Document Type
Curriculum Materials
Publication Date
1995
Journal / Book Title
Critical and Creative Thinking: The Australasian Joumal of Philosophy for Children
Abstract
I don't believe in spanking. Do you? I was only spanked once in my life. I had been returning from school, and spied a garden full of beautiful flowers of many different colours, shapes and sizes. "How pretty they would look on Mama's table," I thought to myself, and before you knew it, I had picked a bunch to bring home to her. I learned very quickly that one should never pick flowers for one's mother. I was shocked by the spanking and there is a sense in which I have never forgiven my mother for it. But it has also occurred to me that neither my mother nor I ever thought about the wildflowers themselves – the right of the wildflowers to be left alone. I wonder, "do wildflowers, like persons, have rights? And even if they don't, does anyone have the right to pick them out of the woods to make a lovely bouquet to take home to your mother?" And if not, why not?
Book Publisher
The Federation of Australian Philosophy for Children Associations (FAPCA)
Book Editor(s)
Clive Lindop
MSU Digital Commons Citation
Sharp, Ann Margaret, "(1995) Who Owns the Flowers? (philosophical story)" (1995). Collected Papers of Ann Margaret Sharp. 20.
https://digitalcommons.montclair.edu/amsharp/20
Published Citation
Sharp, Ann Margaret (1995) Who Owns the Flowers? Critical and Creative Thinking: The Australasian Joumal of Philosophy for Children 3(1): 68-69.