How young is too young to sail around the world?
Freedom and age
Less than a week after Mike Perham, age 17, because the youngest person to sail solo around the world, a Dutch court has stepped in to prevent 13 year-old Laura Dekker from attempting the same feat. The court ordered state officials to take over guardianship of the girl stripping her parents of the right to make decisions on her behalf. The case raises important questions about restrictions on the freedom of children.
The question of at what age children become moral beings — with all the rights, freedoms and responsibilities that involves – has always been a challenging one for philosophers and policymakers a like. We call people adults when they turn 18, but state and federal laws give increasing rights to children across their teen years and into their early twenties. Most states allow teens to drive at 16 (earlier in some states); federal law allows people to vote and buy cigarettes at 18, and to buy alcohol at 21. Responsibilities work the same way: those under 18 generally receive lighter sentences than adults when convicted in court.
These age thresholds are based on determinations of the physical, psychological and decision making capabilities of individuals at various ages (and, in the case of driving, on lobbying by busy parents). Lawmakers have determined that the maturity needed to make decisions about ones own consumption of dangerous and mind altering substances comes at the age of 18 and 21, respectively. And that individuals cannot be held fully responsible for their actions until the age of 18. But of course everyone matures at different rates. An engaged twelve year old may be more prepared to participate in the democratic process than an uniformed adult. A responsible fifteen year old may make better decisions about how many beers to drink than a college kid or a middle aged alcoholic.
The challenge of attributing responsibility and giving children freedom and rights when they reach an appropriate age is ultimately an impossible endeavor. Even if we could somehow assess each individual’s moral maturity, its not clear that we would want to use this information. The violation of privacy involved in giving mature children the right to drink and vote at a younger age than others probably outweighs any benefits of accurately giving people the level of freedoms, rights and responsibilities they morally deserve.
But there are some cases when setting a standardized age threshold seems inappropriate. We already recognize this in the judicial system where children can be tried as adults, if they are considered to have reached a necessary level of moral maturity. This same approach seems appropriate to the case of Laura Dekker. Most children at the age of 13 may not be ready to make a choice about undertaking a life endangering activity. But some may. And since sailing solo around the world is not something lots of children seek to do (like driving, voting or drinking), we should probably assess each person on a case by case basis. And, in fact, Dutch authorities are doing just this: having a child psychologists assess Laura’s ability to handle the challenge of sailing around the world solo.
-Marc
Photo by Flickr user tmaull used under a Creative Commons Attribution license.
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[...] in September, Marc wrote about Dutch adolescent Laura Dekker, who at 14 wanted to sail around the world. Marc, along with [...]