The Just Family
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Provides a comprehensive and systematic family ethic, addressing major issues fueling the family values debate.
Description
The Just Family presents a comprehensive and systematic theory of family values, determining both how marriage and parent-child relations should be structured as ethical institutions of freedom and how the rights and duties of family membership can be upheld in unity with social and political justice.
Richard Dien Winfield is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Georgia. He is the author of Stylistics: Rethinking the Artforms After Hegel; Freedom and Modernity; and Reason and Justice, all published by SUNY Press; and Systematic Aesthetics; Law In Civil Society; Overcoming Foundations: Studies In Systematic Philosophy; and The Just Economy.
Reviews
"Winfield locates his treatment of the family within the context of a broader theory of justice, and shows how it fits into this larger framework as a unique part of a greater whole. He considers the entire range of issues concerning the family including marriage, common property, love and sexual relations—both heterosexual and homosexual—children and their upbringing, divorce and death, inheritance, etc. What is most gratifying though is that Winfield provides arguments and not just opinions about how these relations and practices constituting the family ought to be ordered.
"Winfield's book comes at a time when there is a need for philosophical reflection on questions of family values, children's rights, and same-sex marriage. He has developed interesting, thoughtful, and controversial arguments about all these matters. By providing a unified normative account of the family in all its dimensions, Winfield has accomplished something of intellectual importance." — Robert Berman, Xavier University of Louisiana
"Winfield canvasses a wide range of philosophical issues related to civil society, the state, and family relations. He boldly advances a unique perspective that will vivify and challenge future work in these areas." — Raymond Angelo Belliotti, State University of New York at Fredonia