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What is an Adult

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Philosophy -- as such -- won't give you an answer in terms of specific age.That would be a task for Biology.. Legal philosophy can recognize the fact that there are relevant differences in children and adults. Legal philosophy can say that these differences are relevant in law. But, once we lay down what it is we are looking for, in terms of abilities, it is still Biology that can tell us what age we're talking about.

Also, any age you name will suffer from the "borderline problem".People do not wake up on their 18th or 21st birthdays, completely changed from the night before. And, further, different people hit biological milestones at different times. So, any age named in law is a ball park, that starts by looking at the average age, and then goes up or down from there.

Personally, I think the legal drinking age is way too high at 21. Unsupervised, it should probably be closer to 16. To have it above 18 is gross stupidity. And, supervised , there really should not be any age at all.

I think the voting age should be raised to 21, and maybe higher -- though I don't think there's much impact one way or the other.

What's the age of consent for sex? Is it under 16 that it becomes statutory rape? That's probably too old. And, I think the laws that take into account age-differences in deciding whether consensual sex is statutory rape are fine (though I know there are some on the forum who vehemently disagree)

Work: I don't see why there should be any age limit there in general, if the parents etc. are acting as legal guardians, checking the terms of employment. 

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