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A Kantian Critique of the Care Tradition: Family Law and Systemic Justice

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 June 2012

Helga Varden
Helga Varden*
Affiliation:
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
*
Email: hvarden@illinois.edu
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Abstract

Liberal theories of justice have been rightly criticized for two things by care theorists. First, they have failed to deal with private care relations’ inherent (inter)dependency, asymmetry and particularity. Second, they have been shown unable properly to address the asymmetry and dependency constitutive of care workers’ and care-receivers’ systemic conditions. I apply Kant’s theory of right to show that current care theories unfortunately reproduce similar problems because they also argue on the assumption that good care requires only virtuous private individuals. Giving up this assumption enables us to solve the problems regarding both private care relations and systemic injustice.

Keywords

Kant’s doctrine of rightprivate rightpublic rightcare relations
Type
Articles
Information
Kantian Review , Volume 17 , Issue 2 , 08 June 2012 , pp. 327 - 356
Copyright
Copyright © Kantian Review 2012

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