Political Liberalism and Feminism

Political Liberalism and the Feminist Agenda
Wrendolf C. Juntilla

Teang did not complain, but the bearing of children tolled on her. She was shapeless and thin even if she was young. There was interminable work that kept her tied up. Cooking, laundering. The house. The children. She cried sometimes, wishing she had not married. She did not tell Dodong this, not wishing him to dislike her. Yet, she wished she had not married.

…Life did not fulfill all of Youth’s dreams. Why must be so? Why one was forsaken… after love?

-          Jose Garcia Villa, Footnote to Youth (1933)

The mullahs say: “When they will die we shall bury them.”

Villagers say, “Whenever they want, they go. They do not cover their heads. They talk with men. They will be sinners.”

I said: “If Allah does not see us when we stay hungry then Allah has sinned.”

-          A Bangladeshi wife, participant in a literacy and skills program sponsored by the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (cited in M. Nussbaum, Sex and Social Justice, p. 81)

Introduction  

Amidst the popularity that feminism is gaining among many contemporary thinkers, the status of feminism as a distinct philosophical school of thought is still being challenged.* One of the prevailing notions is that feminism is simply a branch of humanism that is specifically focused on and for women. On my part, I would consider it unsafe to assume that feminism is simply a branch of humanism. Others may share this view if they carefully reflect on the implications of the claim that ‘what is good for humanity is also good for women’. Although we can say that this is very probably the case, since a woman is also a human being, nonetheless we still have to look into the account of the good that is envisioned for humanity. It might be that this vision is a vision of man for humanity, and may therefore fail to reflect the vision of woman for humanity, for women and for herself. That this is the case can be attested by the fact that we do not only have Existentialism, Marxism, Liberalism, and Postmodernism. We also have Existential Feminism, Marxist Feminism, Liberal Feminism, and Post-Modern Feminism (Jaggar 1983; Tong 2009). To think that feminism is simply a subset of those –isms is to make an assumption that may be too heavy to carry (Cf. Tong 2009, 1).

Nevertheless, we do not have to abandon this assumption and exaggerate the difference between feminism and other humanist schools of thought. Even if we grant that feminism and humanism have different agendas, we cannot assume that those agendas are incommensurable. Just as people with different interests can agree on something without abandoning their interests, so can humanists and feminists agree, say, on the same political mechanism, even if they have different goals in mind. We can say that the reason for the possibility of this agreement may not be due to the neutrality or multi-purpose nature of the procedure or mechanism, but because of the coherence of the goals themselves. This paper plays on this assumption.

However, for the purpose of our discussion we still have to maintain the distinction between feminism and other humanist schools of thought, even though we also recognize that within feminism there are many various strands. Doing this is not to make the assumption that feminism is a distinctly unique school of thought incompatible with humanism. It is only that bracketing feminism from other schools of thought will enable us to refer to feminism without necessarily having to refer to a specific humanist school of thought. Thus, for instance, if we want to find a connection between liberalism and feminism and make occasional use of the term ‘feminism’ we are not necessarily thinking only of liberal feminism. “Feminism,” as we use it here, has a very broad sense.

It is in this broad usage of the term that I may vindicate myself for using the term “feminist agenda”. By feminist agenda, I refer to the “goal of eradicating the subordination of women”. Of course, as Kymlicka quoting Alison Jaggar has noted, feminists have different accounts of this subordination, but they nevertheless share the same goal which is the eradication of this subordination (Kymlicka 2002, 377).

My definite use of the term feminist agenda makes me presuppose that in one way or another, it is different (but not incoherent with) the goals of other humanist philosophical schools of thought. With this consideration in mind, I aim to show how the feminist agenda – the goal of eradicating the subordination of women – can be achieved within the framework of John Rawls’s political and moral theory.

My reason for considering Rawls’s theory has much to do with the events that are unfolding in our world today. The ubiquity of globalization has lead to the phenomenon of multiculturalism (Kymlicka 1995, 1). Although even from the distant past people are already divided into different cultures and religions, this diversity has not been dramatically felt than it is today, with the existence of our modern democratic society (Rawls 1993, xvi).

While the effect of cultural diversity is greatly felt, recent political events in our history calls for a reassessment of the value of democratic ideals in national and international contexts. We have the present disputes between countries like Russia and Ukraine, China and the Philippines, Indonesia, Japan and Taiwan. We also witnessed civil unrests in various Arab countries such as Egypt and Tunisia. We cannot offer a single overarching solution to these problems. Whatever solution we can think about, it has to take into account the merit or demerit of each conflicting interest. This calls for a democratic solution.

It is for this reason that the goal of establishing of a well-ordered democratic society situated against the background of pluralism has drawn so much interest from contemporary political theorists like John Rawls. While the slogan “Unity in Diversity” which expresses this goal is very catchy, we also have to take into account its implications on the struggle of women against subordination. The said goal presents to us a picture of cultural or religious toleration, of the exercise of freedom of conscience. However, as feminists would argue, most cases of subordination of women are not in the public political domain but in the private, cultural and religious domains. Toleration of the peaceful existence of these domains may possibly entail toleration also of the subordination of women in these domains. How would we conceive of a democratic society tolerant of diversity without being blind to the plight of women against subordination and domination? Rawls seems to offer us an attractive answer. It is in this context that this paper wishes to convey its significance.

In what follows, I shall be discussing Rawls’s political liberalism which I will be dividing into two parts: his liberalism and his political liberalism. There is a reason why we make this distinction. This is to orient the reader that there has been a shift of paradigm within Rawls’s theory – a shift from a comprehensive to a political conception of justice, from liberalism to a more “realistic” political liberalism. Rawls repeatedly insists that there is really no substantial shift in his conception of justice (Rawls 1985; 1993, 1999a; 2001). As will be shown later, this shift from liberalism to a more specified political liberalism has had effect as to how feminists regard his works. Integrated into the discussion of Rawls’s liberalism and political liberalism are arguments about how his theory promotes the feminist agenda. Ultimately, I shall argue that despite feminist criticisms against Rawls, his theory remains to be the most preferable account of liberal political theory that feminists can espouse in the context of a democratic and multicultural society.

Rawls’s Liberalism

The name that Rawls ascribed to his political and moral theory is “Justice as Fairness” (Rawls 1958; 1999, 10). Obviously, as the name suggests, Rawls theory is a theory of justice. And, it is a political and moral theory because it aims to specify a moral conception (of justice) within a democratic political regime. That is why Rawls limits the subject of his theory of justice to that of the basic structure of society (1999a, 6). But why should Rawls focus on justice? Why did he not consider a theory of good or right? He says that

Justice is the first virtue of social institutions, as truth is of systems of thought. A theory however elegant and economical must be rejected or revised if untrue: likewise laws and institutions no matter how efficient and well-arranged must be rejected or abolished if they are unjust (Rawls 1999a, 3).

On this regard, Rawls then considers justice as that which should be our starting point in assessing and restructuring the basic structure of society. Clearly, for Rawls, the legitimacy and stability of a political regime rests on the notion of justice.

Interestingly, we cannot find in any of Rawls’s work an explicit definition of justice. Perhaps one of the main reasons is that he tries to do away with any metaphysical conception of justice (Cf. Rawls 1995). Instead of a definition, Rawls appeals to our “considered judgment”, our intuitive idea of what justice entails. Belonging to this idea is the notion of moral dignity and inviolability of persons (Rawls 1999a, 3). He seems to agree on the idea that we do not need grandiose theories in order to justify and explain why do we believe that persons are “ends in themselves”.

Rawls’s concern is not just justice is general but specifically social justice – that is, justice in a democratic constitutional regime (1999a, xi). If justice as a universal concept involves an intuitive idea of human dignity and inviolability, social justice involves an “overarching fundamental intuitive idea…of society as a fair system of cooperation between free and equal persons” (Rawls 1985, 230).

Noting on these fundamental ideas will enable us to understand Rawls’s vehement rejection of utilitarianism, his use of the social contract, and his formulation of the two principles that constitute justice as fairness.

Before the first publication of Rawls’s A Theory of Justice in 1971, what used to be the most natural way of conceiving social justice is that of utilitarianism (Rawls 1999a, 20-21). As free individuals realizing our respective interests, we usually balance our gains against our losses and are ready to make some sacrifice if it produces a greater advantage on us. For example, I can sacrifice my need for sleep for the greater advantage of passing my academic subjects. If we relate that to society, this conception would entail that the interests of some people can be sacrificed if it produces a greater advantage for the greater number of people in society as a whole. The point, however, is that society is not, as Hobbes would like to conceive it, a Leviathan, a huge single individual of which people are only constitutive parts. In fact, it is not even a collection of people, but a system of cooperation between people. In other words, seeing two or more people does not make a society, seeing a cooperation between two or more people does. Therefore, for Rawls, even if the utilitarian principle works for a single individual, it cannot work in society (1999a, 24).

What is interesting is that some of those who espouse utilitarianism are also liberals like Rawls such as John Stuart Mill whom Rawls has given the merit of including the discussion justice within the family in his liberalism. Thus, we see a version of liberalism that is utilitarian.

Like all liberals, utilitarian liberals also flag the ideals of equal rights and opportunity. We see this in how Mill advocated for equal rights and opportunity to be given to women enjoyed gratuitously only by men in his time (Tong 2009, 17-21). The liberal notion based on which utilitarians like Locke and Mill conceptualized their ideas of social contact and state of nature is the idea that people, before binding themselves in contract and thereby creating a civil society, are on equal footing.

Insofar as Rawls is concerned, this view is incorrect. It will lead us into a flawed conclusion that whatever inequalities that exist after this contract are results of people equally realizing their own potentialities by the use of their freedom.  It is flawed because it does not take into account that people’s entering into society by virtue of their birth situates them into different circumstances arising not because of their freedom but of their historical givenness – their stakes in the “natural lottery”. What was not taken into account is that these circumstances put people into an asymmetrical relationship. Worst is that this asymmetrical relationship puts constraints as to what extent can people may enjoy their rights. For instance, if two people, one is poor while the other is rich, are given the same right of education, it is very probable that only the rich may actually enjoy the exercise of this right.

Arguably, the utilitarian assumption of equality leads us into the following direction: Since people are equal, then we cannot claim that someone’s interest deserves more merit than another’s. Perceiving that in a democratic society, it is impossible to please everyone, the only way to settle disputes between conflicting interests is to use the majority rule: what is moral or just is that which promotes the interest of the many – a distinctively utilitarian principle. Even if we grant that what counts as a legitimate interest is that which does not undermine other people’s rights, still to settle conflict between these legitimate interests boils down into the use of the majority rule, thereby allowing the minority to be the usual victims. Consider this example: Members of a minority group claims their right to self-determination and to their ancestral domain. This is a legitimate interest, so is also the interest of the rest of the population to protect territorial integrity of the State. If we use the utilitarian principle, then members of this minority group has to forever abandon their hope of winning themselves and their land.

Surely, this cannot be the kind of liberalism that feminists can patronize. It is because in a patriarchal society like ours, where most of those who are in power in polity, religion, and family are men*, even if women are not the minority, the determination of whose interest counts depends to some extent by the relations of power in society. Those who are less powerful cannot expect so much for their interests. So if we follow the utilitarian principle, even if we give women the same set of rights enjoyed by men, insofar as the basic structure is not arranged so as to afford them real equality with men, then their interests can be easily neglected.

This is where Rawls’s theory finds it immense significance. It is because it does not only guarantee equal basic liberties for all, it also guarantees that all people can have the real chance to appropriate these basic liberties according to their respective pursuit of the good life. The flaw in utilitarian liberalism is that it fails to take into account the actual asymmetry of people in terms of their socio-economic and physical endowments by which they can be able to enjoy to the fullest possible extent their basic liberties. Rawls corrects this flaw by devising a procedure by which people may be able to design or reform the basic structure that guarantees not only the entitlement of basic liberties but also addresses the problem of inequality. This would require, first of all, the determination of principles (principles of justice) which will be the bases in working out the solution to this problem.

Consequently, Rawls gives us the following principles (Rawls 1985, 227; 1999a, 53, 266):

First: each person is to have an equal right to the most extensive scheme of equal basic liberties compatible with a similar scheme of liberties for all.

Second: Social and economic inequalities are to be arranged to that they are both (a) reasonable expected to be to everyone’s advantage, and (b) attached to positions and offices open to all under conditions of fair equality of opportunity.

Rawls calls the first principle as the Liberty Principle, while the second he calls the Difference Principle. The purpose of the first principle is obvious: it ensures the entitlement of liberties. The purpose of the second principle is to address the problem of equality by arranging inequalities in the possession of social goods such as power, income, and wealth. These inequalities are just if it fulfils the criteria set by Rawls: it is for everyone’s advantage and that all people can have access to these social goods.

These principles follow a lexical order (Rawls 1999a, 27). The first principle has to be satisfied first, and it cannot be compromised for the sake of fulfilling the second principle. This is to ensure that no liberty of one is sacrificed for the sake of other’s enjoyment of social goods.

Most important in this theory is the notion of fair equality of opportunity. Arguably, it can have two elements: negative and positive. Negative equality of opportunity means allowing people access to social goods without discrimination on the basis of morally irrelevant factors such as skin color, gender, or cultural membership. Example of this is the equal opportunity to run for public office. Positive equality means not only allowing people access to social goods but also giving people means by which they can access these social goods. Examples of this is the State funding for public education from elementary to tertiary level, government housing projects for victims of natural and man-made calamities, employment preference for a member of a cultural minority who passes all the qualifications, and many others.

The basic idea here is that the State should not only give its citizens their entitlement of basic liberties, but it should also give its citizens empowerment by which they can all enjoy, through the use of their freedom, various social goods they think are necessary in their pursuit of the good life.

The details as to how these principles can be worked out in the determination of constitutional essentials and institutional arrangements are not our focused here. What is important is to emphasize the basic ideas under which Rawls conceives the principles of his liberal theory. Many criticisms were made against the reasonableness of these principles. For instance, H.L.A. Hart questions Rawls’s rational basis for giving priority to liberty over other social values (Hart 1975, 230-52). Another criticism made by Norman Daniels is on the potential difficulty of incoherence between the two principles when, for instance, giving people equal opportunity would violate other people’s liberties (Daniels 1975, 253-80). But these criticisms do not undermine the idea that in a society governed by the rule of law and maintained by its institutions, the State does not only have the duty to give people entitlement to their freedom, but also the means by which they can exercise their freedom in their struggle to avail various social goods they think necessary in their pursuit of the good life. Whether this goal requires redistribution of economic resources or rearranging the social relations of power is something that has to be determined by taking all relevant factors into account: the principles we follow and the actual complexities of our historical situation – the task that is set for the liberal politician.

This idea is something that undoubtedly promotes the welfare of women. Given the feminist premise that many women are subordinated and dominated, Rawls’s principles of justice, especially the difference principle, can help us devise a mechanism whereby we can address this problem using affirmative action. For instance, if we have a society wherein most parents do not prefer investing for the education of their daughters than of their sons, then Rawls’s principles of justice justify, say, giving these daughters who are victims of gender bias State scholarship grants. Of course, working out this solution is more complex than is presented here. Nevertheless, it does provide us insights as to how to address inequalities that disfavor women. Consider this real example: In the Philippine society, the Congress has just passed a law which addresses the problem regarding reproductive health,  of which most victims are women. We call this law Reproductive Health Law or RH Law*. Although most beneficiaries of this law are women, we do not think that it is unfair on the part of men. It is because it is women who usually have reproductive health issues. This kind of preferential treatment is provided for by Rawls’s principles of justice because it seeks to address a problem which arises from an already unfair circumstance that women are put into by virtue of their biological setup.

Nevertheless, feminists had been attacking Rawls’s justice as fairness from a different angle. We discuss some of these criticisms briefly.

In our discussion of Rawls’s theory, we did not include his argument for his two principles of justice. The feminist criticisms that we are referring to attack not really his two principles of justice but his argument for these principles in that accordingly, it shows his male theoretical bias. I shall argue that even if these criticisms are strong, they still do not undermine Rawls’s principles of justice. My reason is because these principles do not only find their legitimacy in Rawls argument for them, but on fundamental ideas which we can all agree.

The argument that Rawls used to support his principles of justice is derived from the idea of the social contract. It is for this reason that he claims that his moral theory belonged to the social contract tradition (Rawls 1993, xv). The purpose of Rawls’s using the social contact rests on the intuitive idea that “society is a fair system of cooperation between free and equal persons” (Rawls 1985, 230). Since this is the case, the laws and social institutions which form the basic structure of society must be created or designed based on principles which everyone would reasonably accept as free and equal. We cannot allow that the determination of these principles is influenced by people’s interest in their knowledge of their place in the natural lottery. Thus, the determination of these principles has to be made in the context of what Rawls calls the “original position”, a situation wherein people do not conceive of themselves yet as possessing some features like social class, gender or religious membership, so as to prevent the presence of bias in the selection of principles.

Among the essential features of this situation is that no one knows his place in society, his class position or social status, nor does anyone know his fortune in the distribution of natural assets and abilities, his intelligence, strength, and the like. I shall even assume that the parties do not know their conceptions of the good or their special psychological propensities. The principles of justice are chosen behind a veil of ignorance (my emphasis). This ensures that no one is advantaged or disadvantaged in the choice of principles by the outcome of natural chance or the contingency of social circumstances. (Rawls 1999, 11)

Given this situation, the parties would reasonably choose those principles which maximizes their advantage and minimizes the risk in whatever circumstance they would end up with once the veil is pulled down. This is called as the maximin strategy (Kymlicka 2002, 66). If we were to determine which distributive scheme is most preferable among the following, given that we do not know how much we can receive once we choose that scheme:

a)                  10, 14, 3

b)                  11, 12, 5

c)                  7,  8, 7

using the maximin strategy, we would reasonably choose (c). Thus, in the original position, parties would select principles that increase the chance of advantage and minimize the rate of risk. Rawls two principles are exactly these principles (Rawls 1999a, 19).

Many feminists raise criticisms against this argument. Most of these criticisms are reactions against Rawls’s apparent male bias. We shall discuss at least two of them.

The first of these criticisms is raised by Alison Jaggar in her book Feminist Politics and Human Nature (1983). It is about Rawls’s assumption that human beings are basically egoistic and self-centered, “a metaphysical assumption of abstract individualism” (Jaggar 1983, 31). In Rawls description of the original position, he assumes that the parties in that position are only thinking about themselves and of the promotion of their interest. Consequently, Rawls devalues women’s moral perspective of self-giving care evident in child-rearing and domestic labor which is done mostly by women (Jaggar 1983, 189).

In response to this criticism, we have to take note that Rawls’s use of this argument is not meant to give any metaphysical conception of society or of the person. He uses this argument in order to highlight a very important idea that people who design the system of cooperation are equal (Kymlicka 2002, 63-4).  Moreover, it does not follow that since Rawls is defensive against bias of self-interest, he is already committed to the assumption that people are self-interested. In fact, as Martha Nussbaum has noted, the point of the original position and veil of ignorance is for people to put themselves in the shoes of others in the selection of the principles of justice (Nussbaum 2003, 493). In the original position, people will have to take into account the possible situations where they might end up with. They must see themselves situated into everyone else’s possible situation. Thus, the parties are not necessarily self-centered.

Nevertheless, this criticism has merit if we try to take into account Rawls’s appeal to the maximin strategy. Indeed, we can see this strategy as self-regarding. Even if there is a truth to this claim, we can still view the maximin strategy as other-regarding. In choosing the principles of justice, the parties do not only choose for themselves but also for everyone else. Thus, in adopting the maximin strategy one does not only minimizes his or her risk, he or she minimizes also the risk of everyone else.

The second criticism which is somewhat related to the first was posed by Bernard Williams. Williams, as quoted by Nussbaum, challenges Rawls’s assumption that the stability and legitimacy of the basic structure has to depend on principles instead of sentiments (Nussbaum 2003, 497). What does this mean? Suppose you and I are friends, and we made a promise to each other that when one is in trouble, the other is there to help. From one perspective, we can say that what binds me to you is the promise we have made to each other. From Williams’ perspective, this cannot be the case. In truth, what binds me to you and to the ‘contract’ I made with you is our friendship. We see here two perspectives on legitimacy and stability: one is based on principles (the promise) and the other, based on sentiments (friendship). Apparently, Rawls account of legitimacy and stability of the basic structure is principle-dependent. Arguably, emphasis on principles precludes the flourishing of sentiments that makes society a human community.

However, we must note that we cannot reduce social cooperation to that with two friends making a promise to each other. One reason is that we cannot assume that in a human society, each is a friend of everyone else or that each has a positive sentiment towards everyone else. We can say that Rawls supports his conception of justice using an argument that can be put into the context of a worst case scenario: people simply do not care for each other and all they care about are their own interests. Even then, Rawls is able to show that these selfish people can agree on something that takes everyone’s interests into account. But as I have said, this is just a worst case scenario. Imagine how successful choosing principles can be if people really have genuine concern for each other. What this tells us basically is that Rawls’s emphasis on principles does not preclude the positive role of sentiments in our selection of the principles of justice. But Rawls insists that reliance on reasonable principles which everyone can accept is important, especially because a human society is not a heaven, and people are not angels.

We can observe that what is common in these two criticisms is a reaction against Rawls’s male bias of moral perspective through which he draws his insights on social justice. It can be argued that if Rawls would have been a woman, perhaps there can be changes in his account of the original position, on the strategy to be used in the original position, and even in the formulation of the principles themselves. His theory of justice would have been a theory of care (Cf. Kymlicka 2002, 398-420).

Nevertheless, as what I have already pointed out earlier, these criticisms do not really undermine Rawls’s fundamental idea in his conception of justice. In fact, we may even claim that the principles of justice that Rawls has formulated can be viewed from a perspective of care, which we can say is more womanly. Regardless of which perspective to take, Rawls’s conception of justice remains to be of great merit. To think that since it fails to capture the perspective of women therefore flawed is to miss the point that Rawls wishes to convey: the creation of just (or caring?) political regime. To think also that Rawls’s theory does not promote the feminist agenda just because his conception of justice is not womanly is beside the point. As I have argued, Rawls’s principles of justice including his account of the original position can be seen from a feminine perspective without necessarily having to change the point of that conception. Thus, we can defend the claim that Rawls’s liberalism, even if we grant that it has a lot of male biases, can still be purged of these biases without altering its point which, as I indicated previously, is the promotion of entitlement and empowerment. We conclude this section by noting that Rawls’s theory of justice, be it seen from whichever perspective (masculine or feminine), promotes the welfare of men and women alike.

Rawls’s Political Liberalism

As years advance after the publication of A Theory of Justice in 1971, Rawls has become more sensitive to the practical implications of his theory, specially if he wants it worked out in the context of a multicultural democracy. He recognizes that liberal values are not the only values that people value. Rawls sensitivity to this reality has allowed him to make some revisions in his original account of a stable democratic society. Arguably, this makes Rawls’s liberalism preferable even more than his original account of justice as fairness in Theory. In Theory he writes as if liberal values are all that matters for a constitutional democracy.

The aims of Theory (still to paraphrase) were to generalize and carry to a higher order of abstraction the traditional doctrine of the social contract. I wanted to show that this doctrine was not open to the more obvious objections often thought fatal to it. I hoped to work out more clearly that chief structural features of this conception – which I called “justice as fairness” – and to develop it as an alternative systematic account of justice that is superior to utilitarianism. I thought this alternative conception was, of the traditional moral conceptions, the best (my emphasis) approximation to our considered convictions of justice and constituted the most appropriate basis for the institutions of a democratic society. (Rawls 1993, xv)

But he was wrong for one fundamental reason:

A modern democratic society is characterized not simply by a pluralism of comprehensive religious, philosophical, and moral doctrines, but a pluralism of incompatible yet reasonable comprehensive doctrines. No one of these doctrines is affirmed by citizens generally…The fact of a plurality of reasonable but incompatible comprehensive doctrines – the fact of reasonable pluralism – shows that as used in Theory, the idea of a well-ordered society of justice as fairness is unrealistic (my emphasis). This is because it is inconsistent with realizing its own principles under the best foreseeable conditions. (1993, xvi-vii)

Realizing that his account of justice as fairness in Theory is just one of the many reasonable comprehensive doctrines that are not affirmed by everyone, Rawls’s problem then is how to work out a conception of justice in democratic regime that takes into account the reality of pluralism. Specifically, he wants to know

How is it possible that there may exist over time a stable and just society of free and equal citizens profoundly divided by reasonable though incompatible religious, philosophical, and moral doctrines? Put another way: How is it possible that deeply opposed though reasonable comprehensive doctrines may live together and affirm the political conception of a constitutional regime? (1993, xviii)

Since justice as fairness springs from a specific moral and political tradition, specifically the social contract tradition, its reasons are founded within that tradition. Since there are many moral and political traditions of which the social contract is one, proposing justice as fairness as the “most appropriate basis for the institutions of a democratic society” would entail wanting people to embrace a particular tradition. However, this is “unrealistic” given that people do have their own moral conception flowing from their respective moral traditions. If Rawls is to pursue justice as fairness as the most consistent conception of justice in our modern democratic society, then he would have to prove that the plausibility of his conception of justice is not dependent on the tradition from which it first emerged or on any tradition. In other words, he must show that justice as fairness is “freestanding” (Hittiger 1194; Rawls 1993, 12-13). This means that justice as fairness, as he conceives it, is not a comprehensive but a political conception of justice (Rawls 1985, 224; 1993, xvii; 2001, 187).

For Rawls, this does not really pose a difficulty. The argument which he used to support the two principles of justice as well as the basic intuitive ideas of society as a fair system of cooperation are sufficient to show that justice as fairness is not a comprehensive doctrine, and the reasons that support it are not comprehensive either, but are public, hence political. What really is political and what constitutes a public reason is not really clear as it is mentioned here. We shall clarify these later as soon we are able to understand the distinction between comprehensive liberalism and political liberalism.

A comprehensive liberalism does not admit that other doctrines that do not espouse liberal ideas are reasonable. Because of this, comprehensive liberalism denies that these doctrines can be bases for a conception of justice that should apply to the basic structure of a democratic society. Moreover, comprehensive liberalism tends to impose liberal ideas. This was somewhat the tone of justice as fairness as it was presented by Rawls in 1971.

Political liberalism, on the contrary, recognizes that there are comprehensive doctrines which are maybe illiberal but are nonetheless reasonable. For instance, we can conceive of a comprehensive doctrine of the Catholic Church about the sanctity of marriage. It is illiberal in that it espouses a belief that people who are married are forever bound to that marriage through their whole life. But just because it downplays choice and put premium on the value of commitment does not mean that this doctrine is unreasonable. It is reasonable, only that it is illiberal. In addition, political liberalism also refuses to impose liberal values to people, because it recognizes that people have different ways of life and a liberal way is just one of them. Finally, even if political liberalism does not impose liberal ideas, it nevertheless strongly recommends that a democratic regime should be governed by liberal principles. This is not for the reason that liberal values are the highest values of human life, but because these values are “all-purpose means” by which people can pursue the goods they regard as valuable for achieving a good life. Thus for political liberals, it is not for the State to determine for the people what good life consists of but to give to people the all-purpose means – freedom, rights, opportunity and bases of self-respect – by which they can pursue the kind of life they desire to live.

Eventually, this would entail a toleration of the existence of various comprehensive doctrines within a democratic regime. However, there is a limitation to this toleration, as we shall see later.

Realizing that there is a pluralism of comprehensive views, what confronts Rawls is the problem of how to achieve a stable and well-ordered society by which people, despite of their different and even conflicting comprehensive views, still affirm the same set of principles that determine the constitutional essentials and the basic structure of society. One is maybe inclined to think that the solution to this problem is some kind of a modus vivendi. For Rawls, this solution is not simply a modus vivendi, for in modus vivendi people are pushed to agree on something because not doing so would be harmful to themselves. The kind of agreement that Rawls envisions is something that people willingly accept, and they accept it not only because it promotes their own interest, but that it promotes everyone’s interest.

To achieve this, what should count as reasonable reasons to support a conception of justice is that it is a public reason. He says that a “citizen engages in public reason…when he or she deliberates within a framework of what he or she sincerely regards as the most reasonable political conception of justice, a conception that expresses political values that others, as free and equal citizens might also reasonably be expected reasonably to endorse” (1999b, 140). Central to this idea is the criterion of reciprocity. The criterion of reciprocity requires that when those terms are proposed as the most reasonable terms of fair cooperation, those proposing them must also think it at  least reasonable for others to accept them, as free and equal citizens, and not as dominated or manipulated, or under the pressure of an inferior political or social position (1999b, 136-7).

The criterion of reciprocity is normally violated whenever basic liberties are denied. For what reasons can both satisfy the criterion of reciprocity and justify denying to some persons religious liberty, holding others as slaves, imposing a property qualification on the right to vote, or denying the right of suffrage to women? (Rawls I999b, 138)

 Here we already have an idea of what constitutes a political conception of justice – that it is reciprocally acceptable to people even if they may hold different comprehensive doctrines. Reciprocity here does not simply mean being able to agree on something despite our supporting it with different reasons. Reciprocity means having a regard to the other as a person who is an equal. Thus, using the criterion of reciprocity, we do not just agree on something because it promotes our interest. We agree on something because it promotes each other’s interests.

Notice that regarding the other’s interest is different from determining for the other what should be his or her interest. The former is political, while the other comprehensive. There can be a case that while agreeing on something for reasons peculiar to us we also simultaneously regard the other’s interest. For instance, we agree on freedom of conscience because as persons with religion, we believe that God gives us the right to practice our faith in him. Hence, we agree on something based on our own comprehensive reason. While this is the case, we also agree on freedom of conscience because we do recognize that it does not only promote our interest but it also promotes everyone’s interest. In this case, we agree on something based on political reason. There is then a presence of complementarity between political and comprehensive reasons. This is Rawls’s ideal of an overlapping consensus (Rawls 1985, 226; 1993, 95, 144; 1999b, 172; 2001, 184).

Now it is clear that Rawls’s conception of political agreement – the overlapping concensus – is not a modus vivendi. In modus vivendi both parties agree on something because it promotes their own interest without regarding the interest of others. In overlapping consensus, on the contrary,  we agree on something not only because it promotes our own interest but also because we regard all the others’ interests.

Thus, comprehensive doctrines need not conflict with political reasons. Comprehensive doctrines incompatible with political public reason, i.e. those doctrines that when practiced do violate other people’s basic liberties, are regarded as unreasonable. Nonetheless, comprehensive doctrines do not count as public reason and therefore cannot be the bases for a political conception of justice. They can support a political conception of justice but they should not be the bases. This is to ensure that no comprehensive doctrines are imposed on other people. Although this may seem offensive especially to those who are intimately connected to their own comprehensive doctrines, considering only political reasons in the talk of constitutional essentials including legislation and the basic structure of society relieves us of the anxiety of hopelessly imposing our beliefs on other people while at the same time, it enables us to look positively for a just political regime wherein all citizens affirm the same principles that govern their political life.

One problem that confronts us is that “Should the principles of justices apply to the other aspects of our lives which do not involve the basic structure of society, and are thus non-political?” For instance, should the political conception of justice apply to our relationship with our parents or siblings or with our friends? How about in our culture or religion, should the principles of justice apply in them too?

Rawls maintains that one of the distinctive features of the political conception of justice is that it only applies to the basic political and social institutions (Rawls 1999b, 143). Although it is not clear how much of people’s lives are involved in the basic structure, we nevertheless have to recognize that there are indeed aspects of our lives that are non-political, i.e. outside the scope of the State. Our lives within our family, our culture or religion can be examples of these aspects. We do not ask the State what kind of clothing to wear, what dialect to use or whom to marry. We do not appeal on the right of suffrage in the selection of our religious leaders. These are examples of the parts of our lives that are non-political but social. As social, our actions in this realm affect other people, and hence are subject to moral constraints. But should they also be subject to political constraints? Can the State determine the terms of friendship, rearing of children or practice of religion? Surely, this cannot be allowed for it would entail impinging on our freedom.

It is clear that Rawls’s limiting the subject of justice to that of the basic structure commits him to a liberalism that does not allow the use of the coercive power of the State to the non-political aspects of people’s lives. However, this is quite problematic in that injustices can loom in the non-political realm – in family, culture or religion. This also poses a problem as to how to eradicate the subordination of women which, as many feminists would construe, occurs mostly in this non-political aspects of people’s lives.

Political liberalism, as the name suggests, only allows the application of liberal principles to political matters. In the previous section, I argued that these liberal principles promote the feminist agenda. But the problem is, if liberal principles are limited to political matters, then to what extent can these liberal principles be invoked to eradicate the subordination and domination of women? In other words, how much of women’s subordination is political?

The core of this problem lies in our unclear distinction between political and non-political – the traditional distinction between the public and private sphere of human existence. If there is some religion which allows men to divorce their wives but not vice versa, is this not a political matter? If some culture discourages women to acquire college education or expects women to do all the household chores, is this not a political matter also? There are no easy answers to these questions, but they are important issues on women that confront our modern democratic society.

These questions reflect Susan Okin’s criticism against political liberalism, to which we now turn.

Although Okin recognizes that Rawls’s theory is potential for feminist insight, she basically sees the problem internal in Rawls’s theory in excluding the discussion of family justice as part of the issues of justice in a democratic regime that have to be solved (Okin, 1994, 23). She throws this criticism by noting how Rawls tries to indicate that “the political is distinct from the associational which is voluntary in ways that the political is not; it is also distinct from the personal and the familial, which are affectional, in ways that the political is not (Rawls 1993, 137). However, as Okin suggests, this distinction stands on water for, say, if some families practice traditional hierarchical gender structure in matters of family decision and distribution of burdens and benefits, this non-political practice surely conflicts with democratic principles. But the relations between and among parents and offspring are said to be “affectional”, so such practice is outside the scope of democratic social justice. This makes the family “a linchpin of gender-structure” (Okin 1989, 14).

Although Rawls repeatedly insists that the family is part of the basic structure since the basic structure “includes institutions needed to reproduce society over time” (Rawls 1999b, 157; 2001, 162-7), Okin claims that this confuses things more. “How can families be both part of the basic structure and not political?” (Okin 1994, 26). How do principles of justice apply to the family and still affirm its autonomy from the State?

Rawls responds to this criticism by specifying that the principles of political justice are to apply directly to this (family) structure, but are not to apply directly to the internal life of the many associations within it (Rawls 1999b, 157). What does he mean? He means that political principles do not tell how people within the family should treat each other,

...but they do impose essential constraints on the family as an institution and so guarantee the basic rights and liberties, and the freedom and opportunities, of all its members. This they do…by specifying the basic rights of equal citizens who are the members of families. The family as part of the basic structure cannot violate these freedoms. Since wives are equally citizens with their husbands, they have all the same basic rights, liberties, and opportunities as their husbands; and this, together with the correct application of the other principles of justice, suffices to secure their equality and independence. (Rawls 1999b, 159)

In other words, the State does not tell families how they should govern their internal life, but it gives constraints as to what they cannot violate in their internal life, and that is the basic rights of citizens themselves be they men, women, or children.

This can give us insights as to how deal with injustices within the family. “If a basic, if not the main, cause of women's inequality is their greater share in the bearing, nurturing, and caring for children in the traditional division of labor within the family, steps need to be taken either to equalize their share, or to compensate them for it. How best to do this in particular historical conditions is not for political philosophy to decide.” (Rawls 1999b, 168)    

Protecting the internal life of the citizens from the coercive power of the State, says Nussbaum (2003, 506), brings Rawls “to recognize what are, in effect, group rights: the right of families protection against state action”. Similar to this idea is Will Kymlicka’s appropriation of the principles of political liberalism in advancing the claims for group rights for minority cultures (Kymlicka 1995). Giving minority cultures special rights are important for the protection of the existence of these cultures from its being subsumed into the majority culture (Kymlicka 1999). For example, this can take a form of granting rights for ancestral domain, allowing the use of vernacular language in academic institutions populated by minorities, allowing tribal members to settle disputes among them through their own justice system, and the like. However, as Kymlicka emphasizes, group rights has to be compatible with individual rights (1995, 168). A cultural or religious practice that violates the individual rights of its members as citizens cannot be tolerated by a democratic State. Thus, for instance, a husband beating his wife just because his culture allows it, or a practice of stoning to death of women caught in adultery on the basis of religious doctrine, cannot be tolerated.

What this tells us is that ultimately, the basis for group rights is, in fact, individual rights. There should be freedom of religion or toleration of some cultural practices not because religions or cultures are political institutions or that their doctrines political values, but because people as individuals have the right to practice their faith and specific ways of life. Thus, it is individual freedom that justifies cultural preservation and religious toleration. It is important, therefore, that people’s cultural and religious practices are voluntary. Cultural or religious leaders cannot impose these practices by coercing their members to the extent that violates their individual freedom. So if a cultural community condemns homosexuality, such community cannot coerce its homosexual members by depriving them of some social goods like employment, inheritance, or educational opportunity that are the basic rights of all citizens of the State.

Okin fears that cultural or religious toleration would perpetuate gender inequality (Okin 1999). But as we have seen, giving group-specific rights to citizens does not really conflict with democratic principles insofar as these rights are based on the basic individual rights of autonomy and freedom of conscience. In this case, nothing has really changed. Liberal principles still apply equally to all people regardless of their cultural or religious membership. They apply to them not because they are members of their culture or religion but precisely because they are citizens.

But I believe something important is not taken into account here. We readily assume that practices of faith and ways of life are voluntary, hence compatible with individual freedom. However, the term voluntary is ambiguous and can be abusive. For instance, even if I know that I have the right to practice or not practice my religion, it does not follow that I am actually free to practice or not to practice it. Most of us find ourselves already situated within a particular religious or cultural community. In some sense, we did not choose to be in this situation. Nevertheless, our religious or cultural membership has become constitutive of our identity as individuals that some of us cannot imagine themselves apart from these identities. If my culture or religion has doctrines that conflict with my own views, Rawls says that I have the right to exit from my culture or religion. Yes, I can, but am I willing to take the risk? For instance, if one is a homosexual and her religion condemns homosexuality, will she be willing to exit from her religion? I doubt that most people can take this risk.

The point is, no matter how entitled we are of our basic rights, we cannot alter the fact that our cultural or religious membership provides constraints to our exercise of individual freedom. These constraints, as Okin notes, are informal in that they are embedded in our internal life, the sphere wherein the State cannot invade (Okin 1999, 22). A wife has to fulfill her role set by her culture or religion, and most of these roles are gendered. Between her and her husband, it is her who is most expected to attend to all domestic demands. While the husband also has his role to fulfill, but by virtue of the hierarchical gendered structure that makes him more powerful than his wife, he can refuse to fulfill the demands of his culture on him without being battered or violated by his wife. It most cases, this does not happen vice versa. The State may give the wife the right to divorce her husband, but would she want to? Granted that embedded in her cultural/religious identity are constraints of gendered roles that her culture/religion expects her to fulfill and granted that she cannot imagine herself apart from this identity, can the State really give her the freedom she needed to free herself from the clutches of this kind domination? I know of a woman who frequently experiences verbal abuse from her husband but would not want to file a case against him because of her ‘commitment’ to their marriage. To think that this is not a kind of domination is really to be blind to the struggles of our women. However, as Prof. Maboloc rightfully suggests, domination of this kind cannot be simply eradicated using the coercive power of the State.

This calls for a more holistic approach in dealing with issues of injustices especially on the subordination and domination of women which are said to be perpetuated within culture, religion and family. To some extent, this provides us limits to how we can use political mechanisms in eradicating this problem. But there is no better way to do it than recognizing first of all that all of us do not think the same way and live the same way. Rawls is right that all we can hope for is not the imposition of liberal ideas but an overlapping consensus wherein all of us can affirm and adhere to the same political conception of justice despite our differences.

We end this section by noting that, at the outset, feminism and political liberalism can teach something to each other. What feminism can teach to political liberalism is to get more serious with what Okin (1989, 8) calls “hidden” injustices in the home, culture and religion. In turn, what political liberalism can teach to feminism is to be more sensitive to the practical implications of its serious commitment to end all forms of subordination and domination of women in our pluralistic, modern, democratic society.

Conclusion

The passages quoted before the introduction convey the issue that keeps feminists from totally embracing Rawls’s political and moral theory. The first passage was taken from Jose Garcia Villa’s short story, Footnote to Youth (1933), which describes Teang’s miserable condition after marrying Dodong. Dodong was a loving husband, but his love did not free Teang from the bondage of childrearing and domestic labor. Dodong did not create this bondage; it was the culture that set it for them.  The second passage was taken from Martha Nussbaum’s award-winning book Sex and Social Justice (1999). It describes an experience of a Bangladeshi wife who was condemned by their religious leaders (mullahs) and the majority of her religious community for breaking the religious law which prohibits women from working outside the home. Despite the constraint of her religion, the paralysis of her husband has forced her to work outside the home in order to feed her children.

In this paper, I have tried to grapple with the problem of how the feminist agenda fits into Rawls’s political liberalism, and vice versa. In the section on Rawls’s liberalism, I have argued that Rawls’s justice as fairness provides useful insights about how to deal with the subordination of women especially that of all people in a patriarchal society, women are mostly the disadvantaged. Rawls' principles of justice, especially the difference principle, provides for a political mechanism of affirmative action to address these inequalities without violating citizens’ basic liberties. In the second section, I have discussed Rawls’s political liberalism. I have indicated that Rawls’s political liberalism is the most preferable kind of liberalism because it takes into account the practical implication of establishing a well-ordered democratic society characterized by pluralism. I have also discussed the problem that arose from political liberalism’s limiting the application of the principles of justice to the political sphere. This leads me to the discussion of Okin’s criticisms whose concern is the subordination and domination of women in the non-political, private sphere. I have shown that the emphasis on the political sphere does not really pose serious problems especially in dealing with violations of human rights that occur within family, culture, or religion. It is because political liberalism is committed to upholding the principles of justice to protect the basic rights of citizens qua citizens, regardless of cultural or religious membership. However, I have also pointed out the difficulty of dealing with the ‘hidden’ kind of domination of women embedded in their internal life within the family, culture, or religion. I have tried to show that this kind of domination is difficult to address using the coercive power of the State because this calls for a higher kind of ‘freedom’ which no government can ever give.

Despite all the criticisms posed against political liberalism, it remains feminism’s closest sibling in the family of humanist schools of thought. The kind of domination we indicated above is not an impassable aporia. The kind of freedom that can dispel this domination cannot be given wholesale. We can only facilitate its growth. Political liberalism’s vision of a just and well-ordered pluralistic democratic society sets the seedbed for this nurturance. We hope that with this freedom grows also a sense of justice and responsibility, through which people will no longer have to choose between faith and autonomy, culture and individuality, family and freedom. Giving people real opportunity to actualize their potentials, no matter how difficult their conditions may be, can always bring us to hope that sooner or later, no longer will any woman have to bear an unreasonable suffering that Teang, that Bangladeshi wife, and countless women around the world have all borne.

References

Daniels, Norman. 1975. “Equal Liberty and Unequal Worth of Liberty.” In Reading Rawls: Critical Studies on Rawls’ Theory of Justice, edited by Norman Daniels. New York: Basic Books.

Hart, H. L. A. 1975. “Rawls on Liberty and Priority.” In Reading Rawls: Critical Studies on Rawls’ Theory of Justice, edited by Norman Daniels. New York: Basic Books.

Hittiger, Russell. 1994. “John Rawls, Political Liberalism”. The Review of Metaphysics 47, no. 3 (March): 585-602.

Jaggar, Alison M. 1983. Feminist Politics and Human Nature. USA: The Harvester Press.

Kymlicka, Will. 1995. Multicultural Citizenship: A Liberal Theory of Minority Rights. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Kymlicka, Will. 1999. “Liberal Complacencies” In Susan Moller Okin, Is Multiculturalism Bad for Women?. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press.

Kymlicka, Will. 2002. Contemporary Political Philosophy: An Introduction, 2nd Edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Nussbaum, Martha. 1999. “The Feminist Critique of Liberalism” in Sex and Social Justice. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 55-80.

Nussbaum, Martha. 2003. “Rawls and Feminism” in The Cambridge Companion to Rawls, edited by Samuel Freeman. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 488-520.

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Okin, Susan Moller. 1994. “Political Liberalism, Justice, and Gender.” Ethics 105, no. 1 (October): 23-43.

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Rawls, John. 1958. “Justice as Fairness.” The Philosophical Review 67, no. 2 (April): 164-194.

Rawls, John. 1985. “Justice as Fairness: Political not Metaphysical.” Philosophy & Public Affairs 14, no. 3 (Summer): 223-251.

Rawls, John. 1993. Political Liberalism. New York: Columbia University Press.

Rawls, John. 1999a. A Theory of Justice revised edition. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Rawls, John. 1999b. “The Idea of Public Reason Revisited” in The Law of Peoples. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.

Rawls, John. 2001. Justice as Fairness: A Reinstatement. Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.

Tong, Rosemarie, Feminist Thought: A More Comprehensive Introduction (3rd edition) (USA: Westview Press, 2009)

“Lecture Notes in Socio-Political Philosophy”, under Prof. Christopher Ryan Maboloc. Summer, SY 2013-2014.

“Lecture Notes in Feminism”, under Prof. Ian Parcon. Summer, SY 2013-2014.

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* At least to some extent this is true among us in our class discussion on the subject under Prof. Ian Clark Parcon. Our class is seemingly divided into those who believe that feminism is a philosophical school of thought or at least that its claims are distinctively philosophical and those who believe that feminism is simply a political or literary movement or that its fundamental claims are subsumable into humanism and is therefore not unique. Fr. Dexter Veloso, for instance, challenged feminism’s philosophical status in its distinctiveness from other philosophical traditions. Duane Allyson Gravador, however, noted that even the mainstream ideal of what counts as philosophy is male-biased.

* This is a qualified statement. It may not be true to all societies, as least to the highly developed societies in the First World.

* Movements against the RH Law, however, are not yet seceding. Currently, it has been subjected by the Supreme Court to a temporary restraining order. In my use of this example, I do not intend to promote the RH Law or to veto it. What I only want to show is that a legislation like the RH Law, given that its purpose is for the welfare of women, is not unjust insofar as Rawls’s theory is concerned. If given that the real intention of RH Law is for pharmaceutical companies to get rich, I would not give RH Law as an example.