El valor de la familia en la teoría de la justicia de Rawls

Abstract

The Value of the Family in Rawls´s Theory of Justice

Very often, political theory treats the family as a social given. Nevertheless, and particularly within a liberal frame, it is worth posing the question of its justification. In this paper I turn to John Rawls´s theory of justice to reconstruct not only what it explicitly says on the subject, but also its undeveloped potential to provide more robust answers. Rawls seems to endorse a purely instrumental justification of the family, which focuses on its utility for the reproduction and stability of a well-ordered society. However, as I shall argue, although in Rawls this strategy is barely hinted at, a consistent application of the “first principle” of justice, which governs the distribution of individual liberties and rights, provides foundations for a more conclusive normative justification.