activities.
National Library of Canada Cataloguing in Publication Data
Turner, Susan M., 1955–
Something to cry about : an argument against corporal punishment
of children in Canada
(Studies in childhood and family in Canada)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-88920-382-2
1. Corporal punishment—Canada. 2. Child abuse—Canada.
3. Discipline of children. I. Title. II. Series.
HQ770.4.T87 2002 306.874 C2001-903199-8
© 2002 Wilfrid Laurier University Press
Waterloo, Ontario, Canada N2L3C5
www.wlupress.wlu.ca
Cover design by Leslie Macredie,
using a photograph by Brian Henderson.
The author and publisher have made every reasonable effort to obtain permission to
reproduce the secondary material in this book. Any corrections or omissions brought to
the attention of the Press will be incorporated in subsequent printings.
Printed in Canada
All rights reserved. No part of this work covered by the copyrights hereon may be repro-
duced or used in any form or by any means—graphic, electronic, or mechanical—with-
out the prior written permission of the publisher. Any request for photocopying, record-
ing, taping, or reproducing in information storage and retrieval systems of any part of
this book shall be directed in writing to the Canadian Reprography Collective, 214 King
Street West, Suite 312, Toronto, Ontario M5H 3S6.
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To Geneva, Katharine and Sean
Love you.
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I’ll give you something to cry about, Reenie would say. If we’d
been her real children she would have slapped us.
As it was, she never did, so we never found out
what this threatening something might be.
—from The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood
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Table of Contents
Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . xiii
Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xix
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Chapter 1
The Terms of the Corporal Punishment Debate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
The Law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Defining Corporal Punishment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Law and Morality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Chapter 2
AVery Short History of Moral Philosophy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
What Is Morality? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
Aristotle and the Morality of Ancient Greece . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
St. Thomas Aquinas and the Morality of
Medieval Christianity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Immanuel Kant and the Morality of Duty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart Mill and the
Morality of Utility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
Morality in the Postmodern Era . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
Chapter 3
Morality and Culture: When Values Collide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
Escaping Oppression and Seeking Opportunity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
Gift Shop v. Fish Tank Liberalism:
Bodily Harm and the Limits of Tolerance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
Moral Dogmatism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
Moral Pluralism and Moral Relativism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
Good Fences Make Good Neighbours:
Diversity and Separation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
ix