Genetic Knowledge in a Just Society

2007 ◽  
pp. 283-295 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nils Holtug
Keyword(s):  
Genetic Knowledge ◽  
Just Society

The Tyranny of the Ideal

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gerald Gaus
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Moral Life ◽  
Moral Inquiry ◽  
Open Society ◽  
The Past ◽  
Theories Of Justice ◽  
The World ◽  
Diverse Society ◽  
Just Society ◽  
The Ideal

This book lays out a vision for how we should theorize about justice in a diverse society. It shows how free and equal people, faced with intractable struggles and irreconcilable conflicts, might share a common moral life shaped by a just framework. The book argues that if we are to take diversity seriously and if moral inquiry is sincere about shaping the world, then the pursuit of idealized and perfect theories of justice—essentially, the entire production of theories of justice that has dominated political philosophy for the past forty years—needs to change. Drawing on recent work in social science and philosophy, the book points to an important paradox: only those in a heterogeneous society—with its various religious, moral, and political perspectives—have a reasonable hope of understanding what an ideally just society would be like. However, due to its very nature, this world could never be collectively devoted to any single ideal. The book defends the moral constitution of this pluralistic, open society, where the very clash and disagreement of ideals spurs all to better understand what their personal ideals of justice happen to be. Presenting an original framework for how we should think about morality, this book rigorously analyzes a theory of ideal justice more suitable for contemporary times.

Reconciliation as Interdependence

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fanie du Toit
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Institutional Arrangements ◽  
Political Transition ◽  
Racial Groups ◽  
Just Society

This chapter endeavors to develop a coherent framework for political transition—as reconciliation. I argue that reconciliation explains how relationships emerge in unfavorable conditions; how once a modest beginning is achieved, cooperation can grow, trust strengthened, and understanding deepened through appropriate processes and institutional arrangements; and how eventually a fundamentally more just society is built—all as part of a comprehensive transitional agenda. In South Africa, reconciliation politics propagated the idea, diametrically opposed to apartheid, that racial groups were fundamentally and comprehensively interdependent. This provided a compelling rationale for taking reconciliation seriously—and twenty-four years on, it still does. Reconciliation embraces a shared future on the basis that this is not only desirable but unavoidable, and turns to deal with a troubled past because it obstructs this future. More broadly, therefore, reconciliation can be described as “working toward fairness and inclusivity, reconciliation entails the mutual acknowledgment, the progressive institutionalization, and the long-term socialization of a comprehensive and fundamental interdependence.”

Minimal Morality

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Moehler
Keyword(s):  
Social Contract ◽  
Moral Pluralism ◽  
Moral Diversity ◽  
Moral Agents ◽  
Restricted Form ◽  
Pluralistic Societies ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Just Society

This book develops a novel multilevel social contract theory that, in contrast to existing theories in the liberal tradition, does not merely assume a restricted form of reasonable moral pluralism, but is tailored to the conditions of deeply morally pluralistic societies that may be populated by liberal moral agents, nonliberal moral agents, and, according to the traditional understanding of morality, nonmoral agents alike. To develop this theory, the book draws on the history of the social contract tradition, especially the work of Hobbes, Hume, Kant, Rawls, and Gauthier, as well as on the work of some of the critics of this tradition, such as Sen and Gaus. The two-level contractarian theory holds that morality in its best contractarian version for the conditions of deeply morally pluralistic societies entails Humean, Hobbesian, and Kantian moral features. The theory defines the minimal behavioral restrictions that are necessary to ensure, compared to violent conflict resolution, mutually beneficial peaceful long-term cooperation in deeply morally pluralistic societies. The theory minimizes the problem of compliance by maximally respecting the interests of all members of society. Despite its ideal nature, the theory is, in principle, applicable to the real world and, for the conditions described, most promising for securing mutually beneficial peaceful long-term cooperation in a world in which a fully just society, due to moral diversity, is unattainable. If Rawls’ intention was to carry the traditional social contract argument to a higher level of abstraction, then the two-level contractarian theory brings it back down to earth.

Reclaiming the System

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa Herzog
Keyword(s):  
Organizational Structures ◽  
Moral Norms ◽  
Human Flourishing ◽  
The Public ◽  
Organizational Role ◽  
Individual Agency ◽  
System P ◽  
The World ◽  
Just Society ◽  
Globalized World

The world of wage labour seems to have become a soulless machine, an engine of social and environmental destruction. Employees seem to be nothing but ‘cogs’ in this system—but is this true? Located at the intersection of political theory, moral philosophy, and business ethics, this book questions the picture of the world of work as a ‘system’. Hierarchical organizations, both in the public and in the private sphere, have specific features of their own. This does not mean, however, that they cannot leave room for moral responsibility, and maybe even human flourishing. Drawing on detailed empirical case studies, Lisa Herzog analyses the nature of organizations from a normative perspective: their rule-bound character, the ways in which they deal with divided knowledge, and organizational cultures and their relation to morality. She asks how individual agency and organizational structures would have to mesh to avoid common moral pitfalls. She develops the notion of ‘transformational agency’, which refers to a critical, creative way of engaging with one’s organizational role while remaining committed to basic moral norms. The last part zooms out to the political and institutional changes that would be required to re-embed organizations into a just society. Whether we submit to ‘the system’ or try to reclaim it, Herzog argues, is a question of eminent political importance in our globalized world.

“I LEAVE YOU LOVE”: African American Women as Collectors in, of, and through, the Arts

Collections ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 113-166
Author(s):  
Lisa Pertillar Brevard
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
African American Women ◽  
Black People ◽  
Government Service ◽  
Bottom Up ◽  
American Women ◽  
World Citizenship ◽  
Direct Descendant ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Just Society

In her last will and testament, educator-activist Mary McLeod Bethune (1875–1955) declared, “I LEAVE YOU LOVE. Love builds.” A direct descendant of former chattel slaves, Bethune believed in building from the bottom up: beginning with love, or positive thoughts, and manifesting those thoughts. By accretion of goods and goodwill, she built not only a physical school which fostered the arts as a bridge toward world citizenship for disenfranchised black people but also a school of thought, extending to encompass purposeful government service at local and federal levels, toward achieving a just society. Bethune’s determined example of building by accretion informs and helps us to better understand and articulate a wide variety of African American women’s collecting in, of, and through, the arts. This article explores and defines—according to philosophy, purpose, practice, type, scope, and audience—various examples of collecting and collections among selected African American women in the arts, many of whom became contributors to, and subjects of, various collections.

Housing, crises and crime

2021 ◽  
Vol 54 (1) ◽  
pp. 34-46
Author(s):  
John Braithwaite
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
First Nations ◽  
Public Housing ◽  
Social Housing ◽  
Housing Stock ◽  
Housing Policies ◽  
Treaty Negotiations ◽  
Disadvantaged Neighbourhood ◽  
Neoliberal Policies ◽  
Just Society

A disappointment of responses to the Covid-19 crisis is that governments have not invested massively in public housing. Global crises are opportunities for macro resets of policy settings that might deliver lower crime and better justice. Justice Reinvestment is important, but far from enough, as investment beyond the levels of capital sunk into criminal justice is required to establish a just society. Neoliberal policies have produced steep declines in public and social housing stock. This matters because many rehabilitation programmes only work when clients have secure housing. Getting housing policies right is also fundamental because we know the combined effect on crime of being truly disadvantaged, and living in a deeply disadvantaged neighbourhood, is not additive, but multiplicative. A Treaty with First Nations Australians is unlikely to return the stolen land on which white mansions stand. Are there other options for Treaty negotiations? Excellence and generosity in social housing policies might open some paths to partial healing for genocide and ecocide.

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