Abstract

This dissertation applies Rawls' principles of justice, liberty and equality, to the institutions affecting children. Adopting Rawls' focus--the least advantaged--I ask whether collective child rearing practices in comparison to nuclear family child rearing practices protect the rights and interests of children better and make the least advantaged better off. Parents are imagined to go through the four stage sequences of Rawls' original position in order to choose between the above mentioned child rearing practices. ;The research I conducted on delinquency in Israel in kibbutzim and the nuclear family setting, Kohlberg's cross-cultural studies in Israel, Turkey, U.S., etc. and the studies of Rabin, Eiferman, Madsen and others add empirical evidence to my theoretical argument: Kibbutz children when compared to nuclear family children are found to be more morally developed