Solidarity selfhood, and social goods

2000 ◽  
pp. 167-196
Keyword(s):  
Social Goods

Conclusion

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fanie du Toit
Keyword(s):  
South African ◽  
Social Exclusion ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
The State ◽  
African History ◽  
Divided Societies ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
South Africans ◽  
Social Goods ◽  
Forward Looking

Reading South African history through the lens of interdependence helps explain the disappointment that many South Africans feel in relation to reconciliation. While they are justified in feeling let down, owing to rising inequality and social exclusion, it is wrong to blame Mandela’s strategy of just interdependence because it was abandoned too early. In seeking to overcome oppression, reconciliation is forward-looking and predicated on rebuilding relationships in divided societies. Dealing with a violent past is valuable when striving for a more just future. Reconciliation fosters just, inclusive, and fair societies and is locally owned and driven. A progressive approach to reconciliation is also needed. Reconciliation recognizes the inherent interdependence between citizens themselves, and between citizens and the state. These relationships are progressively re-established in more just ways. In so doing, it helps to create conditions in which social goods such as forgiveness, the rule of law, or democracy become possible.

Overdoing Democracy

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert B. Talisse
Keyword(s):  
Social Contexts ◽  
Good Thing ◽  
Democratic Legitimacy ◽  
The Political ◽  
Crowding Out ◽  
Social Spaces ◽  
Democratic Ideal ◽  
Empirical Results ◽  
Social Lives ◽  
Social Goods

Democracy is an extremely important social political good. Nonetheless, there is such a thing as having too much of a good thing. When we overdo democracy, we allow the categories, allegiances, and struggles of politics to overwhelm our social lives. This has the effect of undermining and crowding out many of the most important correlated social goods that democracy is meant to deliver. What’s more, in overdoing democracy, we spoil certain social goods that democracy needs in order to flourish. Thus overdoing democracy is democracy’s undoing. A thriving democracy needs citizens to reserve space in their shared social lives for collective activities and cooperative projects that are not structured by political allegiances; they must work together in social contexts where political affiliations and party loyalties are not merely suppressed, but utterly beside the point. Combining conceptual analyses of democratic legitimacy and responsible citizenship with empirical results regarding the political infiltration of social spaces and citizens’ vulnerabilities to polarization, this book provides a diagnosis of current democratic ills and a novel prescription for addressing them. Arguing that overdoing democracy is the result of certain tendencies internal to the democratic ideal itself, the book demonstrates that even in a democracy, politics must be put in its place.

Suffering, Communication, and Social Virtue

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael S. Brady
Keyword(s):  
Social Groups ◽  
Building Trust ◽  
Proper Functioning ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Goods

In this chapter Brady argues that suffering is vital for the proper functioning and flourishing of social groups, because it is essential for the social virtues of justice, love, and faith. He makes this case by first focusing on Biblical and Qur’anic ideas—in particular that suffering is punishment for sin, and a test of faith—but argues that religious teachings have secular parallels. On this view suffering is essential for the legitimate punishment of criminal acts, and for building trust and solidarity in many groups. Central to suffering’s role in bringing about these social goods is its communicative value.

Strawson’s Strategy

2020 ◽  
pp. 5-22
Author(s):  
Pamela Hieronymi
Keyword(s):  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Social Goods

This chapter reviews P. F. Strawson's aim to adjudicate and reconcile the debate between a gloomy incompatibilist about moral responsibility and determinism, whom he calls “the pessimist,” and a consequentialist compatibilist, whom he calls “the optimist.” It explains the optimist's argument that the practices of holding one another responsible are justified by their good consequences, whether or not determinism is true. It points out that by engaging in such practices, people secure important social goods. The chapter analyzes why the pessimist finds the attempted justification of optimists on the practices of holding one another responsible as appalling. It addresses the justification of practices of blaming and punishing through the appeal of their good consequences.

Rethinking Moral Economy

2001 ◽  
Vol 95 (1) ◽  
pp. 85-95 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Clay Arnold
Keyword(s):  
Political Science ◽  
American West ◽  
Moral Economy ◽  
Water Politics ◽  
Moral Indignation ◽  
The Third ◽  
Political Analysis ◽  
Economic Incorporation ◽  
Social Goods ◽  
Moral Economic

I establish three closely related claims. The first two are interpretive, the third theoretical. (1) The prevailing conception of moral economy in political science, presupposed by opponents as well as advocates, rests too heavily on the distinction between nonmarket and market-based societies. (2) The prevailing conception of moral economy reduces to the unduly narrow claim that economic incorporation of a nonmarket people is the basis for the moral indignation that leads to resistance and rebellion. (3) Reconceptualizing moral economy in terms of social goods reveals additional grounds for politically significant moral indignation and permits moral-economic political analysis of a larger set of cases and phenomena. Water politics in the arid American West illustrate the power of a conception of moral economy based on social goods.

scholarly journals Being at the Bottom Rung of the Ladder in an Unequal Society: A Qualitative Analysis of Stories of People without a Home

2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (23) ◽  
pp. 4620 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mabhala ◽  
Yohannes
Keyword(s):  
Social Services ◽  
Adverse Childhood Experiences ◽  
Homeless People ◽  
Theoretical Explanation ◽  
Poor Health ◽  
Childhood Experiences ◽  
North West ◽  
Adverse Childhood ◽  
Social Goods ◽  
The Government

Background: Homelessness is rising in the United Kingdom, despite investment in measures to eradicate it made by the government and charity organisations. Aim: The aim is to examine the stories of homeless people in order to document their perceptions of their social status, the reasons that led to their homelessness, and propose a conceptual explanation. Method: We conducted 26 semi-structured interviews in three centres for homeless people in Cheshire, North West of England. Results: Three categories—education, employment, and health—emerged from the data and provided a theoretical explanation for the reasons that led to their homelessness. These are vital not only for the successful negotiation of one’s way out of homelessness, but also for achieving other social goods, including social connections, social mobility, and engaging in positive social relationships. Conclusion: Participants catalogued the adverse childhood experiences, which they believe limited their capacity to meaningfully engage with the social institution for social goods, such as education, social services, and institutions of employment. Since not all people who have misfortunes of poor education, poor health, and loss of job end up being homeless, we contend that a combination of these with multiple adverse childhood experiences may have weakened their resilience to traumatic life changes, such as loss of job and poor health.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document