Rawls, Justice in the Family and Justice of the Family (original) (raw)

1998, The Philosophical Quarterly

A form of contractualism more individualistic than Rawls' would do better at addressing concerns about justice and the family raised by feminist theorists, and would also compel us to be more egalitarian. That is, dissatisfactions expressed with Rawls' theory and his neglect of issues related to gender and the family can only be addressed if 'parties in the original position' are strictly defined as individuals. Provided no ties of sentiments between family members are assumed in the original position, individuals in it are able to address questions of justice within families, and also inequalities between members of different families. In the following essay I shall defend this view. This will entail examining the equivocal place the family occupies in Rawls' theory. 1 Why take Rawls to task on the family, though? At first sight, the themes of justice in and of the family-the former concerning the division of labour and, more generally, the application of principles of rights and justice within this institution, the latter concerning the less familiar question of whether the family should exist from the point of view of justice, and which form, or forms, if any, it would take-may seem only two among a number of themes that Rawls refuses to explore in depth. Other important questions which his account of justice leaves almost entirely aside are justice between states, protection of the environment, civic education, retributive justice, the needs of the handicapped, democracy in the workplace and women's equality. A number of Rawls' critics have found his conception of justice defective precisely because he fails to address some or all of these questions. He does provide a form of answer to these critics by saying that his conception of justice is 'worked up by focusing on a few long-standing classical problems' and should 'provide guidelines for addressing further questions' (PL p. xxix).