1. What is the contractual view of human relations? How is it connected to the social contract?

1. Explain this quote about contractual views of human relations: "As descriptions of reality they can be seriously misleading. Actual societies are the results of war, exploitation, racism, and patriarchy far more than of social contracts. Economic and political realities are the outcomes of economic strength triumphing over economic weakness more than of a free market. And rather than a free market of ideas, we have a culture in which the loudspeakers that are the mass media drown out the soft voices of free expression. As expressions of normative concern, moreover, contractual theories hold out an impoverished view of human aspiration" (1010).

1. What does Held mean by the concept 'economic man'? Why does she see such a view of humans as incomplete?

1. Does Held think that we'll utterly get rid of the contractual view of relations and the economic man? If not, what does she think?

1. Explain this quote: "But the questions I am trying to raise in this paper have to do with how we ought to treat, conceptually, a great variety of human relations. Of course we can, theoretically, treat them as contractual, but should we do so?"(1011).

1. What does Held mean by 'mothering persons'? What does she have to say to men that feel uncomfortable being defined by such a term?

1. According to Held, how has the realm of the family been popularly dealt with in Western political thinking? In what ways historically have women been left out of the social contract way of looking at human relations? Explain this quote: "Then it has been supposed that while contracting is a specifically human activity, women are engaged in an activity which is not specifically human. Women have accordingly been thought to be closer to nature than men, to be enmeshed in a biological function involving processes more like those in which other animals are involved than like the rational contracting of distinctively human 'economic man.' The total or relative exclusion of women from the domain of voluntary contracting has then been thought to be either inevitable or appropriate" (1013).

1. What is Held's view of the process of mothering?

1. Explain this quote: "If the epitome of what it is to be human is thought to be a disposition to be a rational contractor, human persons creating other human persons through the processes of human mothering are overlooked" (1014).

1. Explain Held's point in bringing up the novel Herland. What was she saying about the idea of competition?

1. At the beginning of the section titled "Family and Society" Held claims that there's been a recent shift for feminists. What is that shift?

1. Why does Held consider the family to be so foundational to human society? What type of family unit does she want to focus on?

1. Held claims that many Western liberal democracies view the individual as heavily independent. "This entity can assert interests, have rights, and enter into contractual relations with other entities. But this individual is not seen as related to other individuals in inextricable or intrinsic ways" (1015-1016). What's wrong with this view of the individual according to Held?

1. Explain this quote: "Perhaps we should look to the relation between child and mothering persons for suggestions of how to better describe such a society as we now have. And perhaps we should look to it especially for a view of a future more fit for our children than a global battleground for rational, egoistic entities trying, somehow, to restrain their antagonisms by fragile contracts"(1016).

1. What's Held's point in this quote: "So the intention and goal of mothering is to give of one's care without obtaining a return of a self-interested kind. The emotional satisfaction of a mothering person is a satisfaction in the well-being and happiness of another human being, and a satisfaction in the health of the relation between the two persons, not the gain that results from an egoistic bargain. The motive behind the activity of mothering is thus entirely different from that behind a market transaction" (1017). What is the larger point she's making?

1. In the section titled "Mother/Child relations" Held highlights six ways in which the child-mothering person relationship sheds new light on human relations and violates the confines of the contract view of relations. Briefly describe each.

1. What does Held have to say about the defining of moral values from the perspective of the child-mothering parent relation? How is it different than defining morality from the contractual point of view?

1. What does Held think the child's perspective might be able to contribute to the understanding of relations between people and power?

1. Explain this quote: "But they cannot imagine society resembling a group of persons tied together by on-going relations of caring and trust between persons in positions such as those of mothers and children where, as adults, we would sometimes be one and sometimes the other" (1021). In what sense does Held think that society could be transformed by building an understanding of human relations from the child-mothering person point of view rather than the contract view?