Women as Moral Agents and the Ethics of Social Justice: A Comparative Study of Thiruvalluvar and Dayananda Saraswati

This paper examines the ethical foundations of women’s moral agency within Indian philosophical thought through a comparative study of Thiruvalluvar and Dayananda Saraswati. Contemporary discussions on gender justice often rely on modern rights-based frameworks. However, classical and reformist Indian traditions contain significant conceptual resources that affirm women’s rational and moral capacity. Drawing upon the Tirukkural and Satyarth Prakash, this study argues that Thiruvalluvar advances an implicit ethical universalism in which virtue, discernment, and justice apply equally to all human beings. Moral worth is grounded in character rather than gender. Dayananda Saraswati develops this moral equality into explicit institutional reform by defending women’s access to education, scriptural study, and social participation. The paper proposes a two-level analytical framework: ethical universalism and institutional realization. While Thiruvalluvar establishes the moral foundation of equality through virtue ethics, Dayananda operationalizes this equality within social institutions. This synthesis challenges the assumption that recognition of women as moral agents is solely a modern or Western development. Instead, it demonstrates that Indian philosophical traditions provide internally grounded arguments for gender justice. The study contributes to comparative ethics, Indian philosophy, and contemporary debates on social justice by offering a culturally rooted yet progressive theoretical model. It concludes that women’s moral agency must be understood as both an ethical principle and a social imperative