Compulsory Schooling as Preventative Defense

Abstract

The question whether compulsory schooling is justifiable or not has been treated at considerable length by critics, defenders, and positions in-between. What these treatments-about paternalism and autonomy and institutionalization and more-have not directly analyzed is a question that precedes the issue of overall justification: the preliminary question of time. Does it matter when compulsion takes place? Furthermore, does the timing of compulsion matter to the question of overall justification? I will argue that it does matter, but for reasons not directly related to the question of overall justification. © 2012 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht.