A Better World for Children: Explorations in Morality and Authority

By exploring such diverse issues as the management of child abuse, legal reforms following sex abuse enquiries, moral explanations for child murderers, the impossible task faced by social workers and the limitations of children's rights campaigns, Michael King examines the revolutionary ideas of the social theorist, Niklas Luhmann and demonstrates how his theory of authopoietic systems compels readers to re-examine exactly what they mean by society. Questioning the relationship between personal morality and political will, it challenges the assumption that changing society is merely a matter of changing attitudes and highlights the pitfalls associated with formulating social reform. A Better World for Children? will be valuable reading for all professionals whose work brings them into daily contact with children.

By exploring such diverse issues as the management of child abuse, legal reforms following sex abuse enquiries, moral explanations for the actions of child murderers, the impossible task faced by social workers and the limitations of children's rights campaigns, Michael King examines the revolutionary ideas of the social theorist, Niklas Luhmann. He demonstrates how Luhmann's theory of authopoietic systems compels readers to re-examine exactly what they mean by society.
Questioning the relationship between personal morality and political will, it challenges the assumption that changing society is merely a matter of changing attitudes and highlights the pitfalls associated with formulating social reform.

Michael King is Professor and Director of the Centre for the Study of Law, the Child and the Family at the University of Brunel