Product Description

Democracy and justice are often mutually antagonistic ideas, yet in this innovative book Ian Shapiro explains how and why they should be pursued together. Justice must be pursued by democratic means if it is to garner legitimacy in the modern world, and democracy must be justice-promoting if it is to sustain allegiance over time. Shapiro spells out the implications of this argument for pressing debates about authority over children, marriage, basic income guarantees, population control, governing the workplace, health insurance, and social policy toward the elderly.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #992582 in Books
• Published on: 2001-04-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 352 pages

From Library Journal
In this ambitious and closely reasoned treatise, which elaborates on the ideas political scientist Shapiro presented in Democracy's Place, he argues that the concepts of democracy and justice work against one another but should nonetheless be linked and that together they represent a feasible alternative to what he considers the flawed political ideas of liberalism and communitarianism. Shapiro refers often to a broad spectrum of past and contemporary political theorists, and he presents his arguments in the context of important societal issues (population control, employment, health insurance, retirement, old age, and domestic life concerns such as marriage and divorce). The key to this marriage of justice and democracy, he argues, is the need to democratize social lifeAnot just political life. Despite the academic nature of the narrative, Shapiro minimizes the use of jargon, and he writes in clear though often long sentences. Recommended for most four-year college and university libraries and large public libraries.AJack Forman, Mesa Coll. Lib., San Diego
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews
Good intentions are not rewarded with good results in this scholarly look at fundamental political values. It seems that the more one thinks about democracy and justice the less compatible they become. In the popular mind they are automatically linked, yet academics point out that justice usually implies a fixed standard and democracy an inescapably contextual majoritarian principle. Rather than dismissing popular opinion as an unreflective association of democracy with all good things, however, Shapiro maintains that ``we should rise to the challenge implicit in the popular identification'' and produce an account of justice that places democracy at the center of social relations. In doing so, he focuses on the distribution of authority rather than goods, assessing the world in terms of power relationships and decision-making rather than outcomes. Shapiro takes us through the life cycle, considering first the position of children and parents, then relations among adults in marriage and the workplace, and finally responsibilities toward the elderly and euthanasia. The goal is to provide ``concrete recommendations'' advancing the cause of democratic justice ``in contemporary political controversy.'' Unfortunately, while the discussion is well grounded within the scholarly literature, as political analysis it illustrates how ambiguity can result from immersion in context no less than philosophical abstraction. For example, it may be true that determining whose interests should be included in questions of governance ``varies with time and circumstance'' and that in setting decision rules ``many choices are dictated by peculiarities of context,'' but this level of sensitivity to different conditions makes it difficult to pin down the actual content of any principles that may be present. Shapiro's recurring vagueness may be unavoidable when trying to reconcile the tensions between justice and democracy, but it nevertheless leaves the reader unsatisfied. Intellectually stimulating but politically disappointing, precisely the opposite of the author's stated intentions. -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Review
"A compelling attempt to map philosophical arguments about justice on to some of the contours of actual political practice." -- David Runciman, Times Literary Supplement

"Shapiro's argument is wonderfully lucid." -- Michael Walzer, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton