ABSTRACT
Contractarianism illuminates distributive justice, and this form of justice is required not only in relationships between strangers but also in relationships between intimates, including husbands and wives, parents and children, friend and friend. Carol Gilligan attempts to display two different "moral voices"—voices she calls the "ethic of justice" and the "ethic of care"—and finds some evidence associating the first with men and the second with women. Hobbesian moral theory is committed to the idea that morality is a human-made institution that is justified only to the extent that it effectively furthers human interests. To abandon the idea that the only value human beings have is instrumental is to abandon the Hobbesian approach to morality and to move in the direction of "Kantian contractarianism". Feminist writings have a lot to say about questions surrounding worth, status, and honor. Feminist theorizing can therefore do much to help the development and analytical precision of Kantian contractarian theory.
