Mary Wollstonecraft, Children’s Human Rights, and Animal Ethics

Abstract

This chapter argues that Mary Wollstonecraft developed the first extended philosophical justification for children’s human rights—especially the right not to be abused, the right to parental care, and the right to education. It also explains why she did not defend the rights of non-human animals even as she insisted that the duty for benevolent treatment of such animals was essential for children’s (and thus human) moral development. Finally, it suggests ways in which Wollstonecraft’s conception of the indivisibility of human rights can teach political lessons to contemporary children’s rights and animal rights advocates, and argues that from an international legal standpoint, many of her arguments still stand.

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