John Dewey’s philosophy on the criteria for maintaining and exercising parental rights in respect of minor children

Abstract

The article analyzes the issues of law enforcement practice associated with child-parent relations in light of philosophical views of the American thinker, philosopher, and educator John Dewey.The problem of the correlation between parental authority and children’s freedom is critical in today’s society. Parents, imparting their social experience and engaging the child into the social environment,help their child develop individual mental and emotional principles of behavior and attitudes, which are an indispensable condition for the individual’s existence in a society.That is why the issue of state regulation of family relations concerns many researchers in the sphere of family law.There are numerous problems in determining the scope of rights and obligations of parents and children,in defining the extent of responsibilityfor inappropriate parental behavior, and in establishing the legal position of children. Recent legislative initiatives to reduce the state’s role in regulating legal relations within families have faced severe criticism from the legal community. Namely, initiatives suggested reducing the state’s authorityconcerning familyrelations and expending the parents’and guardians’rights.These changes could have harmed the interests of individual familymembers.The author sees a possible solution to this vicious circle in creating collective understanding,using not the methods of control or coercion but the sphere of collective intelligence based on scientific methods of cognition.