Resumen

UDI, Juliana. The Value of the Family in Rawls's Theory of Justice. Isonomía [online]. 2017, n.47, pp.109-134. ISSN 1405-0218.

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.

Palabras llave : Rawls; justification of the family; right to found a family; freedom of association.