An Intersectional Feminist Critique of Public Utility Based on its Conceptual history

The legal notion of public utility has been central to the Social Contract since its inception. Jean-Jacques Rousseau explicitly referred to this concept in *The Social Contract* when emphasizing the need to circumscribe power: “The right that the social pact gives the sovereign over the subjects does not exceed […] the bounds of public utility.” Public utility, therefore, limits the scope of government intervention legitimized by the Social Contract. As Michel Foucault observed in The Birth of Biopolitics, it delineates the sphere of governmentality rooted in natural law theory. Beyond its restrictive role, public utility also guides the General Will, orienting it toward serving the public’s interests. Hence, public utility not only limits governmental power but also grants a form of agency to the people, shaping the direction of the Social Contract. However, tracing the genealogy of public utility—following and expanding upon Foucault’s insights—reveals its neoliberal iteration as deeply shaped by phallocentric and anthropocentric biases. Neoliberal public utility has become narrowly equated with economic productivity, functioning as a normative framework. It legitimizes certain actors deemed to serve validated (primarily economic) interests while marginalizing or excluding others as “useless to the world” (a notion drawn from Robert Castel). Since the criteria for utility privilege masculine and human-centered actors and activities, the Social Contract, built in tandem with this conception of public utility, inevitably reflects these hierarchical and discriminatory values. This presentation will explore how the neoliberal norm of public utility minimizes the social utility of women (and non-masculine identities more broadly) and non-human entities, thereby constructing the “public” or “people” of the Social Contract through a phallocentric and anthropocentric lens. To do so, I will first draw on Foucault’s genealogical hypotheses and then develop an intersectional feminist critique of both the Social Contract and public utility. I will follow the conceptual history's approach theroized by Koselleck and pursued by the Paduan School (Duso, Chignola, 2004). My goal is to demonstrate the need for a reconceptualization of public utility to lay the groundwork for a more inclusive Social Contract. Such a reconceptualization would not merely critique the exclusions inherent in the current framework but actively reimagine public utility to recognize and value diverse forms of social, ecological, and communal contributions. By challenging neoliberalism’s restrictive and hierarchical norms, we can work toward a Social Contract that genuinely reflects and serves the multiplicity of human and non-human agents in contemporary societies.