Daniel Engster challenges the common assertion that the state emerged from a new secular philosophy at the time of the Renaissance. He argues instead that early modern theorists legitimized state power by portraying it as a sanctified force for moral order within a secular and contigent world.

The Heart of Justice provides the first full account of the institutions and policies of a caring society, and should be of interest to anyone concerned with the nature of our moral obligations and the institutions of a just society. Integrating the insights of earlier care theorists with the aims of traditional justice theorists, Engster forges a new synthesis between care and justice, and argues that the institutional and policy commitments of care theory must be recognized as fundamental to any consistent theory of justice.
Engster begins by offering a practice-based account of caring...

The Heart of Justice provides the first full account of the institutions and policies of a caring society, and should be of interest to anyone concerned with the nature of our moral obligations and the institutions of a just society. Integrating the insights of earlier care theorists with the aims of traditional justice theorists, Engster forges a new synthesis between care and justice, and argues that the institutional and policy commitments of care theory must be recognized as fundamental to any consistent theory of justice. Engster begins by offering a practice-based account of caring and...

At a time when same-sex marriage, gay adoption, and the rise of single-parent households challenge traditional views of the family, this innovative volume helps readers put such issues into social and legal perspective. Engster and Metz bring together essential readings in political and legal theory and organise them to illuminate pressing contemporary debates on the family: gender and justice, parents and children, the state and globalisation. Justice, Politics, and the Family is an engaging and a diverse addition to the area of critical legal theory and sociology.

Care Ethics and Political Theory brings together new chapters on the nature of care ethics and its implications for politics from some of the most important philosophers working in the field today. Chapters take up long-standing questions about the relationship between care and justice and develop guidelines for the development of a care-based justice theory. Care ethics is further applied to issues such as security, privacy, law, and health care where little work has been previously done. By bringing care ethics into conversation with non-Western and subaltern cultures, the contributing...

Western welfare states are in a period of significant transition. Changes in the nature of work and the family, the growing elderly population, and other developments over the past fifty years have rendered existing welfare policies largely out-of-step with economic and social conditions. While welfare state reform clearly raises important questions about justice and social policy, political philosophers have been slow to address it.
Justice, Care, and the Welfare State takes up the important task of developing a theory of justice to guide contemporary welfare state reform....