Non-gendered implication of Rawls' non-regulated family structure - Kat Lanzalotto

 Yesterday in the tutorial, we discussed children’s opportunities as a potential area that Rawls’ theory cannot regulate. In this post, I want to consider and think through that claim and pair it with Okin’s discussion of how Theory of Justice utilizes and leaves families (specifically children) unprotected. 

Okin presents a strong argument that Rawls does not consider “the internal justice of the family” in his conception of basic institutions which satisfy the principles of justice. Okin notes that the family is only really mentioned in three contexts:

1. The savings principle, which links generations of the family regarding obligations to future generations to save/preserve
2. The family appears as a barrier to fair equality of opportunity (the inequalities between a Gates family member and part of a low-income family in Texas)
3. Using the family as an initial tool of moral development

Okin thinks the last context is where Rawls explicitly considers the family “as a just institution” (Okin 94). Okin criticizes this choice, asserting that Rawls assumes the family is just rather than considering if it, “in some form” is (Okin 94). 

Okin describes that because heads of household are used to represent people in the original position, they cannot decide justice within the family unit. Since there is no internal regulation for justice in families, Okin notes “Rawls makes an argument from paternalism for their [children] temporary inequality and restricted liberty” (Okin 94). While the implications of this lack of child freedom are limited in benevolent households, they can have drastic consequences when families are abusive or neglectful. 

In Part 3 of TJ, Rawls described a traditional family with many gendered characteristics. An important aspect of his description was the view of parents as moral teachers and family members as possessing certain rights and duties. Okin writes, “the family’s role as a moral teacher is achieved partly through parental expectations of the ‘virtues of a good son or a good daughter” (Okin 96). 

I want to, considering Okin’s critique of Rawls, analyze the less gendered impacts of Rawls not regulating justice in the family unit. Fundamental to the theory of justice is the idea that all reasonable people have different conceptions of the good, their own comprehensive doctrines (this concept comes more from Rawls’ Political Liberty). Since there is no internal regulation in families, Rawls’ theory can allow for certain family units with a sense of the good we will likely fundamentally disagree with impacting their children’s lives and opportunities. 

Consider a ten-year-old child whose parents are conservative and religious; the only education they find important or okay for their child to receive is from their faith’s holy book or doctrine. Early on in life, these parents discovered that their kid was very smart and with a proper education, could go on to, as Rawls encourages in his theory, “educate their endowments and use them for the general good” (Rawls Brefier 55). In fact, maybe with proper education, this genius kid could help find ways to maximize advantage for the worse off more than in previous just distributional schemes. Nonetheless, the child’s parents prevent them from achieving such feats and can do so when the family and children are unregulated by Rawls’ principle of justice for societal institutions. 

Even if Rawls would object to this example with some concept of mandatory education for children, as guaranteed by the equal basic liberties clause of the principles of justice, I will once again call attention to the problem (which albeit is slightly diminished by Rawls’ description in the four stages model) when basic liberties clash without any process to weigh opposing claims. Suppose a society mandates education but the religious convictions of a family causes them to dispute this claim. In that case, the right to education seems to conflict with the right to religious freedom. This has happened before in America, like with the case Wisconsin v. Yoder in which the SCOTUS found it a violation of the first amendment to punish parents who keep their children out of school for religious reasons. And, if Rawls could come up with a solution to the butting of basic rights in this scenario, the impact of a family’ conception of the good can have incredible mental effects on the smart child. Even if you are brilliant and can recognize such, if, outside of school time, the people you spend the most time with, political and socially socialize from, etc are hating on education and its legitimacy, I find it hard to believe that you will not in some ways become averse to education that does not align with your parents’ ideas of the good. 

While Okin presented a more gendered criticism of Rawls based on the family, I think her points on the deficiencies of Rawls in regulating justice in the family have non-gendered implications.