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You're right that age doesn't necessarily mean that a person is competent. However, age is a pretty good way of knowing that someone is incompetent, at least in some cases. For example, without any other information, I can confidently say that a 3yo child is not competent to, say, sign a contract or drive a car. It's possible for adults to not be mentally competent - there are 18+ year old retarded people out there - but I don't think the reverse can be true with very young children. Could you show me a single 3 year old child, or even a 4-7 year old child, that is capable of making these sorts of decisions? I don't think any of them exist. With older children (say, 8-12), I'd be less quick to say that no such individuals exist in the whole world, but because children of this age are, on the whole, significantly less capable of evaluating the long-term consequences of things like contract-signing, liquor-drinking, or knife-playing than mentally competent adults, I think it's fair to forbid them from making serious life decisions. Do you really think giving 8 year olds the power to sign legally binding contracts would result in better outcomes for them in life? With teenagers, I feel like there is more grey area. Are most 13 year olds mentally competent to, for instance, take out a bank loan? Probably not I think, but some might be able to. Are 15 year olds? While they probably aren't as mature and informed as they would be at 25 or 30, I don't think I could say with confidence that an insignificant amount of them would be able to provide informed consent. However, at a certain point, I feel like it's a matter of having to draw a line somewhere. Sure, setting the age of consent at 16-18 isn't perfect, given that there will probably be some people under whichever age is picked that will be capable of giving informed consent. However, unless we want to end up with a ridiculous, unworkable system a la your nuns-and-BLs suggestion, an age of consent together with laws governing mentally incompetent adults seems like a good heuristic for these things. |