Okin's Missing Lens
Susan Okin creates a gendered critique of Rawls’s Justice as Fairness. While she does uphold its value as a thought experiment, she argues that the premises cannot permit justice if he fails to consider that society is upheld by gender constructs. Rawls views justice through a political, economic, and social lens. Through the social lens, he does consider family.
Rawls does mention “family” in Justice as fairness, but only in three ways - all three of which Okin argues ignore the “internal justice of the family.” Rawls maintains that the family is an important social institution. Okin points out that “Apart from being briefly mentioned as the link between generations necessary for Rawls’s just savings principle, and as an obstacle to fair equality of opportunity, the family appears in Rawl’s theory in only one context:...as the earliest school of moral development” (97). Okin critiques Rawls’s consideration of family as he does not “...consider whether the family “in some form” is a just institution but to assume it” (94). In Justice as Fairness, Rawls views family as having a critical role in moral development - parents can shape a child’s understanding of the world and people’s relations to one another, creating empathy and a moral understanding.
However, Okin finds fault in assuming that the family structure within a society is just in the first place. One cannot look at family as a just institution if it is not. Historically, family has been upheld by gender positions and expectations, especially ones of unpaid labor. Inequality of gender in society is rooted in beliefs about gender at the family level. Okin points out this dynamic by the relationship between the “... customary unequal assignment of responsibilities and privileges to the two sexes” with its “...socialization of children into sex roles,” which then create the current institution that perpetuates sex inequality (103). Rawls’s two principles of justice thus fail. The difference principle of just distribution ignores the distribution of roles that are a result of a gendered society. The first principle of equality also fails here, as a family cannot be just if it has historically been based on the dependence and domination of women.
Okin also criticizes the standards of the original position as well. The original position is the framework of the thought experiment Rawls devices to ensure that the principles of justice reached by individuals are done in a fair way. However, given that the “general facts about society” can be known, Okin argues that the gender system in society cannot be left out of the equation. By knowing these facts about society, Rawls may only focus on population size, natural resources, etc., and ignore gender constructs. Moreover, Okin argues that socialization, and thus gendered socialization, does affect the way we think psychologically. Rawls understands that individuals may have varying degrees of ethical differences, but if our differences in viewing the world are so drastic due to gender, the thought experiment cannot be done in an equal way. Okin argues that women have a “distinct standpoint,” one that “...cannot be adequately taken into account by male philosophers” (106).
However, I take contention with her argument that just gender may affect the way we view the world (or at least be the most important consideration). She argues that class and racial structures may not shape individual thinking about justice as much as gender does (107). However, after reading Taiwo’s view of the world as a result of the Global Racial Empire, I would be highly cautious in completely eradicating other lenses to view the world through. This does not negate the importance of the influence of gender in society but asks us to consider the experiences of other individuals as well.
Rawls’s two principles of justice also fail racially, as the accumulation of just distribution across different races throughout history is currently not equally reflected. Moreover, his first principle of equal rights also fails. Gender systems have created distinct gender roles that cannot be ignored, but we also live in a world created by the Global Racial Empire. This might also be a “general fact about society” needed to be considered in the original position that Okin ignores.
I understand that Okin’s perspective is focused more on a feminist critique of Rawls’s writings, but a feminist critique must encompass the lived experiences of all women. These experiences cannot necessarily be grouped together into one. While I do not mean to negate the importance of Okin’s criticism, I would argue that she should also consider the other injustices that Rawls does not highlight in Justice as Fairness.
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ReplyDeleteHi Aara,
ReplyDeleteThis is a great addition to Okin's critical gender lens in examining Justice as Fairness. I would like to consider her suggestion of amendments to the original position and how they can be applied to race. Okin's solution to the problems posed to the original position by the existence of a distinct "standpoint of women" is "that women take the place in the dialogue in approximately equal numbers and in positions of comparable influence," (107). Essentially, the differences in moral reasoning between genders means that no one person or group of people of the same gender can conduct the original position experiment adequately. The reasoning they would attribute to the genderless parties in the original position would really be their own gendered moral reasoning. Therefore, they need representatives of the opposite gender in order to think through the principles that would truly result from the original position. Okin suggests some of them.
Can we apply the same logic to race? Does the existence of a "standpoint" of blackness and/or indigenousness, which you suggest here, warrant the same modification to original position reasoning? If so, I think it would mean we have to derive principles from the original position in dialogue with a racially as well as a gender representative group, not just in dialogue with Rawls as we read him.
This seems reasonable to me. I think Rawls would worry that it opens something of a Pandora's box of various identities and differences that we would need to account for in our original position reasoning, eventually causing us to do effectively do away with the veil of ignorance and substituting the unanimity of the original position for a negotiated settlement between identity groups. I think this can be countered, however, with a historical/empirical argument focusing on the special role of race and gender in structuring the institutions that Rawls himself recognizes as shaping moral reasoning. Okin alludes to this argument regarding gender, other critical theorists have made it masterfully regarding race. I think this is a good solution to the lack of acknowledgement of race that you highlight here. In a way, it does to Okin what Okin does to Rawls, using the same essential reasoning but incorporating a complication that the author ignores.
Hi Aara and George, great conversation you guys have started here. I just wanted to jump in and posit a Rawlsian defense that may address some of the issues you guys and Okin raise. As we discussed last time, taking into account specific details of specific issues defeats the purpose of the original position, which is to establish our baseline conception of justice. Knowing one's gender could lead to, as George points out, an opening of a Pandora's box of special interests and biases. However, not knowing one's gender may also prove advantageous with respect to the issue of gender and equal justice. Not knowing one's gender may allow representatives in the original position to establish guidelines for justice that include provisions specifying the equality of men and women in all facets, thus preventing the creation of a society that historically favors men when it comes to the professional domains, and women when it comes to the domestic domains. By setting out a society that values all talents irrespective of gender, the original position can nullify the rise of predetermined gender roles that pigeonhole either gender.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I do recognize that the inherent idealism of this means that it ultimately fails to practically address Okin's concerns. A larger question to ponder may be the extent to which the private sphere of life, including family life, should be regulated by principles of justice, or political institutions at all. As Kat pointed out in her blog post, there is clearly a boundary between what outside actors (by which I mean any individual outside the family in question) are able to mandate for a family and what they are unable to mandate. Clearly, some degree of state involvement is necessary to prevent domestic violence, child neglect and other such extreme issues that manifest in families. How far should that involvement reach, though? How far is too far, even in the name of promoting greater equality and justice?