Autonomy Skills in Liberal Dependency Care. On Asha Bhandary's Freedom to Care

Abstract

Care is an important aspect of our lives because some forms of it are crucial for our survival while others promote our well-being. With the exception of the work of some liberal feminist philosophers like Susan Moller Okin’s (1989) important book Justice, Gender and the Family, liberalism has failed to address the role of care in our daily lives, its value and its relation with justice (Bhandary, 2020, p. 2). Asha Bhandary’s book Freedom to Care: Liberalism, Dependency Care, and Culture aims at contributing to filling this gap by developing a “form of liberal social contract theory that incorporates dependency care into a liberal egalitarian understanding of justice” (ibidem). “Dependency care” is defined by Bhandary as the “intensive, hands –on care provided by another person” without which, the person in need of care will not survive (ibidem). Bhandary argues that the receipt of dependency care should be guided by principles of justice (pp. 89–92), as the latter are identified through “a modified version of the Rawlsian original position” (pp. 11).