ABSTRACT
In A Theory of Justice John Rawls constructs an apparently universal moral theory. However among its most basic assumptions are ones which could justify a differential morality for women.
Rawls assumes love and the family unit to be so natural that he excludes them from the scope of the principles of justice to which all other institutions are subject in the just society. Having done so Rawls can retain a nuclear family structure with a sexual division of labour. Female and male children will have different experiences within this type of family. This institutionalised injustice is likely to prevent both sexes from developing the crucial sense of justice.
Rawls’s whole theory is thus flawed from its very inception. An unjust family structure cannot produce just citizens.
