Theory of Justice in Conception’s Sphere of Gender Studies: Ukrainian Realities and Modernity

Abstract

The postmodern era, as the stage of form destruction announces moving from the stage of predeterminedreference groups to the era of «universal comparison». According to this new perspective, the meaning of justice has becomemore complicated. It is the dynamics of modern world development under the threats of the 21st century that requires anaccurate analysis of the justice principles, since «the sustainable development» implies that the quality of life is improving forall people, which is impossible outside the context of the principles of justice. At the same time, one of the most difficultproblems in philosophical research in general, and in gender theory in particular, is the problem of defining such categories asman and woman, equality, justice, social and private experiences. Most researchers agree that the sum of descriptions thatallows to separate men and women into two independent social groups, does not coincide with the individual experience of menand women, and therefore, the artificiality of these concepts is presumed. At the same time, the concept of "justice" itself iscomplex and ambiguous due to the multiplicity of its components, which abstract this concept from both normative content andfinal ideals. The certain sets of norms and rules that are applied to different groups of people are constructed usually on thebasis of the binary oppositions. The gender division of society is one of the most striking examples. As a result, today theformal institution of gender equality in Ukraine and the relevant normative documents are by no means consistent with theinformal rules of conduct of all three power branches. As far as John Rawls writes, "justice is the first virtue of socialinstitutions," it is necessary to examine the content of philosophical and political texts with an emphasis on one of the mostimportant categories, the category of justice. Undoubtedly, John Rawls' «A Theory of Justice» is one of the most influentialsocial and philosophical books of the twentieth century on the political issues of justice. John Rawls, at the very beginning ofhis work, states that the family is a part of the subject of his investigation of the social justice, however there are no indicationsin Rawls' book that the liberal society is gender structured on all its levels. The "justice theory" of John Rawls is criticized byfeminist scientists mainly for the fact that he does not see it necessary to apply the liberal principles of justice to the privatesphere and, consequently, to women, but it should be noted that Rawls' conclusions contain significant potential forDevelopment of feminist theory, which allows us to reconceptualize traditional approaches to the phenomenon of justice and tothe corresponding practices. Further studies in this direction suggest a fairly profound renewal of both philosophical andpolitical theory.

Keywords: postmodern, concept, culture, sense, public sphere, liberal society, universality.