9.a.1. Kittay’s critique of Rawls

 

 

 

book

Readings for this lecture:

Kittay, “The Benefits and Burdens of Social Cooperation” from Love’s Labor

 

 

 

In this chapter of her book, Love’s Labor, Eva Kittay suggests ways to modify Rawls’s theory so that it can address issues of justice related to dependency and care. She argues that Rawls—and mainstream political philosophy in general—has tended to ignore or underemphasize the importance of the interdependency of human beings and our resulting need to receive and give care (where care work, whether paid or unpaid, involves physical and emotional labour). In other words, it is almost as if Rawls is offering a conception of justice that would be appropriate for a world that contains only working age adults without illness or disability. This assumes that a “normal” human being is an independent being—physically and emotionally. Kittay argues that dependency is a key fact about the human condition.
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The need to depend on someone else to provide care is obvious among infants and children. It is common among the elderly. It can be caused temporarily by illness or injury, or permanently by certain disabilities. Further, no one is—or ought to try to be—emotionally self-sufficient. Mental health requires emotional interdependence of some sort, supporting and being supported by family, friends, partners, and drawing on the help of professionals as needed.

Every human has dependency needs during their lifetime. Moreover, if right now you don’t have dependency needs (i.e., you don’t require care from someone else), you nonetheless, right now and always, are vulnerable. You are vulnerable in two ways.

First, because human bodies and minds are fragile, everyone is always at risk of injury or illness that may create temporary or permanent dependency needs. Second, because everyone is vulnerable in the first sense, and because each person is connected to other people, everyone (or perhaps almost everyone) may, in the next moment, find themselves needing to provide care for someone in their life who has acquired physical and/or emotional dependency needs from injury or illness. Earlier in the book Kittay writes that “the independent individual is always a fictive creation of those men sufficiently privileged to shift the concern for dependence onto others” (Kittay 1999, 17).

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Is Kittay’s worry that Rawls ignores dependency well-founded? I think it is. Let us look briefly at some of Rawls’s remarks about raising children, and about disability.

Rawls writes,

“Reproductive labour is socially necessary labour. Accepting this, essential to the role of the family is the arrangement in a reasonable and effective way of raising and caring for children, ensuring their moral development and education into the wider culture. … [N]o particular form of the family (monogamous, heterosexual, or otherwise) is so far required by a political conception of justice so long as it is arranged to fulfill these tasks and does not run afoul of other political values.” (Rawls 2001, 162-163)

So, he acknowledges that doing care work, whether paid or unpaid, counts as a contribution to society and to the system of social cooperation. He is open to various forms of the family. Does his theory say anything about justice related to the division of care work in 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 to either equalize their share or compensate them for it. How best to do this in particular historical conditions is not for political philosophy to decide. But a now common proposal is that as a norm or guideline, the law should count a wife’s work in raising children (when she bears that burden as is still common) as entitling her to an equal share in the income her husband earns during their marriage.” (Rawls 2001, 167)

We see here that Rawls acknowledges (in large part in response to feminist critique of his earlier work) that the gendered division of care work raises questions of justice. His recommendation is that either care work should be shared equally within each family or, if it is unequal, should be fairly compensated by giving each spouse an equal right over the family’s total income (as well as total assets). As we examine the details of Kittay’s view, ask yourself in what ways she calls for more than what Rawls recommends here.

With regard to illness and injury that have temporary effects, Rawls defends universal health care. The goal of such health care, he says, is to enable people to return to work after temporarily being unable to for health reasons. Is this enough?

Universal health care does a lot to meet people’s dependency needs in such situations, but there is also often care work done by family members. Child care is not the only form of care work that tends to be divided unequally along gender lines. It is important to acknowledge this and consider what implications it has for justice.

With regard to disabilities, Rawls takes a different approach. He brackets the question. In building his theory of justice, he explicitly assumes that everyone has physical and mental abilities “within the normal range”. He “put[s] aside the more extreme cases of persons with such grave disabilities that they can never be normal contributing members of social cooperation” (Rawls 2001, 179). To explain why he does this, he writes that

“Justice as fairness is presented mainly as an attempt to get a clear and uncluttered view of what in the tradition of democratic political thought has been the fundamental question of political philosophy, namely, what principles of justice are most appropriate to specify the fair terms of cooperation when society is viewed as a system of cooperation between citizens regarded as free and equal person, and as normal and fully cooperating members of society over a complete life….” (Rawls 2001, 176 note 59)

In other words, Rawls’s position is that questions related to disability and justice are not central questions of justice. His approach is to, first, develop a theory that ignores disability, and then seek to extend the theory later to address issues of justice related to disabilities.

“The more extreme cases I have not considered, but this is not to deny their importance. I take it as obvious, and accepted by common sense, that we have a duty towards all human beings, however severely handicapped. … At some point, then, we must see whether justice as fairness can be extended to provide guidelines for these cases; and if not, whether it must be rejected rather than supplemented by some other conception. It is premature to consider these matters here.” (Rawls 2001, 176 note 59)

Kittay does suggest some ways Rawls’s theory can be modified in order to address issues of justice related to disability. There are at least two such issues: first, that people with disability should be included in society as full and equal members, and second, that people who do (paid or unpaid) care work to help meet other people’s disability-related dependency needs should not be unfairly disadvantaged.

References

  1. Brown, J. Eva Feder Kittay [digital image]. Retrieved from http://www.brooklyn.cuny.edu/web/academics/schools/socialsciences/undergraduate/philosophy/news/conferences/kittay-conference.php