A feminist argument against statism: public and private in theories of global justice

Cosmopolitanism and statism represent the two dominant liberal theoretical standpoints in the current debate on global distributive justice. In this paper, I will develop a feminist argument that recommends that statist approaches be rejected. This argument has its roots in the feminist critique of liberal theories of social justice. In Justice, Gender, and the Family Susan Moller Okin argues that many liberal egalitarian theories of justice are inadequate because they assume a strict division between public and private spheres. I will argue that this inadequacy is replicated in statist approaches to global justice. To demonstrate this, I will show how an analogue of Okin's critique of Rawls's A Theory of Justice can be extended to his The Law of Peoples. I will conclude that statist theories inevitably assume a strong divide between public and private spheres and that by doing so they allow for situations marked by gross injustice which anyone concerned with the welfare of the world's most vulnerable should find unacceptable.     

Marxism and Surrogacy

In this article, 1 argue that the liberal framework—its autonomous individuals with equal rights—allows judges to justify enforcing surrogacy contracts. More importantly, even where judges do not enforce surrogacy contracts, the liberal framework conceals gender and class issues which insure that the surrogate will lose custody of her child. I suggest that Marx's analysis of estranged labor can reveal the class and gender issues which the liberal framework conceals.     

Respect,Religion, and Feminism: Comments on Lori Watson and Christie Hartley,Equal Citizenship and Public Reason: A Feminist Political Liberalism

There is significant disagreement among feminists and liberals about the compatibility between the two doctrines. Political liberalism has come under particular criticism from feminists, who argue that its restricted form of equality is insufficient. In contrast, Lori Watson and Christie Hartley argue that political liberalism can and must be feminist. This article raises three areas of disagreement with Watson and Hartley’s incisive account of feminist political liberalism. First, it argues that an appeal to a comprehensive doctrine can be compatible with respecting others, if that appeal is to the value of equality. Second, it takes issue with Watson and Hartley's defence of religious exemptions to equality law. Third, it argues that political liberalism can be compatible with feminism but that it is not itself adequately feminist. It concludes that political liberalism is not enough for feminists.     

On Equal Citizenship and Public Reason: Reply to Critics

In writing Equal Citizenship and Public Reason, we aimed to show that political liberalism is a feminist liberalism. To that end, we develop and defend a particular understanding of the commitments of political liberalism. Then, we argue that certain laws and policies are needed to protect and secure the interests of persons as free and equal citizens. We focus on the laws and policies that we think are necessary for gender justice. In particular, we apply our view to the contexts of prostitution law, family and marriage law, state support for caregivers, and religious exemptions from generally applicable laws. In this article, we consider some of the challenges made by the thoughtful critics who are part of this symposium. In particular, we address: why the collective enterprise view of liberal democracy requires shared reasons for the justification of certain laws and policies; how we understand substantive equality and why our understanding of substantive equality does not commit us to a comprehensive doctrine; how we avoid defending a particular political conception of justice in showing that political liberalism is a feminist liberalism; and how it is that, given justice pluralism, public reasons can provide stability for the right reasons.     

Liberal Nationalism and Cosmopolitan Justice

Many liberals have argued that a cosmopolitan perspective on global justice follows from the basic liberal principles of justice. Yet, increasingly, it is also said that intrinsic to liberalism is a doctrine of nationalism. This raises a potential problem for the liberal defense of cosmopolitan justice as it is commonly believed that nationalism and cosmopolitanism are conflicting ideals. If this is correct, there appears to be a serious tension within liberal philosophy itself, between its cosmopolitan aspiration on the one hand, and its nationalist agenda on the other. I argue, however, that this alleged conflict between liberal nationalism and cosmopolitan liberalism disappears once we get clear on the scope and goals of cosmopolitan justice and the parameters of liberal nationalism. Liberal nationalism and cosmopolitan global justice, properly understood, are mutually compatible ideals.     

The True Confessions of a White Rawlsian Liberal: An Argument for a Capacities Approach to Democratic Legitimacy

Abstract

This paper takes as its point of departure the constitutional talks in South Africa in the early 1990’s. I suggest that liberal rather than democratic values held a particular attraction to South African political philosophers like me. Taking the example of Rawlsian liberalism, I show how liberalism locates the normative anchors of legitimacy outside the democratic process and is content with a weak interpretation of political equality. As an alternative I sketch a capacities approach to democratic legitimacy drawing on the work of Sen and Nussbaum. In particular I argue that the capacity to participate in democratic practices is what grounds and legitimizes principles of democratic justice agreed to by citizens. I conclude by suggesting that South Africa’s democracy would have been stronger if the state had attended to the capacities of citizens to participate in the democratic process.     

A liberal theory of externalities?

Unlike exploitative exchanges, exchanges featuring externalities have never seemed to pose particular problems to liberal theories of justice. State interference with exchanges featuring externalities seems permissible, like it is for coercive or deceptive exchanges. This is because exchanges featuring negative externalities seem to be clear cases of the two exchanging parties harming a third one via the exchange—and thus of conduct violating the harm principle. This essay aims to put this idea into question. I will argue that exchanges featuring negative externalities are not unjust in this straightforward way, i.e. because they would constitute an instance of wrongfully causing or risking a bodily or material harm. In fact, unless we are subscribing to particularly demanding variants of liberalism—e.g. perfectionist liberalism—or unless we are exclusively focusing on borderline cases of externalities—i.e. of effects of exchanges hardly to be called externalities—there is no liberal theory of how exchanges featuring externalities are unjust.     

Islamic Female Sexuality and Gender in modern feminist interpretation

Sexuality, gender and patriarchy are modern concepts that Western feminist scholars have unquestioningly utilized in their historical inquiry into women in Islam without ample consideration of periodization or problemization. Within the revelation of the Qur'an, the sexes were gendered in relation to each other in a reflection of their physical and biological complementarity. There was not, however, the construction of sexuality and gendering that is evident in the patriarchal society of the modern world. In this essay, I will attempt to trace the historiographical evolution of female sexuality from the time of the Prophet until the Middle Ages, particularly through the development of the female gendered roles of wifehood and motherhood as found in the Qur'an, hadith and fiqh. Additionally, I will argue that until the present these modern constructs have been taken for granted by postmodern scholarship on the topic across many academic disciplines. This has led to scholarship that superimposes modern conceptual frameworks upon earlier time periods. Although these are modern concepts, they may be aptly applied to discourses evident in the period under review, but they must be properly clarified and situated. Furthermore, I myself will work with these concepts, but I will problematize them to show history as a process through which one can find the precursors for modern sexuality and gender construction.     

Gendered personality disposition and gender role attitudes among Israeli students

In a sample of 204 Israeli university students, the author examined the relationship between gendered personality dispositions and 2 aspects of gender role attitudes: occupational sex typing and gender role stereotypes. Evaluations of occupational gender attributes were the least sex typed among participants in the androgynous group. At the same time, contrary to expectations, the participants in the undifferentiated and sex-typed groups had relatively stereotyped perceptions of occupations. However, no relationship was found between gendered personality disposition and stereotyped perceptions of gender roles. Regardless of gendered personality disposition, the women, compared with the men, had more liberal attitudes toward gender roles.     

The Asymmetry Objection Rides Again: On the Nature and Significance of Justificatory Disagreement

Political liberalism offers perhaps the most developed and dominant account of justice and legitimacy in the face of disagreement among citizens. A prominent objection states that the view arbitrarily treats differently disagreement about the good, such as on what makes for a good life, and disagreement about justice. In the presence of reasonable disagreement about the good, political liberals argue that the state must be neutral, but they do not suggest a similar response given reasonable disagreement about what justice requires. A leading political liberal, Jonathan Quong, has recently offered a rebuttal to this asymmetry objection. His reply rests on an innovative distinction between justificatory and foundational disagreement. Quong claims that disagreements about justice in a well ordered society are justificatory while disagreements about the good are foundational, and suggests that this fact blocks the asymmetry objection. We assess Quong's solution and argue that it fails to justify legitimate state action on matters of justice but not the good. We conclude that the asymmetry objection continues to undermine political liberalism.     

Reviewers for Volume 153

Abstract

In a sample of 204 Israeli university students, the author examined the relationship between gendered personality dispositions and 2 aspects of gender role attitudes: occupational sex typing and gender role stereotypes. Evaluations of occupational gender attributes were the least sex typed among participants in the androgynous group. At the same time, contrary to expectations, the participants in the undifferentiated and sex-typed groups had relatively stereotyped perceptions of occupations. However, no relationship was found between gendered personality disposition and stereotyped perceptions of gender roles. Regardless of gendered personality disposition, the women, compared with the men, had more liberal attitudes toward gender roles.     

Substantive Equality and Equal Citizenship1

In Part 1, I argue that Watson and Hartley’s relational feminist political liberal approach – grounded in the idea of equal citizenship – produces a rather elusive liberal feminist agenda (because of its reliance on intuitions) and that it may lose track of the importance of goods whose value stems from the role they play in an individual woman’s or girl’s life rather than from the role they play in securing equal citizenship. I suggest that a distributive principle approach – like that of Susan Okin – might do better on both scores. In Part 2, I argue that Watson and Hartley may have overpromised what the state can and may do. Discussion includes focus on policy questions concerning, for example, prostitution and the gendered division of labor.     

Lived Body vs Gender: Reflections on Social Structure and Subjectivity

Toril Moi has argued that recent deconstructive challenges to the concept of gender and to the viability of the sex/gender distinction have brought feminist and queer theory to a place of increasing theoretical abstraction. She suggests that we should abandon the category of gender once and for all, because it is founded on a nature–culture distinction and it tends incorrigibly to essentialize women's lives. Moi argues that feminist and queer theories should replace the concept of gender with a concept of the lived body derived from existential phenomenology. In this essay I take up and develop this suggestion, and argue that there are several advantages that a category of the lived body has over a category of gender for feminist and queer theories: (1) no nature–culture distinction is necessary but the body can be described as historically and socially specific; (2) it is not necessary to break out a gendered and "raced" part of identity with this category; (3) differences of sexual desire can be described without recourse to an "inner core" of identity or "sexual orientation." I go on to argue, however, that it is important to retain a concept of gender for a theoretical purpose beyond that which Moi and those she criticizes conceive. In recent years feminist and queer theories have tended to conceive their theorizing as restricted to identity and subjectivity. How large scale social structures differentially position people in relations of privilege and disadvantage has been ignored, relatively. This essay argues then that theorizing structural processes and inequalities is crucial, and that a concept of gender is important for such theorizing. I propose three aspects of gendered social structure that are irreducible to one another: (1) a sexual division of labor (2) normative heterosexuality, and (3) hierarchies of power. In each case I illustrate the social theoretical work these categorizations of gendered structure can and should do.     

The Dilemma Faced by Chinese Feminists

In this essay I argue that in any country, the realization of sexual equality requires a certain level of economic development. I support this general theme by examining a particular case—a dilemma faced by Chinese feminists today. I intend to show that in a developing country such as China, where heavy physical labor is still in great demand in daily life and productive activity, full sexual equality cannot be a reality.     

The place of the unconscious in critiques of systematic prejudice: Lessons from MacKinnon and Critical Race Theory

In this paper, I argue that so called “systematic critiques” of the liberal conception of law in Catherine MacKinnon and Critical Race Theory which have traditionally been seen to reject liberalism should really be understood as subjecting the liberal conception of law as impartial and just to an immanent critique. Critical Race Theory and MacKinnon both seek to unmask the seemingly neutral subject which authorizes law as in reality a hegemonic and oppressive subject. They also employ the tools of liberalism, demanding justice and equal protection under the law. I argue that the apparent contradiction of their demands can be understood by seeing the subject itself as combining these contradictions at the level of the relation between the unconscious and consciousness. The ego strives for rational self-organization while the unconscious contains sedimented socially transmitted prejudice. There is thus room within both for the struggle for freedom and justice espoused by liberalism at the conscious level as well as for the unconscious perpetuation of prejudice and domination. I conclude that MacKinnon’s work and that of CRT show that liberalism must not be abandoned as post-structuralism does, but that liberals is in fact aided by its critics.     

Feminists, Islamists, and Political Change in Turkey

This paper examines how some feminist and Islamist women in Turkey helped bring about change in political values during the past decade. The traditional political culture upheld statist, corporatist (as opposed to liberal, individualist) norms. The state controlled religion in the name of secularism and limited democracy within the confines of formal equality. Both feminists and Islamists contested traditional political values by insisting on their own definition of their interests, as opposed to those that were state-enforced. The feminists questioned the justice of formal equality as they sought substantive equality; Islamist women challenged the secular concept of equality as they insisted on the justice of male-female complementarity. Both groups engaged in active politics and expanded the parameters of democratic participation as they sought substantive equality beyond formal equality. Yet the patriarchal heritage of Islam defined the limits of Islamist women's search for liberation within the confines of religion.     

Exploring tradeoffs in accommodating moral diversity

This paper explores the space of possibilities for public justification in morally diverse communities. Moral diversity is far more consequential than is typically appreciated, and as a result, we need to think more carefully about how our standard tools function in such environments. I argue that because of this diversity, public justification can (and should) be divorced from any claim of determinateness. Instead, we should focus our attention on procedures—in particular, what Rawls called cases of pure procedural justice. I use a modified form of the procedure “I cut, you choose” to demonstrate how perspectival diversity can make what looks like a simple procedure quite complex in practice. I use this to reframe disputes between classical liberal and contemporary liberal approaches to questions of public morality, arguing that classically liberal procedures, such as a reliance on the harm principle, can generate rather illiberal-looking outcomes when used in a morally diverse community. A seemingly less-principled approach, which simply balances burdens, appears to generate outcomes that look closer to what we would expect from classical liberalism. However, since both approaches are based on pure procedures that we can justify without reference to outcomes, it remains indeterminate which we ought to choose.     

Cohen’s Rescue

G. A. Cohen’s Rescuing Justice and Equality proposes that both concepts need rescuing from the work of John Rawls. Especially, it is concerned with Rawls’ famous second principle of justice according to which social primary goods should be distributed equally unless an unequal distribution is to the benefit of the worst off. The question is why this would ever be necessary if all parties are just. Cohen and I agree that Rawls cannot really justify inequalities on the basis given. But he also thinks equality is the correct analysis of justice, though he provides no actual direct arguments for this. He does, however, provide a striking analytical argument claiming that fundamental principles of justice must be fact insensitive, and that Rawls’s view of justice violates this requirement. I argue that the requirement is itself misconceived and that principles of justice cannot possibly be fact insensitive in the sense developed by Cohen. Few philosophers share this view of Cohen’s—which I argue is due to several conceptual mistakes. With these ironed out, the contractarian view, broadly speaking, is seen to be plausible and powerful. Meanwhile Cohen appears to embrace intuitionism, a stance that cannot possibly be acceptable in social philosophy. In the end, Cohen is successful in arguing that Rawls cannot have what he wants, but neither is Cohen successful in claiming that justice is equality.     

The Place of Self‐Respect in a Theory of Justice

This essay provides a critical examination of Rawls' (and Rawlsians') conception of self‐respect, the social bases of self‐respect, and the normative justification of equality in the social bases of self‐respect. I defend a rival account of these notions and the normative ideals at stake in political liberalism and a theory of social justice.

I make the following arguments: (1) I argue that it is unreasonable to take self‐respect to be a primary social good, as Rawls and his interpreters characterize it; (2) secondly, drawing on a distinction made by Darwall, I argue that recognition respect provides a far more suitable notion of respect for a theory of justice than Rawls' notion of appraisal respect; (3) thirdly, I argue that Rawls' treatment of self‐respect and the social bases of self‐respect as empirical conceptions should be rejected in favor of normative notions of a reasonable or justified self‐respect and equality in reasonable social bases of self‐respect; (4) I argue that Rawls' notions of political liberalism and public reason provide a way of grounding a notion of the reasonable social bases of self‐respect in political ideals of the person implicit in modern economic institutions, and family relations, ignored by Rawlsians—but as central to reasonable social bases of self‐respect and justice, as Rawlsians' ideal of persons as free and equal citizens.     

THE CONFLICTING LOYALTIES OF STATISM AND GLOBALISM: CAN GLOBAL DEMOCRACY RESOLVE THE LIBERAL CONUNDRUM?

Abstract: The cosmopolitan ideal of liberal universalism seems to be at odds with liberalism's insistence on national borders for liberal democratic communities, creating disparate standards of distributive justice for insiders and outsiders. The liberal's dilemma on the question of cosmopolitan justice would seem to be an extension of this broader conundrum of conflicting loyalties of statism and globalism. The challenge for liberalism, then, seems to be to show how the practices of exclusive membership embody the principle of moral equality. While discerning a variety of liberal reasons to give some scope to the claim that statism and globalism need not be an irreconcilable dilemma within liberalism, the essay argues that these reasons fail to provide a satisfactory resolution. Instead, the essay points out, global democracy can be the direction for both a statist and a cosmopolitan liberal, and the two camps a case not of conflicting loyalties but of multiple loyalties.