How to include the severely disabled in a contractarian theory of justice

Journal of Political Philosophy

Volumn 15, Issue 2, 2007, Pages 127-145

  Stark, Cynthia A ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF UTAH   (United States)

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[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 34249058333     PISSN: 09638016     EISSN: 14679760     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9760.2005.00257.x     Document Type: Article

References (19)

1. Thanks to the Tanner Humanities Center for a fellowship during which I completed this article and to audiences at the University of British Columbia, Occidental College, University of California at Irvine, University of Utah, Georgia State University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for very helpful feedback on versions or parts of this paper. Also, I owe a special thanks to the Law and Philosophy Discussion Group of Southern California for allowing me to join them for a year and present my work. I received invaluable help from many of its members. For detailed comments on earlier versions of this essay, I am deeply indebted to Andrew Altman, Chrisoula Andreou, John Christman, Vince Cheng, Catherine Galko, Steve Gardiner, Aaron James, Robert Johnson, Bruce Landesman, Elijah Millgram and Peter Murphy.
2. Eva Kittay, Love's Labor: Essays on Women, Equality and Dependency (New York: Routledge, 1999). See also Martha Nussbaum, "Rawls and feminism," The Cambridge Companion to Rawls, ed. Samuel Freeman (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), pp. 488-520 at pp. 511-14; Frontiers of Justice: Disability, Nationality, Species Membership, ch. 2 (Tanner Lectures in Human Values, originally presented at Australian National University, Canberra, November 12-14, 2000); and "The future of feminist liberalism," Varieties of Feminist Liberalism, ed. Amy R. Baehr (Totowa, N.J.: Rowman and Littlefield, 2004), pp. 103-32. See also Andrews Reath, "Comments on Martha Nussbaum's 'Justice for the mentally disabled,' " paper presented at the Pacific APA convention, March 2003.
3. " Constructing justice Philosophy and Public Affairs, 20 (1991 264 79 Buchanan Justice as reciprocity versus subject-centered justice Philosophy and Public Affairs, 19 (1990 227 52 Brighouse Can justice as fairness accommodate the disabled Social Theory and Practice, 27 (2001 537 60 Hypothetical consent and justification Journal of Philosophy, 97 (2000 313 34.
4. Rawls, Political Liberalism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993), p. 20 (hereafter "PL"). See also, John Rawls, "Kantian constructivism in moral theory," Collected Papers, ed. Samuel Freeman (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1999), pp. 303-58 at p. 332 (hereafter "CP"). Rawls has been consistent on this matter after the publication of the original edition of A Theory of Justice (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1971) (hereafter "TJ"). See A Theory of Justice, revised edition (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999), pp. 83-4 (henceforth "TJ, revised"); "A Kantian conception of equality," CP, pp. 254-66 at p. 259; "Justice as fairness: political not metaphysical," CP, pp. 388-410 at p. 398; and PL, p. 272, n.10 and p. 183.
5. Rawls, PL, p. 18, my emphasis.
6. The idea of the person for the purpose of e.g. assigning moral rights to life, care, respect and so on may be quite different from the idea of the person for the purpose of assigning the rights and responsibilities of citizenship. Rawls's ideal of the person is designed only for this latter purpose.
7. Rawls, PL, p. 302.
8. Ibid., p. 183.
9. John Rawls, Justice as Fairness: A Restatement, ed. Erin Kelly (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2001), p. 176, n. 59 (hereafter "JF"). Unfortunately Rawls's does not tell us whether these are duties of justice.
10. This is especially clear in his discussion of healthcare in JF, pp. 173-5.
11. Stephen R. Smith Distorted ideals: the 'problem of dependency' and the mythology of independent living Social Theory and Practice, 27 (2001 579 98 Waldron John Rawls and the social minimum Journal of Applied Philosophy, 3 (1986 21 33.
12. JF, pp. 173-4. I take it that healthcare does not count as a basic need, as it is treated separately by Rawls.
13. PL, p. 225.
14. The idea of a constitutional essential is discussed in PL, pp. 227-30.
15. TJ, p. 285. See, JF, p. 173 for discussion of how the difference principle limits how much can be provided for normal healthcare. See also, TJ, pp. 277-8 for discussion of how the difference principle limits how much can be provided to meet the needs of fully cooperating citizens.
16. JF, p. 173.
17. Kenneth J. Arrow Some ordinalist-utilitarian notes on Rawls's theory of justice Journal of Philosophy, 70 (1973 245 63
18. Gauthier David Hume, contractarian Philosophical Review, 88 (1979 3 38.
19. PL, p. 20.