relational egalitarian justice. Although both of these tasks must be left for future work, that my view opens up such possibilities works in its favor, so long as it does so while also meeting the requirements for an adequate relationalist account, which I will discuss next.
They must also not present:
principles that dictate the ethical obligations of individuals, their conceptions of well-being, and other elements of individual lives that are not within the prescriptive purview of institutions.
The Cooperative Systems view does not presume a particular conception of the ethical
obligations of individuals or their conceptions of well-being. Rather, I theorize the obligations that stem from the systemic structure of a political and economic society, and the relations that are needed in order to allow such a society to serve its purpose. As such, I think my account retains the characteristic found in Anderson’s theory, of residing in and determining the structure of institutions of a society, and thus it stays in the realm of a theory of justice, according to the broad institutional conception that I describe in Section 2.1.
Using an enabling approach further ensures that it remains an account of justice, as the account does not prescribe the particular character of the relations among members of a society.
Instead, it prescribes the institutional purpose of those relations based on an empirical description of what the system is actually like, allowing for individual choice within that overarching intent.
Similar to the capabilities approach, it also does not require individuals to actually act on and take advantage of what they are able to do. It instead focuses on the possibilities that are opened to them. Due to the institutional focus, and lack of prescription outside of the institutional level, it remains a clear account of justice.
4.4.2. The Egalitarian Requirement: Is this account justified by the assumption and inference that defines egalitarianism?
Recall that the assumption that grounds egalitarianism is that all people are basic moral equals, from which egalitarians infer that a just political system must render equal something that impacts politically relevant benefits and burdens. My account assumes basic moral equality, and
from there infers that justice requires equalizing participation in society as a system of cooperative production and reproduction. If all people are basic moral equals, then upholding that equality requires that they be able to fully participate in all elements of the cooperative system that exists to reproduce their lives and produce what is necessary for that reproduction. In choosing how to participate, they can only engage as a member of a cooperative system if
recognize the basic moral equality of all others who fill also roles within it, and recognize that their choices impact those with whom they share the system (as the choices of those others affect them). This systemic thinking, encouraged by feminist social reproduction, strengthens the egalitarian character of my account.
4.4.3. The Avoiding Problematic Perfectionism Requirement: Is this account not problematically perfectionist?
This is the requirement that poses the greatest challenge for my account. Feminist social
reproduction theory descends from Marxism, and Marxism is accused by many liberals of having perfectionist tendencies (Schemmel 2021, 8). There is, therefore, a risk that an account that draws on such theories would also be perfectionist. However, by taking an enabling approach and drawing on insights from social reproduction theory rather than using the theory as a whole, the problematic elements of perfectionism can be avoided. This requirement is met so long as the theory is not justified by a comprehensive conception of well-being or flourishing with which a substantial majority of members of the society would reasonably disagree. I incorporate only the descriptive analysis that feminist social reproduction theory provides, and methodological tools focused on thinking about systems and about the reproduction of labor power. These do not incorporate problematically perfectionist prescriptions into my account. Furthermore, because I focus on the idea that relations of equality must be a matter of empowering (not requiring)
participation in certain institutions that are fairly uncontroversial when described as the purpose of society, I think my account can adequately answer this criterion.
4.4.4. The Real World Requirement: Is this account able to address real world egalitarian movements?
It is primarily a concern with the real world claims of injustice that Anderson’s theory misses that led to the account I have provided here. Focusing on the system of cooperative production and reproduction ensures that issues around immigration and those in non-democratic countries are included in within the sphere of justice. Furthermore, the focus on the interconnection of production and reproduction allows my account to bring to the forefront issues around gender, race, and labor that are at the center of many real world social movements. This account is thus able to inform and be informed by all of the real world claims of injustice and inequality that Anderson’s account captures, as well as some that it misses.
4.4.5. The Dialectic Requirement: Is this account dialectically robust?
This requirement says that the theory must be able to respect to all sound counter-arguments and objections, and not be vulnerable to its own critiques of other theories. It is difficult to for me to evaluate my own theory’s ability to fulfill this requirement, as I am attempting to analyze the dialectic robustness of my own account. However, I have done my best to consider the full extent of the existing literature, and to ensure that my account is not vulnerable to the critiques that I have levelled against others. I leave it to readers to determine whether or not I have been successful.
4.4.6. The Relational Requirement: Is this account irreducibly relational?
My account builds a conception of relations of equality that is not only based on relations among people, but the relations among the different institutional elements of the society in which they live and engage in those personal relationships. The relational analysis of system of cooperative production and reproduction, as well as the kinds of relations between individuals that must result in order to enable full participation in that system, makes this account irreducibly relational. Trying to reduce those elements of human life to distributions of goods, welfare, or even capabilities distorts them in a way that would result in a failure to capture what is needed for a just society, because such a reduction will miss important features of egalitarianism that a systemic analysis that the insights of feminist social reproduction theory helps to add. As a result principles, policies and practices based on a theory that puts distribution into the foreground will fail to address important elements of the system of cooperative production and reproduction.
That system is not only a matter of the distributable goods produced, or even the services that could plausibly be talked about in distributive terms. It is also about the relations that making the producing and reproducing possible.