Recognizing our hybridity and interconnectedness: Implications for social and environmental justice

2017 ◽  
Vol 66 (6) ◽  
pp. 886-910 ◽  
Author(s):  
Janet McIntyre-Mills
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Animal Rights ◽  
Living System ◽  
Martha Nussbaum ◽  
Amartya Sen ◽  
Disciplinary Boundaries ◽  
Core Capability ◽  
Stuart Hall ◽  
Economics And Politics ◽  
Economics And Morality

A core capability for sociologists who wish to respond to the complex interconnected social, cultural, political and economic challenges will be the ability to transcend disciplinary boundaries and to work with diverse perspectives. Thus those who inform the argument for this article include De Waal and Dawkins (primatology and philosophy), Kymlicka and Donaldson (animal rights and shared habitat), Hirschman and Hannah Arendt (on economics and politics), Amartya Sen (on economics and morality), Stuart Hall (on identity) and Martha Nussbaum (on social justice). The work of Stiglitz on wellbeing stocks is extended through drawing on Vandana Shiva (on the intersections spanning economics, politics and the environment) and a recognition of our interconnectedness as part of a living system. This provides the basis for intersectional policy approaches to address violence against the planet and violence against those without a voice. This capability is important if we are to inform praxis on governing the Anthropocene, in order to protect both human and animal rights along with their shared and separate habitats.

The Capabilities Perspective: A Framework for Social Justice

2002 ◽  
Vol 83 (4) ◽  
pp. 365-373 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patricia McGrath Morris
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Social Work ◽  
Human Dignity ◽  
John Rawls ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
Martha Nussbaum ◽  
Amartya Sen ◽  
Theory Of Justice ◽  
Political Philosopher

The concept of social justice is deeply rooted in social work. The theoretical framework most often embraced by the profession is John Rawls' A Theory of Justice. However, like most frameworks it has limitations. This paper examines Rawls' social justice framework as interpreted by social work and offers an alternative, called the “capabilities” perspective, that emerged nearly a decade after Rawls' 1971 seminal work. Developed by welfare economist Amartya Sen and further articulated by political philosopher Martha Nussbaum, this perspective builds on Rawls' distributive justice approach and adds the dimensions of human dignity, self-determination, and well-being to its justice framework.

scholarly journals Justiça social e equidade em saúde: uma abordagem centrada nos funcionamentos

2015 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
pp. 1109-1118 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carlos Dimas Ribeiro
Keyword(s):  
Martha Nussbaum ◽  
Amartya Sen

Trata-se de um ensaio de natureza teórica que objetiva defender uma concepção de justiça social voltada aos funcionamentos dos indivíduos, articulando a discussão da justiça com o debate sobre equidade em saúde. Na introdução, são discutidas as circunstâncias da justiça, abordando a questão da escassez dos recursos no campo da saúde. No primeiro item, analisa-se a noção da equidade em saúde, apresentando os principais enfoques abordados, em particular o conceito de equidade em saúde proposto por Margaret Whitehead, amplamente utilizado na saúde coletiva. No segundo item, apresenta-se, brevemente, a Abordagem das Capacitações desenvolvida por Amartya Sen e Martha Nussbaum, que recuperam a noção aristotélica de funcionamento. Ao final, critica-se essa abordagem e defende-se a Perspectiva dos Funcionamentos (PF), proposta por Maria Clara Dias, aplicada ao campo da saúde. Dessa forma, os concernidos da justiça são sistemas funcionais e o que se quer igualar para propósitos de justiça é a integridade funcional dos seres vivos. São apresentadas algumas vantagens dessa perspectiva, considerada aquela que melhor preenche os requisitos de uma concepção de justiça extensiva a todos no Brasil.

Well-Being, Adaptation and Human Limitations*

2006 ◽  
Vol 59 ◽  
pp. 83-110 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mozaffar Qizilbash
Keyword(s):  
Capability Approach ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Martha Nussbaum ◽  
Amartya Sen ◽  
Reliable Basis ◽  
The Capability Approach

Philosophical accounts of human well-being face a number of significant challenges. In this paper, I shall be primarily concerned with one of these. It relates to the possibility, noted by Martha Nussbaum and Amartya Sen amongst others, that people’s desires and attitudes are malleable and can ‘adapt’ in various ways to the straitened circumstances in which they live. If attitudes or desires adapt in this way it can be argued that the relevant desires or attitudes fail to provide a reliable basis for evaluating well-being. This is, what I shall call the ‘adaptation problem’. Nussbaum and Sen have—in different ways used this argument to motivate their versions of the ‘capability approach’. However, questions remain about the implications of adaptation for philosophical accounts of well-being.

Circles of Community, Strategies of Inclusion

For the Wild ◽  
2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah M. Pike
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Animal Rights ◽  
People Of Color ◽  
Open Spaces ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Community Strategies ◽  
Set Up ◽  
Animal Rights Activism

Chapter Six analyzes the efforts of activists to create community by bringing together people with different agendas and backgrounds and the resultant tensions and conflicts that come about in the process. I look closely at activists’ work to connect environmental and animal rights activism with concerns about social justice, especially with regard to people of color. Activist gatherings are imagined as free and open spaces of inclusivity and equality and yet they set up their own patterns of conformity and expectation. This chapter looks closely at how putting the “Earth first” comes in conflict with “anti-oppression” work and vice-versa, as activists try hard, drawing on empathy and compassion, to decolonize their communities and dismantle patriarchy and transphobia within their movements.

Beyond Animal Rights

2019 ◽  
pp. 22-44
Author(s):  
Celia E. Deane-Drummond
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Human Dignity ◽  
Theoretical Approach ◽  
Animal Rights ◽  
Categorical Imperative ◽  
Animal Experimentation ◽  
Comparative Approach ◽  
Social Agenda ◽  
Moral World ◽  
Animal Use

This chapter sets out the philosophical context for current debates in animal ethics, including abolitionist versions of animal rights that are against all forms of animal use, including animal experimentation and agriculture. The author argues that while a more muted version of animal rights is more convincing, rights language has proved inadequate to the modest task of shifting to more humane treatments of other animals. There are also theoretical problems associated with the use of rights language that itself is premised on a particular approach to social justice. Utilitarian advocates following Peter Singer do not fare much better in that his liberationist agenda is ethically ambiguous by his association of speciesism with racist and even sexist views. This approach could just as easily diminish women and those of colour, or deny human dignity, all of which have a strong political and social agenda, rather than elevating concern for other animals. Even anti-speciesism still relies on a comparative approach that begins by widening the moral world of humans to sentient others, even while, ironically perhaps, denying the special significance of the human species. Christine Korsgaard has made the most convincing case so far for rehabilitating Immanuel Kant’s categorical imperative so that it is extended to other animals. Rather more promising is the largely theoretical approach of Peter Scott’s argument for postnatural right and Cynthia Willett’s interspecies ethics to begin to map out the multispecies frameworks.

Diritto alla salute, equità e governance delle malattie neglette e della povertà / Right to health, equity and governance of neglected diseases and poverty

2016 ◽  
Vol 65 (4) ◽  
pp. 477-493
Author(s):  
Elena Mancini
Keyword(s):  
Neglected Tropical Diseases ◽  
Universal Access ◽  
International Health ◽  
Right To Health ◽  
Martha Nussbaum ◽  
Neglected Diseases ◽  
Amartya Sen ◽  
Justice In Health Care ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Impact

L’articolo esamina la salute quale diritto umano fondamentale nelle principali Carte internazionali. Sarà in particolare ricostruito il percorso storico-concettuale che ha portato al riconoscimento della natura complessa e inclusiva del diritto alla salute. Il fallimento delle politiche sanitarie mirate a sconfiggere singole malattie - come avvenuto nel caso della malaria - ha imposto una maggiore attenzione verso i determinanti sociali della salute, dando origine ad un processo che ha portato a concepire la salute quale problema di equità internazionale la cui soluzione richiede la realizzazione di condizioni sociali, economiche e ambientali e la promozione di libertà umane fondamentali. Il diritto a godere del più alto livello di salute ricomprende oltre al diritto all’accesso a cure mediche e a farmaci di qualità, anche la disponibilità di misure igieniche, di corrette informazioni sanitarie e la protezione di libertà fondamentali quali la libertà dall’esclusione sociale e il possesso di titoli per l’accesso concreto alle cure essenziali primarie. Viene proposta una interpretazione dei diversi modelli di giustizia sanitaria elaborati per l’individuazione delle priorità nella utilizzazione delle risorse sanitarie, nella pianificazione degli interventi anche a livello internazionale e per la valutazione dei risultati da questi conseguiti in termini di equità e di protezione dei diritti umani. Sono esaminati gli indicatori e i parametri utilizzati per monitorare la progressiva realizzazione del diritto alla salute e l’efficacia degli interventi internazionali nel promuovere l’accesso universale alle cure con particolare attenzione alle strategie di contrasto delle malattie neglette e della povertà. In particolare viene illustrato il modello delle libertà sostanziali quali “capacitazioni” teorizzato da Amartya Sen e sviluppato da Martha Nussbaum nelle sue possibili applicazioni nell’ambito dell’accesso universale alle cure e delle possibili linee di azione della solidarietà internazionale.----------The aim of this article is to study health as a fundamental right in the main International Charters. We want to underline the historical and conceptual way that led to the recognition of the complex and inclusive nature of right to health. The failure of some sanitary policies supposed to defeat some illnesses – as it happened for malaria fever – obliged to give a better attention towards the social and economic determinants of health and consider the process that led to a new meaning of health: health as a problem of international equity. To realize this goal, is necessary, first of all, to understand social, economic and environmental conditions and to promote fundamental human freedoms. The right to enjoy a good level of health means not only to have the right to access to medical treatments or to high qualities medicines, but also to have a high level of sanitary measures and a correct sanitary information and to enjoy the right of freedom in order to avoid social exclusion and to obtain the access to primaries health treatment. In this article there is a proposal to help a better interpretation of the different models of justice in health care which are supposed to define equity in allocating main resources that are necessary to the international planning of the interventions. The results reached by international health policies are evaluated with regard to equity and protection of human rights. This proposal analyses the indicators and the parameters used to realize and control the progressive realization of the right to health and the impact of the international interventions used in order to promote a universal access to treatments; in particular it examines the strategies used against the neglected tropical diseases. In details it explains the model of substantial freedoms as capabilities, as it has been theorized by Amartya Sen and developed by Martha Nussbaum, used in their possible applications with regards to universal access to treatments and also to feasible international solidarity actions.

Selling diversity to white men: How disentangling economics from morality is a racial and gendered performance

Organization ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 135050842093034
Author(s):  
Luzilda Carrillo Arciniega
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Human Resource ◽  
White Men ◽  
Business Case ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Economic Rationality ◽  
Human Resource Professionals ◽  
Management Consultants ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
Economics And Morality

Diversity professionals include business scholars, management consultants, diversity officers, and human resource professionals, who claim that the business case is about economics, not about morality or social justice. Drawing on 2 years of ethnographic research, this paper finds that diversity professionals sell diversity to white men—literally to obtain new clients and, metaphorically, to gain supporters for their practices—by performing economic rationality. In examining the intersection of economics and morality through the business case, this article argues that economic rationality itself is a racial and gendered performance. Moreover, insofar as diversity is a managerial discourse that employs ideas and models of the economy to design organizational techniques that improve business, it claims that through the business case, diversity professionals perform the economy itself. Thus, this research unsettles pervasive scholarly and popular assumptions that capitalism is intrinsically amoral. Finally, it characterizes organizational practices wherein diversity professionals perform economics as amoral and unracial as white economics. White economics, in other words, reproduces the everyday operation of neoliberal organizations as purportedly amoral, and hence, unracial and ungendered.

scholarly journals Sinergias Sur-Norte para una “transición civilizatoria” hacia la sustentabilidad: diálogos de saberes entre buen vivir, decrecimiento y desarrollo humano

2019 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 279-300
Author(s):  
Adrian Eugenio Beling
Keyword(s):  
Martha Nussbaum ◽  
Amartya Sen ◽  
Buen Vivir

A partir de la tesis de la crisis civilizatoria, el artículo pretende mostrar la necesidad de una complementariedad o fertilización cruzada entre “discursos de transición” del Sur y del Norte global con la matriz ideacional del desarrollo para viabilizar una transición socioecológica hacia la sustentabilidad. La experiencia del buen vivir como proyecto estatal de transformación social en Ecuador y Bolivia ha develado la falacia de dar respuestas autonomistas a una crisis que evidencia, como ninguna antes, las interdependencias globales. El artículo presenta un análisis de los potenciales y los límites de una articulación discursiva que ponga el foco en estas interdependencias, con base en el buen vivir, el decrecimiento y el desarrollo humano como discursos emblemáticos de transición en el Sur y en el Norte global, y del mainstream político liberal, respectivamente. El argumento se estructura a partir de las principales contribuciones y limitantes estructurales de cada uno de estos discursos, para promover una transición civilizatoria hacia una trayectoria de (pos)desarrollo global socioecológicamente sustentable. A pesar del fracaso del buen vivir como programa político para una “Gran Transición“, el análisis destaca su potencial de transformación cultural, implícito en el ideario y la práctica de mundos ecoconvivales alternativos a escala macrosocial. Los puntos ciegos del discurso del buen vivir —es decir, las interdependencias geoeconómicas derivadas de una matriz de producción y consumo globalizada, que no es generalizable— constituyen la preocupación principal de los discursos del decrecimiento. Estos últimos, sin embargo, carecen de tracción política y cultural para implementar los cambios previstos. Así, el círculo sinérgico se cierra en el análisis del potencial de fecundación que tienen el buen vivir y el decrecimiento sobre el ideario político-cultural del desarrollo humano, como es articulado por el Programa de Naciones Unidas para el Desarrollo (pnud), basado en Amartya Sen y Martha Nussbaum, para transformar el discurso político como precondición para una transformación fundamental de la práctica política. Con este análisis de potenciales sinergias discursivas interculturales, el artículo pretende, a su vez, ofrecer nuevas perspectivas a una sociología comprometida con la crítica y la transición socioecológica a la sustentabilidad en tiempos de crisis ambiental global.

Work-life balance in a capability perspective: an Italian case study of ‘flexible couples’

2012 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-54 ◽  
Author(s):  
Valeria Pandolfini
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Work Life ◽  
Quality Of Work Life ◽  
Work Life Balance ◽  
Amartya Sen ◽  
Life Balance ◽  
Italian Case ◽  
Justice Sociale ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Vie Privée

This article discusses the practical basis of judgements about social justice, focusing on the quality of work-life balance in contemporary labour markets. After describing the main European and Italian work-life reconciliation policies, the article presents the results of qualitative research on young adult ‘flexible’ couples in Italy. Taking Amartya Sen’s ‘capability approach’ as the starting point, it analyses the ways in which external flexibility affects capabilities concerning the freedom to choose the balance between family, job and overall working life. The article concludes with some reflections on social justice in a resources-capabilities perspective, evaluating the effect of Italian work-life balance policies on the lives of flexible employees and providing some proposals for the effective enhancement of individual capabilities in this regard. L’article examine les fondements pratiques des jugements portés sur la justice sociale, en se focalisant sur la qualité de l’équilibre entre vie professionnelle et vie privée sur les marchés du travail contemporains. Après avoir décrit les principales politiques menées en Europe et en Italie pour concilier travail et vie privée, l’article présente les résultats d’une recherche qualitative concernant des couples de jeunes adultes « flexibles » en Italie. En prenant comme point de départ l’approche par les capacités proposée par Amartya Sen, il analyse la manière dont la flexibilité externe affecte ces capacités pour ce qui concerne la liberté de choisir un équilibre entre famille, travail et parcours professionnel. L’article conclut par certaines réflexions sur la justice sociale dans une perspective axée sur les ressources et les capacités, en évaluant l’impact des politiques italiennes d’équilibre travail-vie privée sur la vie des travailleurs flexibles, et en présentant des propositions d’amélioration effective des capacités individuelles à cet égard. Dieser Beitrag befasst sich mit der praktischen Grundlage zur Beurteilung sozialer Gerechtigkeit und insbesondere mit der Qualität des Verhältnisses zwischen Berufs- und Privatleben auf den Arbeitsmärkten von heute. Nach einer Beschreibung der wichtigsten europäischen und italienischen Maßnahmen zur Förderung der Vereinbarkeit von Arbeits- und Privatleben werden die Ergebnisse einer qualitativen Forschungsarbeit über junge “flexible” Erwachsenenpaare in Italien vorgestellt. Ausgehend vom Ansatz der Verwirklichungschancen im Sinne von Amartya Sen wird untersucht, wie sich externe Flexibilität auf die Verwirklichungsmöglichkeiten in Bezug auf Wahlfreiheit bei der Vereinbarung von Familienleben, Beruf und dem Arbeitsleben insgesamt auswirkt. Der Beitrag schließt mit Überlegungen zur sozialen Gerechtigkeit aus der Perspektive der Verknüpfung von Ressourcen und Verwirklichungschancen. Die Auswirkungen italienischer Maßnahmen für eine bessere Vereinbarkeit von Berufs- und Privatleben auf flexible Arbeitnehmer werden bewertet, und es werden Möglichkeiten vorgeschlagen, um die individuellen Verwirklichungschancen in diesem Bereich zu stärken.

Derrida's Cat (Who Am I?)

2008 ◽  
Vol 38 (3) ◽  
pp. 404-423 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gerald Bruns
Keyword(s):  
Jacques Derrida ◽  
Animal Rights ◽  
Martha Nussbaum ◽  
Human Being ◽  
The Absolute ◽  
Cora Diamond

AbstractWhat is it to be seen (naked) by one's cat? In “L'animal que donc je suis” (2006), the first of several lectures that he presented at a conference on the “autobiographical animal,” Jacques Derrida tells of his discomfort when, emerging from his shower one day, he found himself being looked at by his cat. Th experience leads him, by way of reflections on the question of the animal, to what is arguably the question of his philosophy: Who am I? It is not so much that Derrida wants to answer this question as to be free of it. His task here is to determine the sense of it— where it leads, for example, when it comes to the nature of the diff erence between himself and his cat. Unlike animal rights activists (and unlike philosophers Martha Nussbaum and Cora Diamond, who have recently addressed this issue), Derrida does not want to erase this difference but wants to multiply it in order (among other things) to affirm the absolute alterity or singularity of his cat, which cannot be subsumed by any category (such as the animal). His cat is an Other in a way that no human being (supposing there to be such a thing, which Derrida is not prepared to grant) could ever be. And here is where “the question who?” leads as well, namely, to a path of escape from absorption into any identity-machine. As Derrida puts it in A Taste for the Secret: Who am I when I am not one of you? In a hospitable world one would be free not to answer.

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