A broader picture

2019 ◽  
pp. 141-162
Author(s):  
Johan P. Mackenbach
Keyword(s):  
Social Inequality ◽  
Health Inequalities ◽  
Capabilities Approach ◽  
State Reform ◽  
Justice As Fairness ◽  
Active Labour ◽  
Theories Of Justice ◽  
Recent Trends ◽  
The Common ◽  
Reducing Costs

Chapter 5 (‘A broader picture’) first discusses why not only health inequalities, but also social inequality is so persistent. After reviewing sociological theories from both the ‘functionalist’ and ‘conflict’ traditions, it chooses a middle road which acknowledges the ineradicable nature of social inequality. It then describes recent trends in welfare state reform, and identifies several areas, such as pensions and active labour market policies, where more attention to health inequalities is required. It also evaluates the common intuition that health inequalities are ‘unjust’, by applying five theories of justice (‘equality of welfare’, ‘capabilities approach’, ‘luck egalitarianism’, ‘justice as fairness’, and ‘equality of opportunity’). It concludes that, although health inequalities are not simply a form of social injustice, there are several compelling reasons to reduce health inequalities, including avoiding accumulation of disadvantage, solidarity with the less well-off, and reducing costs to society.

Health inequalities

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Johan P. Mackenbach
Keyword(s):  
Social Inequality ◽  
Health Inequalities ◽  
Social Stratification ◽  
Premature Mortality ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Comprehensive Overview ◽  
Systematic Analysis ◽  
State Reform ◽  
Lower Socioeconomic ◽  
National Governments

‘Health inequalities—persistence and change in European welfare states’ studies why frequencies of disease, disability, and premature mortality are higher among people with a lower socioeconomic position, even in countries with advanced welfare states. Drawing upon data from 30 countries covering more than three decades, it provides a comprehensive overview of trends and patterns of health inequalities, showing that these are not only ubiquitous and persistent, but also highly variable and dynamic. It provides a critical assessment of recent research into the explanation of health inequalities, discussing methodological pitfalls, summarizing findings from epidemiological, sociological, economic, and genetic studies, and reviewing nine overarching theories. Based on in-depth studies of the determinants of health inequalities in European countries, it shows that the persistence of health inequalities is due to a combination of mostly favourable changes in social stratification, massive but differential health improvements, and persistence of social inequality in material and non-material living conditions. It discusses why social inequality is so persistent, and whether welfare state reform could contribute to reducing health inequalities, and provides a systematic analysis of the inequitableness of health inequalities according to five theories of justice. It reviews recent attempts by European national governments to reduce health inequalities, showing that it is realistic to expect evidence-based policies to reduce absolute but not relative inequalities in health. This title is written for scientists and advanced students from various disciplines, as well as for public health professionals and policymakers, and is profusely illustrated and referenced.

scholarly journals Should we Ascribe Capabilities to Species and Ecosystems? A Critical Analysis of Ecocentric Versions of the Capabilities Approach

2021 ◽  
Vol 34 (5) ◽  
Author(s):  
Anders Melin
Keyword(s):  
Critical Analysis ◽  
Political Liberalism ◽  
Capabilities Approach ◽  
Overlapping Consensus ◽  
As Species ◽  
Theories Of Justice ◽  
Comprehensive Doctrines ◽  
Sentient Beings

AbstractMartha Nussbaum’s capabilities approach is today one of the most influential theories of justice. In her earlier works on the capabilities approach, Nussbaum only applies it to humans, but in later works she extends the capabilities approach to include sentient animals. Contrary to Nussbaum’s own view, some scholars, for example, David Schlosberg, Teea Kortetmäki and Daniel L. Crescenzo, want to extend the capabilities approach even further to include collective entities, such as species and ecosystems. Though I think we have strong reasons for preserving ecosystems and species within the capabilities approach, there are several problems with ascribing capabilities to them, especially if we connect it with the view that species and ecosystems are subjects of justice. These problems are partly a consequence of the fact that an ascription of capabilities to species and ecosystems needs to be based on an overlapping consensus between different comprehensive doctrines, in accordance with the framework of political liberalism on which the capabilities approach builds. First, the ascription of capabilities to species and ecosystems presupposes the controversial standpoint that they are objectively existing entities. Second, the ascription of capabilities to ecosystems and species and the view that they are subjects of justice is justified by claiming that they have integrity and agency, but these characteristics have different meanings when applied to collective entities and humans, respectively. Third, the view that species and ecosystems are subjects of justice seems to require the controversial assumption that they have interests of their own, which differ from the interests of the sentient beings that are part of them. However, even if we do not ascribe capabilities to species and ecosystems and regard them as subjects of justice, there are still strong reasons to protect them within the capabilities approach, as the preservation of ecosystems and species is an important precondition for many human and animal capabilities.

Seeking transparency makes one blind: how to rethink disclosure, account for nature and make corporations sustainable

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Paolo Quattrone
Keyword(s):  
Social Inequality ◽  
Common Good ◽  
Design Methodology ◽  
Value Added ◽  
Institutional Arrangements ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Corporate Behavior ◽  
Income Statement ◽  
The Common ◽  
Human Actors

PurposeFinancial and nonfinancial disclosures are still anchored to conventional notions of transparency, whereby corporations “push” information out to various stakeholders. Such information is now “pulled” from various sources and addresses aspects of corporate behavior that go well beyond those envisioned by the disclosure framework. This shift makes notions of values, measurement and accountability more fragmented, complex and difficult. The paper aims to bring the accounting scholarly debate back to what and how transparency can be achieved especially in relation to issues of social inequality and sustainability.Design/methodology/approachAfter an analysis of the limitations of current approaches to disclosure, the paper proposes a shift toward normative policies that profit of years of critique of positivism.FindingsDrawing on the notion of value-added, the paper ends with a new income statement design, labeled as Value-Added Statement for Nature, which recognizes Nature as a further stakeholder and forces human stakeholders to give voice, or at least acknowledge the lack of voice, for non-human actors.Originality/valueThe author proposes a shift in the perspective, practice and institutional arrangements in which disclosure occurs. Measurement and transparency need to happen in communication exercises, which do not presuppose what needs to be made transparent once and for good but define procedures on how to make fragmented, complex, multiple and volatile notions of value transparent. Income statements and accounting more in general is to be reconceived as a platform where stakeholders will have to continuously negotiate what counts as the common good in the interest of all, including Nature.

Utilitarian Strategies in Bentham and John Stuart Mill

Utilitas ◽  
1990 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 245-266 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. J. Kelly
Keyword(s):  
Distributive Justice ◽  
Moral Theory ◽  
Ethical Theory ◽  
Theory Of Justice ◽  
Recent Scholarship ◽  
Careful Scrutiny ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Theories Of Justice ◽  
The Common ◽  
Utilitarian Theory

The argument of this paper is part of a general defence of the claim that Bentham's moral theory embodies a utilitarian theory of distributive justice, which is developed in his Civil Law writings. Whereas it is a commonplace of recent revisionist scholarship to argue that J. S. Mill had a developed utilitarian theory of justice, few scholars regard Bentham as having a theory of justice, let alone one that rivals in sophistication that of Mill. Indeed, Gerald J. Postema in his bookBentham and the Common Law Tradition, argues that Bentham had no substantial concern with the concept of justice, and that what analysis of the concept there is in Bentham's thought is unlike the utilitarian theory of justice to be found in chapter five of J. S. Mill'sUtilitarianismAlthough Postema's interpretation is not the only one that will be addressed in this paper, it serves as an important starting point for any rival interpretation of Bentham's ethical theory for two reasons. Firstly, it is the most comprehensive and most penetrating discussion of Bentham's utilitarian theory, drawing as it does on a wide variety of published and unpublished materials written throughout Bentham's career. Secondly, it is interesting in this particular context because the contrast that Postema draws between Bentham's and Mill's theories of justice depends upon a particular reading of Mill's theory of justice and utility which is derived from recent scholarship and which is by no means uncontroversial. As part of the defence of the claim that Bentham had a sophisticated theory of distributive justice, it will be argued in this paper that the contrast drawn between Bentham and Mill does not stand up to careful scrutiny, for insofar as Mill's theory of justice can be consistently defended it is not significantly different from the utilitarian strategy that Bentham employed for incorporating considerations of distributive justice within his theory. This is not to claim that there are not significant differences between the theories of justice of Bentham and J. S. Mill, but it is to claim that whatever technical differences exist between their theories, both writers saw the need to incorporate the concept of justice within utilitarianism. Therefore, rather than showing that Mill is an interesting thinker to the extent that he abandons his early Benthamism, by demonstrating how close Mill's theory of utility and justice is to that of Bentham, it will be possible to argue that Bentham employed a sophisticated and subtle utilitarian theory that was responsive to the sort of problems which occupied Mill a generation later.

The Origins of Fair Play

2007 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ken Binmore
Keyword(s):  
Deep Structure ◽  
Coordination Games ◽  
Folk Theorem ◽  
Original Position ◽  
Fair Play ◽  
Justice As Fairness ◽  
Natural Justice ◽  
Common Structure ◽  
The Common ◽  
Fairness Norms

This lecture gives a brief overview of an evolutionary theory of fairness. Most of the ideas discussed in the lecture can be found in the book Natural Justice. The lecture begins by determining how and why the norms of fairness evolved, and examines the device of the original position. This device is the stylised form of the common structure underlying all fairness norms. The lecture then looks at the possibility of having justice as fairness, pure foraging societies, and the basics of game theory. Coordination games, reciprocity, the folk theorem, selecting equilibria, and the deep structure of fairness are some of the concepts discussed in detail in this lecture.

Introduction

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-12
Author(s):  
Johan P. Mackenbach
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Social Inequality ◽  
Health Inequalities ◽  
Population Level ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Short History ◽  
History Of ◽  
Micro Level ◽  
Per Se

Chapter 1 (‘Introduction’) provides a short history of the discovery and rediscovery of health inequalities, as well as a short history and typology of the welfare state, and lays out the paradox that this book tries to explain: the persistence of health inequalities in even the most universal and generous European welfare states. It argues that micro-level studies alone cannot resolve this paradox, and that macro-level studies are needed to identify the determinants of health inequalities as seen at the population level. This will also make it easier to put health inequalities into a broader perspective, for example, that of social inequality per se. This chapter ends with an extensive preview of the main conclusions of the book.

Religion, health care, and Africa

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-24
Author(s):  
Robert B. Lloyd ◽  
Melissa Haussman ◽  
Patrick James
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Social Inequality ◽  
Social Determinants Of Health ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Health Inequalities ◽  
Social Determinants ◽  
International Health ◽  
World Health ◽  
The World

It is estimated that populations in Africa are afflicted with 24% of the global load of disease with only 13% of the population. This chapter provides theoretical suggestions for studying why this is so. Among these theories are area studies, Africa studies and the World Health Organization’s Social Determinants of Health Framework, which relates social inequality to the study of political and health-providing institutions. The chapter lays out the book’s three case studies and our look at the role of national and international health and secular ngo’s in helping to remedy gendered health inequalities. It lays out the MDG framework of 2000, to be discussed in succeeding chapters.

Inherited Social Difference at the Edges of Flakes

2010 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 291-322 ◽  
Author(s):  
Angela E. Close
Keyword(s):  
Social Inequality ◽  
Common Ancestor ◽  
Upper Palaeolithic ◽  
Social Difference ◽  
Social Differences ◽  
Social Lives ◽  
The Common ◽  
Simple Artefacts

It is now generally accepted that there are no human societies which are truly egalitarian; this also true of bonobos and chimpanzees, among whom rank is inherited. If it were true of the common ancestor of Homo and Pan, there would have been (inherited) social inequality throughout our hominin ancestry. The problem is how to find it. It is also accepted that artefacts play an active and important role in our social lives; thus, socially defined differences may be reflected among the very simplest of artefacts. A case study of flaked stone from southwestern Egypt, dating to about 7000–8000 years ago, suggests that social differences can, indeed, be identified within very simple artefacts — in this case, plain, unmodified stone flakes. Using unmodified stone flakes, I explore the possibility of identifying not merely social difference but, specifically, inherited social difference in the Upper Palaeolithic of Europe and among early African hominins more than 2,000,000 years ago.

Democratic and Aristocratic Aristotle: An Aristotelian Response to Nussbaum’s Capabilities Approach

2012 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 286-308 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kazutaka Inamura
Keyword(s):  
Well Being ◽  
Capabilities Approach ◽  
Political Authority ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Way Of Life ◽  
Popular Participation ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Virtuous Character ◽  
The Common ◽  
Constructive Criticism

This paper addresses the problem of how to make ‘democratic’ elements in Aristotle’s political philosophy compatible with his aristocratic framework for distributing political authority. To this end, it is argued that in Aristotle’s framework, the idea of aristocratic governance is justified, because it contributes most greatly to the achievement of the well-being of people in a city (Politics III.9), or the common benefit of a wide range of free individuals (Politics III.6 and 7), and that Aristotle’s argument for the wisdom of the multitude (Politics III.11) is actually not democratic, but rather aristocratic to the extent that he proposes integrating the multitude into the deliberative and judicial processes by identifying their ‘virtuous character’ as a group, not by offering an idea that human beings are created equal. The paper also offers a more constructive criticism of Nussbaum’s capabilities approach by arguing that Aristotle’s aristocratic idea of distributive justice provides more useful insights into the problem of popular participation than Nussbaum’s emphasis on people’s capacity for choosing their own way of life.

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