The Return of Social Justice and the Possibility of Universals
Abstract
Social justice is back on the geographical agenda. This paper briefly sets the scene, and goes on to explore the possibility of universals in the theory and practice of social justice. After examining the obstacles of relativism and partiality, a case is made for social justice as equalization, with John Rawls' principle of advantage to society's worst-off acting as a constraint. Such a conception of social justice gains strength from being viewed as an integral component of a good way of life, which responds to the universality of basic human needs while recognizes cultural diversity in the manner in which they are met.
References
Barry, B. (1989) Theories of Justice. London: Harvester-Wheatsheaf.
Boyne, G., and Powell, M. (1991) Territorial justice: a review of theory and evidence. Political Geography Quarterly, 10:263-81.
Brecher, B. (1993) Looking for the good life. Radical Philosophy, 65 :42-4.
Buttimer, A. (1974) Values in Geography. Washington, DC: Commission on College Geography, Resource Paper 24, Association of American Geographers.
Doyal, L. and Gough, I. (1991) A Theory of Human Need. London: Macmillan.
Friedman, M. (1991) The practice of partiality. Ethics, 101:818-35.
Friedmann, J. (1992) Empowerment: The Politics of Alternative Development. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.
Griffin, J. (1986) Well-being: Its Meaning, Measurement and Moral Importance. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Harvey, D. (1973) Social Justice and the City. London: Edward Arnold.
Harvey, D. (1992) Social justice, postmodernism and the city. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 16:588-601.
Harvey, D. (1993) Class relations, social justice, and the politics of difference. In
Keith, M., and Pile, S. (eds.) Place and the Politics of Identity. London: Routledge, pp. 41-66.
Heller, A. (1987) Beyond Justice. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.
Kukathas, C. and Petit, P. (1990) Rawls: A Theory of Justice and its Critics. Oxford: Polity Press.
Kymlisca, W. (1990) Contemporary Political Philosophy: An Introduction. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Miller, R. W. (1992) Moral Differences: Truth, Justice and Conscience in a World of Conflict. Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press.
Nozick, R. (1974) Anarchy, State, and Utopia. New York: Basic Books.
Peffer, R. G. (1990) Marxism, Morality, and Social Justice. Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press.
Pirie, G. H. (1983) On spatial justice. Environment and Planning A, 15:465-73.
Poole, R. (1991) Morality and Modernity. London: Routledge.
Rawls, J. (1971) A Theory of Justice. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Rawls, J. (1993) Political Liberalism. New York: Columbia University Press.
Sen, A. (1973) On Economic Inequality. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Sen, A. (1992) Inequality Reexamined. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Smith, D. M. (1977) Human Geography: A Welfare Approach. London: Edward Arnold.
Smith, D. M. (1992a) Geography and social justice: some reflections on social change in Eastern Europe. Geography Research Forum, 12: 128-42.
Smith, D. M. (1992b) Redistribution after apartheid: Who gets what where in the new South Africa. Area, 24:350-58.
Smith, D. M. (1994) Geography and Social Justice. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.
Smith, D. M. (1995) Redistribution and social justice after apartheid. In Lemon, A. (ed.) The Geography of Change in South Africa. London: John Wiley, pp.45-64.
Social and Cultural Geography Study Group Committee (1991) De-limiting human geography: New social and cultural perspectives. In Philo, C. (compiler) New Words, New Worlds: Reconcepualising Social and Cultural Geography. Lampeter: Department of Geography, St. David's College.
Williams, B. (1972) Morality: An Introduction to Ethics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Williams, B. (1985) Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy. London: Fontana Press/Collins.
Young, I. M. (1990) Justice and the Politics of Difference. Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press.
- The contributor(s) (authors) warrant that the entire work is original and unpublished; it is submitted only to this Journal and all text, data, figures/tables or other illustrations included in this work are completely original and unpublished, and these have not been previously published or submitted elsewhere in any form or media whatsoever.
- The contributor(s) warrant that the work contains no unlawful or libelous statements and opinions and liable materials of any kind whatsoever, does not infringe on any copyrights, intellectual property rights, personal rights or rights of any kind of others, nor contains any plagiarized, fraudulent, improperly attributed materials, instructions, procedures, information or ideas that might cause any harm, damage, injury, losses or costs of any kind to person or property.
- The contributor(s) retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- The contributor(s) are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- The contributor(s) are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).
- Geography Research Forum may disseminate the content of the publications and publications’ Meta data in text, image, or other print and electronic formats to providers of research databases (e.g. EBSCO, GeoBase, JSTOR) to facilitate publications' exposure.
