SOURCE: Engster, Daniel. “Mary Wollstonecraft's Nurturing Liberalism: Between an Ethic of Justice and Care.” The American Political Science Review 95, no. 3 (September 2001): 577-88.

In the following essay, Engster examines A Vindication of the Rights of Woman and A Vindication of the Rights of Men and shows how Wollstonecraft's ideas bear on the current debate in political and moral philosophy about justice and care.

In recent years, feminist scholars have proposed political theories based upon an ethic of care as an alternative to liberal theories of justice.¹ Although these scholars have paid little attention to the ideas of historical feminist authors, Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-97) provides important insights into the relationship between liberal justice and feminist care. In this article, I explore Wollstonecraft's views on the relationship between justice and care and outline her proposal for creating a nurturing form of liberalism based upon a synthesis of these concepts.

While contemporary...