Since conflicts of human rights can be translated into conflicts of values, this article looks into the sources and extension of value pluralism for a better understanding of the sort of conflicts of human rights that women face in multicultural contexts. Furthermore, a proper understanding of personal autonomy as a founding value underlying individual rights can contribute to an interpretation of women's human rights that takes account of both their untouchable core as well as their contextual meaning. As conflicts of (...) fundamental rights most often take place in a scenario of strong pluralism, the article considers cases of conflicts of rights in multicultural societies focusing on the overlapping values to be balanced. Religious freedom, education, neutrality, equality or toleration are some of the issues to be addressed: all of these are important and should be evaluated considering their further implications for women as well as for the other individuals involved. (shrink)

There appears to be a tension between two commitments in liberalism. The first is that citizens, as rational agents possessing dignity, are owed a justification for principles of justice. The second is that members of society who do not meet the requirements of rational agency are owed justice. These notions conflict because the first commitment is often expressed through the device of the social contract, which seems to confine the scope of justice to rational agents. So, contractarianism seems to ignore (...) the justice claims of the severely cognitively impaired. To solve this problem, Martha Nussbaum proposes the capabilities approach. The justifiability condition, on this approach, is met by the idea of overlapping consensus. This essay argues that overlapping consensus cannot meet liberalism’s justifiability condition, nor is it more inclusive of the cognitively impaired. Therefore, we have reason to retain the contract device and look for another way to ensure that liberalism respects the justice claims of all. (shrink)

Proportionality is one of the most important adjudicatory tools, in human rights decision-making, primarily employed to balance rights and interests. Despite this there is very little feminist analysis of its use by the courts. This article discusses the doctrine of proportionality and considers its amenability to feminist legal methods. It relies on theories of deliberative democracy to argue that the proportionality test can be applied in a manner that facilitates a more “interactive universalism”, allows for greater participation in decision-making and (...) enables the courts to be more attentive to the disadvantaged. The commonalities between proportionality and feminist theory are examined, and its contribution to developing and reconstituting a more relational and contextual concept of rights is explored. (shrink)

This paper examines two different ways of understanding the concept of bodily integrity and their political implications. In Drucilla Cornell's use of the concept, the body cannot be separated from the mind. Protecting bodily integrity means protecting possibilities of imagining the self as whole. Martha Nussbaum's theorizing is based on a liberal way of conceptualizing subjectivity, in which the mind and the body are separate, and bodily integrity is used to refer to physical inviolability.

In this paper we provide a critical discussion of how the most progressive parental leave policies are doing with respect to three goods which we identify as essential for liberal egalitarian feminists interested in parental leaves: the good of parental care, the good of gender fairness, and the good of individual choice. Then we offer our own model, based on the power of defaults, which promotes the goods of parental care and gender justice by sacrificing as little as possible of (...) the good of individual choice. (shrink)

Se situant au confluent du libéralisme politique rawlsien et de l’anthropologie néoaristotélicienne, l’approche des capabilités de Martha Nussbaum offre un cadre théorique permettant de répondre aux tensions multiculturelles. Cet article constitue une analyse détaillée de la réponse de Nussbaum à ces enjeux, qui prétend unir un pluralisme axiologique à un universalisme moral fort. Nous avancerons que la démarche entreprise par la philosophe porte une tension entre le libéralisme politique rawlsien et le cadre conceptuel apporté par la liste des capabilités. Cette (...) liste pose une difficulté par le déficit démocratique de ses fondements, n’intégrant pas suffisamment des normes d’inclusion et de représentation. Dans un dernier temps, nous tenterons de pallier ces problèmes en intégrant à l’approche de Nussbaum des exigences délibératives. (shrink)

The gendered division of labour in combination with the feminisation of international migration contribute to shortages of care, a phenomenon often called ‘care drain’. I argue that this phenomenon is an issue of global gender justice. I look at two methodological challenges and favourably analyse the suggestions that care drain studies should include the effects of fathers’ and other male caregivers’ migration and, in some cases, the effects of migration within national borders. I also explain why care drain is a (...) problem of distributive justice, by looking at the background conditions that result in much of the care-givers’ migration. (shrink)

Martha Nussbaum’s conception of dignity is integral to her capabilities approach. She argues that dignity is rooted in the flourishing and striving of animals. Her view is distinct from Kant’s, as Kant claims that persons have dignity in virtue of their rational nature. Though Nussbaum’s conception of dignity is important to her approach, its exact content and its relation to her thought is not clearly stated in her work, and I will attempt to provide an overview of Nussbaum’s conception of (...) dignity. Also I will compare and contrast Nussbaum’s dignity with Kant’s. Nussbaum provides four reasons for why her approach is superior to the Kantian split between rationality and animality, all of which I will examine. Finally, I will look at three areas of Nussbaum’s theory which require further exploration. (shrink)