Vance's response smacks of "red baiting." Because Communists use science he does not trust it?
The KKK uses he Cross on its Robes? So I suppose we should all be careful of anyone professing to be a Christian? The Oklahoma City Bombers were veterans and "patriots" so beware of anyone who argued for patriotism? I wonder what Vance means by "so-called science" -- Biology (which surely deals with human behavior) does not apply in his world? Medical science (another of those "human sciences) is a "so-called" science -- so that if a physician testifies that a the bruises on a child were caused by a use of force by a much stronger human being (the parent beat the child) he will reject this as "so-called" science. As for anecdotal evidence, we have very good evidence (even anecdotal evidence that apparently works better for Vance than other kinds) that most people who end up doing serious harm to others were abused, beating, "bruised," etc. by their parents. ---- Paul Finkelman President William McKinley Distinguished Professor of Law Albany Law School 80 New Scotland Avenue Albany, NY 12208 518-445-3386 (p) 518-445-3363 (f) pf...@albanylaw.edu www.paulfinkelman.com --- On Mon, 8/3/09, Vance R. Koven <vrko...@gmail.com> wrote: From: Vance R. Koven <vrko...@gmail.com> Subject: Re: Wisconsin convicts parents for denial of medical treatment To: "Law & Religion issues for Law Academics" <religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu> Date: Monday, August 3, 2009, 4:38 PM To me, "scientific" principles are to be avoided in anything to do with the law. Phrenology and eugenics (sorry, Eugene) were once state-of-the-art science. Communism was considered "scientific." Having been trained as a social scientist, I can tell you that those two words don't even belong in the same sentence, much less cheek by jowl. All the so-called sciences that deal with human behavior suffer from the same defect: for ethical and sometimes logistical reasons, we cannot subject people to a rigorously applied scientific methodology, and we cannot adequately isolate the thing being tested from the millions of other things that influence behavior. That's why so many of the scientific studies on virtually every topic are contradicted by other equally scientific studies. It does not require a suspicion of bad faith to draw the conclusion that science and human behavior are no better than nodding acquaintances; and every so often actual bad faith, prejudice and hubris manifest themselves in the investigation and interpretation of social studies (and even hard sciences). Just imagine if all those "scientific truths" had been ensconced in a legal system based on stare decisis? It's bad enough when legislative *policy* is based on science that proves an embarrassment fifty or fewer years later--which to some extent is a necessity--but to send people to jail based on crackpot pseudoscience, is something every decent society should resist. A degree of self-awareness and humility would go a long way here. Based on my admittedly anecdotal experience (but I've accumulated an awful lot of anecdotes over my life), children subjected to traditional child-rearing and discipline, short of battering and other major harm, will turn out fine or twisted, as their natures dictate. Same story with children raised on "progressive" principles. I realize this has strayed a bit from the original question, but I think it does relate to the deference the law should show--under a unified theory or multiple theories--to parents' choices of disciplinary philosophy. The law *ought* to defer to secular parents as much as to religious parents, but the latter should not be denied this deference just because the law has tied itself in knots over the basis for such deference to the former. Vance On Mon, Aug 3, 2009 at 11:38 AM, <hamilto...@aol.com> wrote: In response to Vance's question---Yes, objective standards are available from scientific sources. The question is whether a child is being harmed, and the level of harm can be determined by the extraordinary amount of research that is being done in the child abuse/child wellness arena. Legislatures are capable of drawing the line on the basis of these objective standards, and courts are capable of factfinding on the basis of experts. Obviously, there will be gray areas, but the scientific information goes a long way to rebutting the implicit claims by those protecting parental rights that children's well-being is improved by pain and/or browbeating. Thus, the issue is children's rights to bodily integrity and protection from serious harm vs. parental rights to control their children. That balancing is built into the law via Pierce v. Society of Sisters and Prince v. Massachusetts. Marci -----Original Message----- From: Vance R. Koven <vrko...@gmail.com> To: Law & Religion issues for Law Academics <religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu> Sent: Sun, Aug 2, 2009 9:57 pm Subject: Re: FW: Wisconsin convicts parents for denial of medical treatment Well really, I think some of you are assuming your conclusions. Whether something is child abuse is what is to be determined, not what is to be assumed. Those of us of a certain age may recall being spanked. It did no lasting harm, and may have done considerable good. However, whether it did or not, it was not considered a matter for state intervention, and civilization did not collapse on that account. The question is not, as Marci thinks, whether the law takes the side of the parent or the child, it's whether and under what conditions the law (i.e., the state) takes it unto itself to take sides and to intervene in intra-family affairs. We have consensus on serious bodily harm, maybe even on visible physical injuries like black eyes or bloody noses; when you get into speculating about psychological and social "injuries" it starts to shade over into state ownership of children. My smaller point is that religions have always had rather a lot to say about the relationships within families, particularly between parents and children, which is a zone that a free exercise clause worthy of the name ought to respect. And my larger point was, and remains, whether the state is bound, regardless of any other consideration (such as religious freedom) to take whatever view of child-rearing the secular upper middle class decides at any given moment to take. We have developed a rather Dickensian, and some might say irrationally sentimental, view of children and childhood, and I wonder if the Constitution really offers no refuge at all from having those sentiments shoved down the throats of dissenters. While in principle Eugene is right that whether the=2 0state intervenes shouldn't be determined by whether the parent is acting out of religious or secular motives, it is only in the case of religiously motivated parents that there is a legal hook on which to hang an interest in parenting methodology that requires the state to justify itself on the basis of compelling interest--unless you can engineer a free speech interest, which seems to me a stretch. It would be ironic indeed if the justification for parental authority is the concept of privacy. So the question remains, can the law come up with reasonably objective standards for determining when it will leave parental decisions on discipline to the parents? Is a black eye to be treated differently from a black-and-blue bum? Are parents to be held prisoner by their children's (purported) eggshell psyches? On Sun, Aug 2, 2009 at 7:08 PM, Paul Finkelman <paul.finkel...@yahoo.com> wrote: Eugene: Are you arguing that forcing a child to stay in his/her room is the equivalent of hitting someone hard enough to leave marks/ bruise that person. Parental authority presumably allows many things that cannot be done to adults, starting with sending children to bed against their will. Beat ing a child to the point of bruising sounds like abuse. Keeping a child in the house, like many other aspects of child rearing, is not likely to lead to physical harms of the child. Beating children does that -- and often leads to their death.. ---- Paul Finkelman President William McKinley Distinguished Professor of Law Albany Law School 80 New Scotland Avenue Albany, NY 12208 518-445-3386 (p) 518-445-3363 (f) pf...@albanylaw.edu www.paulfinkelman.com --- On Sun, 8/2/09, Volokh, Eugene <vol...@law.ucla.edu> wrote: From: Volokh, Eugene <vol...@law.ucla.edu> Subject: FW: Wisconsin convicts parents for denial of medical treatment To: "Law & Religion issues for Law Academics" <religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu> Date: Sunday, August 2, 2009, 5:39 PM I should note, though, that I agree that parents’ rights to impose corporal punishment on their children – or absence of such rights, if the legal system ultimately comes to that – should not turn on the parents’ religiosity. Eugene From: Volokh, Eugene Sent: Sunday, August 02, 2009 2:38 PM To: Law & Religion issues for Law Academics Subject: RE: Wisconsin convicts parents for denial of medical treatment I’m certainly not convinced that corporal punishment, especially to the extent of bruising, is proper – but neither am I convinced of the opposite. Nor is it helpful, I think, to analogize to what we’d perceive if it happened to us. If someone forced us to stay in our rooms even for a short time, that would surely be a tort or a crime, and a more serious one than battery; but not so for parents demanding that their children stay in their room as punishment, at least unless it=2 0gets much more severe. The rules for children are not the same as for adults, and the analogy to what is tolerable for adult-adult relations strikes me as not very helpful. Eugene From: religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu [mailto:religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu] On Behalf Of Paul Finkelman Sent: Sunday, August 02, 2009 2:27 PM To: Law & Religion issues for Law Academics Subject: Re: Wisconsin convicts parents for denial of medical treatment I -- _______________________________________________ To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others. -- Vance R. Koven Boston, MA USA vrko...@world.std.com _______________________________________________ To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others. _______________________________________________ To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others. -- Vance R. Koven Boston, MA USA vrko...@world.std.com -----Inline Attachment Follows----- _______________________________________________ To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others.
_______________________________________________ To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others.
