scholarly journals ‘A fair go’ in public policy

2014 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
David Bromell
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Social Justice ◽  
Distributive Justice ◽  
Financial Literacy ◽  
Ideal Theory ◽  
The Political ◽  
Retirement Income ◽  
Theory Of Justice ◽  
Public Reasoning ◽  
Political Spectrum

In the context of the 2013 retirement income review (CFLRI, 2013), Kathryn Maloney and Malcolm Menzies from the Commission for Financial Literacy and Retirement Income put the question to me: what does ‘a fair go’ mean in public policy? I mentioned this in a chance conversation with Colin James, who suggested tackling the question in an active, verbal sense (‘a fair go’), rather than attempting to elaborate on ‘fairness’ as an abstract noun. Consequently, this paper does not propose ‘a theory of fairness’ as a proxy for, say, a theory of distributive justice, or a theory of social justice, even a non-ideal theory of justice (cf. Arvan, 2014; Simmons, 2010). My aim is more modest: to provide a framework for public reasoning in contexts where there is argument across the political spectrum about whether a public policy gives people who are affected by it ‘a fair go’.  

Compassion as a Political Virtue

2002 ◽  
Vol 50 (3) ◽  
pp. 529-544 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maureen Whitebrook
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Social Justice ◽  
Distributive Justice ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Political Context ◽  
The Political ◽  
Principles Of Justice ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship

The place of compassion in political thought and practice is debatable. This debate can be clarified by stipulating ‘compassion’ as referring to the practice of acting on the feeling of ‘pity’; in addition, compassion might best be understood politically speaking as properly exercised towards vulnerability rather than suffering. Working with these understandings, I contrast Martha Nussbaum's account of the criteria for the exercise of compassion in modern democracies with the treatment of compassion in Toni Morrison's novels in order to suggest how compassion can be viewed politically. In respect of distributive justice and public policy, in both cases compassion might modify the strict application of principles in the light of knowledge of particulars, suggesting an enlarged role for discretion in the implementation of social justice. More generally, compassion's focus on particulars and the interpersonal draws attention to the importance of imagination and judgement. The latter returns a consideration of compassion to the question of the relationship of compassion to justice. In the political context, although strict criteria for compassion are inappropriate, principles of justice might work as modifying compassion (rather than vice-versa, as might be expected).

Ideal, Nonideal, and Empirical Theories of Social Justice

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Naomi Zack
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Social Justice ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Ideal Theory ◽  
Direct Approach ◽  
Nonideal Theory ◽  
Theory Of Justice ◽  
Principles Of Justice

Ideals of justice may do little toward the correction of injustice in real life. The influence of John Rawls’s A Theory of Justice has led some philosophers of race to focus on “nonideal theory” as a way to bring conditions in unjust societies closer to conditions of justice described by ideal theory. However, a more direct approach to injustice may be needed to address unfair public policy and existing conditions for minorities in racist societies. Applicative justice describes the applications of principles of justice that are now “good enough” for whites to nonwhites (based on prior comparisons of how whites and nonwhites are treated).

Utopophobia

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Estlund
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Social Justice ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Political Action ◽  
Ideal Theory ◽  
Theory Of Justice ◽  
Sound Theory ◽  
Theory Versus ◽  
History Of ◽  
Practical Guidance

Throughout the history of political philosophy and politics, there has been continual debate about the roles of idealism versus realism. For contemporary political philosophy, this debate manifests in notions of ideal theory versus nonideal theory. Nonideal thinkers shift their focus from theorizing about full social justice, asking instead which feasible institutional and political changes would make a society more just. Ideal thinkers, on the other hand, question whether full justice is a standard that any society is likely ever to satisfy. And, if social justice is unrealistic, are attempts to understand it without value or importance, and merely utopian? This book argues against thinking that justice must be realistic, or that understanding justice is only valuable if it can be realized. The book does not offer a particular theory of justice, nor does it assert that justice is indeed unrealizable—only that it could be, and this possibility upsets common ways of proceeding in political thought. The book's author engages critically with important strands in traditional and contemporary political philosophy that assume a sound theory of justice has the overriding, defining task of contributing practical guidance toward greater social justice. Along the way, it counters several tempting perspectives, including the view that inquiry in political philosophy could have significant value only as a guide to practical political action, and that understanding true justice would necessarily have practical value, at least as an ideal arrangement to be approximated. Demonstrating that unrealistic standards of justice can be both sound and valuable to understand, the book stands as a trenchant defense of ideal theory in political philosophy.

Mass-Market Paperbacks and Integration Politics

2021 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 22-46
Author(s):  
Johanna Schuster-Craig
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Justice System ◽  
The Political ◽  
Youth Of Color ◽  
Mass Market ◽  
Non Fiction ◽  
Political Spectrum ◽  
Migration Politics

“Integration” refers to multiple arenas in German migration politics, including journalistic discourse, public policy, and cultural logics about incorporating immigrants and refugees into the nation. This article examines two non-fiction narratives, Das Ende der Geduld by Kirsten Heisig and Muslim Girls by Sineb El Masrar, to explore how each author characterizes integration from opposite sides of the political spectrum. In integration politics, adolescence is often construed as a problem, which—when improperly managed—leads to the criminalization or radicalization of youth of color. Comparative analysis of these two texts shows that institutions such as the school and the criminal justice system produce adolescence as a problem for integration and as a way to avoid acknowledging institutionalized inequity. These two examples exist as part of a longer genealogy of authors using mass-market paperbacks to comment on integration politics.

Social Justicitis

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Tomasi
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Social Justice ◽  
Adverse Reaction ◽  
Allergic Reaction ◽  
Distributive Justice ◽  
Spontaneous Order ◽  
Classical Liberalism ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Bee Sting ◽  
Adequacy Condition

This chapter examines what it calls “social justicitis”—a strongly negative, even allergic, reaction to the ideal of social or distributive justice. Social justicitis is a malady from which many defenders of private economic liberty suffer. For libertarians, arguments on behalf of social justice may be as threatening as a bee sting is to some people. In the case of classical liberals, social justicitis arises as an adverse reaction to talk about social justice at the level of public policy. The chapter first considers the notion of distributional adequacy condition from the perspective of classical liberalism and libertarianism before discussing the arguments of classical liberals and libertarians regarding property and the poor. It also explores F. A. Hayek's critique of social justice and the implications of his theory of spontaneous order with respect to distributional ideals.

scholarly journals Social Justice and Social Order: Binding Moralities across the Political Spectrum

PLoS ONE ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. e0152479 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ronnie Janoff-Bulman ◽  
Nate C. Carnes
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Social Order ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Spectrum

The “Focusing Illusion” of Rawlsian Ideal Theory

John Rawls ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 61-72
Author(s):  
Colin Farrelly
Keyword(s):  
Distributive Justice ◽  
John Rawls ◽  
Ideal Theory ◽  
Original Position ◽  
Veil Of Ignorance ◽  
Theory Of Justice ◽  
Original Theory ◽  
Equality Of Opportunities ◽  
Focusing Illusion

In A Theory of Justice John Rawls constructed and defended an abstract account of distributive justice founded upon hypothetical theoretical devices like the original position and veil of ignorance, the principle of maximin, and conceptual analyses of equality of opportunities. Such a methodology places a premium on abstract hypotheticals (vs. the actual history of injustice), and idealizations that involve making claims that are actually false, in order to simplify an argument. This chapter critically examines the idealizations employed by Rawls’s original theory of justice. It argues that Rawlsian ideal theory is inherently flawed because Rawls’s idealizations make our normative theorizing prone to the valuation distortions that arise in what psychologists call a “focusing illusion.”

Motivation and morality: Insights into political ideology

2014 ◽  
Vol 37 (3) ◽  
pp. 316-317 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ronnie Janoff-Bulman ◽  
Nate C. Carnes
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Political Ideology ◽  
The Political ◽  
Social Cooperation ◽  
Past Work ◽  
Social Coordination ◽  
Regulatory Systems ◽  
Political Spectrum

AbstractOur past work linking motivation and morality provides a basis for understanding differences in political ideology and positions across the political spectrum. Conservatism is rooted in avoidance-based proscriptive morality, whereas liberalism is rooted in approach-based prescriptive morality. Two distinct, binding, group moralities reflect these different regulatory systems and emphasize social coordination through Social Order versus social cooperation through Social Justice.

Why Sovereignty Is Not the Solution

2020 ◽  
pp. 179-211
Author(s):  
Benjamin L. McKean
Keyword(s):  
Distributive Justice ◽  
Racial Disparities ◽  
Global Economy ◽  
Use Of Force ◽  
State Power ◽  
State Sovereignty ◽  
The Political ◽  
State Coercion ◽  
Political Spectrum ◽  
Legitimate State

Many critics of neoliberalism argue that resistance requires reasserting unconstrained state sovereignty, but this response effectively reinforces the neoliberal distinction between politics and the market rather than attending to the authority, coercion, and contestation that pervade the global economy. Such appeals to unconstrained sovereignty are found across the political spectrum; left egalitarian arguments for Brexit are illustrative. The chapter highlights contemporary philosophers like Thomas Nagel, who argue that distributive justice is only possible thanks to state coercion and that distributive justice is necessary to legitimate state coercion. Ultimately, by appealing to unconstrained state sovereignty as necessary for politics, this approach—and others which similarly draw on Weber—homogenizes state power and consequently overlooks the different ways people experience its force, such as racial disparities in the use of force by police. Such a theory is ill-suited for understanding what equal political status actually requires, even domestically.

Biblical Tax Systems and the Case for Progressive Taxation

2007 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-96 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam S. Chodorow
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Distributive Justice ◽  
Death Penalty ◽  
Religious Right ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
The Political ◽  
Religious Texts ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Values And Beliefs ◽  
Academic Debate

The political rise of the religious right has brought to the fore the question of whether and to what extent religious values and beliefs should be taken into account when developing public policy. Policymakers have increasingly, or perhaps only more overtly, turned to religion for guidance on important public policy matters, such as abortion, stem cell research, and punishment, including the death penalty. Given the decidedly moral flavor of the debate over distributive justice, it is not surprising that many Americans and a growing number of policymakers have begun to look to religion for guidance on the question of how best to allocate tax burdens.While tax scholars have long debated questions of equity and distributive justice, with one notable exception, they have largely ignored religious arguments. Given the large number of Americans who identify themselves as religious, to say nothing of most politicians, limiting the inquiry into tax equity to secular arguments runs the risk of relegating academic debate to the sidelines, as decision-makers look to the Bible and other religious texts for guidance and support.

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