LAUSR

“better” outcomes. Engster’s focus on defending the welfare state appears to lead him to misunderstand important components of Rawls’s theory, and to obscure some important issues. For example, Engster criticizes Rawls for rejecting the capitalist welfare state in favor of property-owning democracy or market socialism, where all three are viewed as proposals for alleviating the effects of poverty. But (as Engster seems to recognize at various points) Rawls does not reject state programs to meet a wide range of citizens’ needs over the life cycle, but the capitalist welfare state in which concentrated inequalities of wealth undermine the equality of democratic citizens even while shoring up the life prospects of the less advantaged. This observation may be dismissed as merely “academic,” but it points to a deeper issue in Engster’s approach: his objective of identifying the optimal policies for realizing “a public ethics of care,”which reflects his commitment to what he calls “nonideal theory” as opposed to “ideal theory.” In Engster’s view, those like Rawls who work within an “ideal theory” framework present arguments that “tend to have little direct bearing on contemporary debate and policy” (p. 7). This criticism obviously raises the question of the kinds of tasks that political theory should have in a democratic society. Following Rawls, one might argue that philosophers are not in a position to prescribe specific policies to their fellow citizens, but to draw on the public political culture to articulate basic principles on which citizens can agree, leaving specific policies to be worked out through deliberative, democratic processes. In this view, particular policies cannot be specified at the level of theory. This is not really a matter of nonideal versus ideal theory; the policies that Engster prescribes represent “all things considered” judgments that rest on an analysis and balancing of the conflicting considerations that bear on a particular issue. But these are issues about which reasonable people may reach different conclusions, which limits the authority of theory in public discourse. The question of the role of theory in a democratic society raises an even more fundamental issue for Engster’s approach—whether basic questions of justice may be decided on the basis of a comprehensive ethical theory, such as an ethics of care, in a morally pluralist society. For example, in the chapter on children’s rights, the author calls for the state to adopt not merely a supportive stance toward the family but a regulatory one in which parents might be required, for example, to take child-rearing classes and family leave (pp. 46, 49– 60), all justified in the name of a care-based account of children’s rights, including a right to “healthy development” (p. 38). But the idea of “care” as the basis for public policy is problematic in the face of moral pluralism, for people who hold different religious, philosophical, and moral doctrines will often have quite different understandings of what care or healthy development requires. Engster seems to recognize the problem, putting forward an expansive view of the ends to be served by the state, while at the same time insisting that the care others are owed must be adjusted “to the circumstances and tastes of the person they are helping” (p. 20), thus apparently providing scope for difference. The problem, though, is how to balance these conflicting considerations, a problem that Justice, Care, and the Welfare State, despite its important contributions, fails to address.