Abstract
Scholars have extensively debated the family’s place within liberalism, generally, and specific attention and critique has been given to the family in Rawls’ work. What has received less focus are the requirements of parents in a Rawlsian polity and, further, what those requirements might imply for the one case where states explicitly regulate the process of becoming parents: adoption. This paper seeks to discover what might be required of parents, adoptive or otherwise, in a Rawlsian social contract state. Second, it considers adoptive parent selection in light of these requirements as well as Rawls’ arguments regarding merit and fair equality of opportunity. Finally, it considers what such a merit-based selection of adoptive parents implies for the disputed rights of same-sex couples to adopt children. Further, because the question of merit in this case will hinge upon what it means to be a “fit parent,” it also draws upon relevant empirical social science studies regarding gay and lesbian parents. The paper, then, evaluates both the theoretical and empirical validity of generalized claims that same-sex couples are less fit to be parents than are heterosexual couples.
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Notes
This “adequate source of wealth” may include the ability, in cases of poverty, to procure government subsidies to help cover the costs of child-rearing. See Taylor (2009a, b) and Engster (2010). Of course, within the basic structure as outlined by Rawls, the Difference Principle would create a significantly more egalitarian wealth distribution which should lessen the necessity for parents to seek out special aid for child-rearing.
These requirements may also hold for parents in a non-ideal polity without strict compliance. However, depending upon how non-ideal that polity is, it may prove to be particularly difficult for parents to fulfill such requirements. Nevertheless, the production of the next generation of citizens would still be a priority. It is perhaps the case that one avenue to improving a non-ideal society would be to improve parenting (however this does not appear to be a duty; see Rawls’ remarks on civic humanism in Political Liberalism, Lecture V, § 7). In that case, it would be useful for parents to aspire to the requirements that I have outlined, even if it were especially unlikely that such an ideal could be attained.
For an excellent overview of this history, see Herman (2002).
While I cannot fully explore this topic here, one could imagine that scarcity of reproductive assistance could spur restrictions, necessitating development of parent selection criteria.
As many of the studies note, there have not been a large number of families headed by two gay male partners as of yet and, thus, researchers are unable to draw fine conclusions about such families. This is a result of the relative ease with which lesbian couples are able to start families (with biological reproduction a possibility).
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Acknowledgments
I wish to thank Robert S. Taylor and John T. Scott for their guidance. I would also like to thank the editors of Ethical Theory and Moral Practice and the two anonymous referees for their comments.