Feminist Interpretations of John Rawls

Ruth Abbey

• Publisher: Penn State University Press
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9780271061795
• eBook ISBN: 9780271063133
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Feminist Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

In Feminist Interpretations of John Rawls, Ruth Abbey collects eight essays responding to the work of John Rawls from a feminist perspective. An impressive introduction by the editor provides a chronological overview of English-language feminist engagements with Rawls from his Theory of Justice onward. Abbey surveys the range of issues canvassed by feminist readers of Rawls, as well as critics' wide disagreement about the value of Rawls's corpus for feminist purposes. The eight essays that follow testify to the continuing ambivalence among feminist readers of Rawls. From the perspectives of political theory and moral, social, and political philosophy, the contributors address particular aspects of Rawls's work and apply it to a variety of worldly practices relating to gender inequality and the family, to the construction of disability, to justice in everyday relationships, and to human rights on an international level. The overall effect is to give a sense of the broad spectrum of possible feminist critical responses to Rawls, ranging from rejection to adoption.

Aside from the editor, the contributors are Amy R. Baehr, Eileen Hunt Botting, Elizabeth Brake, Clare Chambers, Nancy J. Hirschmann, Anthony Simon Laden, Janice Richardson, and Lisa H. Schwartzman.

Table of contents

• COVER Front
• Series Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• Preface Notes
• List of Abbreviations
• Introduction: Biography of a Bibliography: Three Decades of Feminist Response to Rawls (Ruth Abbey)
• Notes to Introduction
• Chapter 1: Radical Liberals, Reasonable Feminists: Reason, Power, and Objectivity in MacKinnon and Rawls (Anthony Simon Laden)
• Notes to Chapter 1
• Chapter 2: Feminism, Method, and Rawlsian Abstraction (Lisa H. Schwartzman)
• Notes to Chapter 2
• Chapter 3: Rereading Rawls on Self-Respect: Feminism, Family Law, and the Social Bases of Self-Respect (Elizabeth Brake)
• Notes to Chapter 3
• Chapter 4: “The Family as a Basic Institution: ”A Feminist Analysis of the Basic Structure as Subject (Clare Chambers)
• Notes to Chapter 4
• Chapter 5: Rawls, Freedom, and Disability: A Feminist Rereading (Nancy J. Hirschmann)
• Chapter 6: Rawls on International Justice (Eileen Hunt Botting)
• Notes to Chapter 6
• Chapter 7: Jean Hampton’s Reworking of Rawls: Is “Feminist Contractarianism” Useful for Feminism? (Janice Richardson)
• Notes to Chapter 7
• Chapter 8: Liberal Feminism: Comprehensive and Political (Amy R. Baehr)
• Notes to Chapter 8
• References
• List of Contributors
• Index
• COVER Back