is it ethical to use young children is such circumstances? Defenders of this practice argue typically on good utilitarian grounds that the children are better off with the jobs than without them that they to their won family's income and that they contribute to the overall welfare of thier society critics claim on deontological grounds that it is unethical to treat young children this way even if there are beneficial results on this view child labor is ethically equivalent to child abuse and slavery it is something wrong on principle