Abstract

This chapter argues that to safeguard infants and children from the distortions of adult-normative ethics, Principlism must be re-specified through an age-neutral lens. While Principlism has long served as a practical bulwark against consequentialist undervaluation, its protection is fragile because it rests on adult consensus about parental obligation rather than on truths about childness. As a result, it shares consequentialism’s assumption that biographical narrative—and thus moral value—is meaningful only when constructed in an adult mode.Re-specifying the principles reveals how each can incorporate the cognitive style of childness. Beneficence and non-maleficence, viewed age-neutrally, recognise that infants possess interests that are grounded in immediate experience, relational embeddedness and subjective well-being—even when those interests cannot be precisely known. The moral agent must therefore consider the intertwined interests of child–parent dyads rather than treating children as possessions or as isolated rational choosers.Autonomy, reconceived through trust and interdependence rather than self-rule, becomes a capacity infants can meaningfully express through their characteristic dependence. Justice, when freed from reciprocity-based definitions of society, acknowledges infants as participants in community by virtue of their relational capacities and contribution to social trust.An age-neutral Principlism accords inherent value to childness and orientates ethical deliberation away from adult-centric norms.