Abstract
The purpose of this paper is to clarify the trends of the liberal arguments that aim to solve the conflict between parents and state over the educational authority, and to consider the significance of the theory of deliberative democracy. In the liberal democratic society, parents are assumed to have a natural right to raise their children in their own way : Children should be educated by their parents privately. Yet children are simultaneously the objects of public education, because they should be citizens in future. These two aspects of child-education make a conflict between parent and state (ex. Mozert v. Hawkins Country Board of Education). Thus we have to consider the way to balance the educational authorities between parents and state. For this purpose, this paper considers the theories of three contemporary political philosophers, William, A. Galston, Stephen Macedo and Amy Gutmann.
First, I will analyze their arguments concerning the case of Mozert, and classify their political stances. Macedo and Gutmann regarded the mandatory civic education as important while Galston thought there was the danger that it violated the individual liberty. However, Macedo and Gutmann also had different claims about the contents of civic education. Second, I will consider the criticisms of Gutmann's argument by Galston and Macedo. They claimed that her argument based on autonomy could not be justified. But, in my view, they overlooked the egalitarian feature in her argument. Finally, I will conclude that Gutmann's theory of deliberative democracy has been more sensitive to the religious diversity than other theories, and that she has succeeded in solving the conflict between parents and state.
