Friendship as motivator

Abstract

This paper seeks to rectify the differences between Rawlsians and feminists over the moral education that citizens are supposed to receive. This has its roots in the Gilligan Kohlberg debate, which causes feminists to voice complaint that Rawls has essentially made relationships subservient to abstract principles. Epicureanism, with its unique focus on interpersonal relationships—particularly the relationship of friendship—is used as a bridge to attempt at a reconciliation between the two positions concluding that friendships may be used as a way to affirm and strengthen society’s founding principles. This is done by identifying two problems in Rawls; the first I call the Transitional Problem, in which people transition from having close knit relationships into wider ones on a societal scale. The second problem I term the Maintenance Problem, which refers to how friendship can be used to further, maintain the motivation of the members of a society.