ABSTRACT
In stipulating how his approach deals with justice issues for women and for families, Rawls presents himself as remaining within the confi nes of a purely political liberalism:
[T]he freedom and equality of women, the equality of children as future citizens, the freedom of religion and … the value of the family in securing the orderly production and reproduction of society and of its culture from one generation to the next … provide public reasons for all citizens. (IPPR: 163-4; cf. 156-7; JFR: 168)
If Rawls can generate justice for women within a purely political form of liberalism,1 this would, prima facie, suggest that Okin, Hampton and Nussbaum could too. is chapter and the next examine their work in terms of the Rawlsian distinction between political and comprehensive liberalisms. Trying to locate each of these feminist liberals in terms of the political-comprehensive distinction is valuable because it further illuminates the relation of each to Rawlsian liberalism and returns attention to the important question of the role of the state in contemporary feminist liberalism.
