Democratic Justice and the Social Contract

Democratic Justice and the Social Contract PDF Author: Albert Weale
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0199684642
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 325

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Book Description
The book offers a novel and original synthesis of work in modern political theory and in political science and political economy to offer a theory of democratic justice, considering society as a social contract.

Democratic Justice and the Social Contract

Democratic Justice and the Social Contract PDF Author: Albert Weale
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0199684642
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 325

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Book Description
The book offers a novel and original synthesis of work in modern political theory and in political science and political economy to offer a theory of democratic justice, considering society as a social contract.

Justice and the Social Contract

Justice and the Social Contract PDF Author: Samuel Freeman
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199725063
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 353

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Book Description
Samuel Freeman was a student of the influential philosopher John Rawls, he has edited numerous books dedicated to Rawls' work and is arguably Rawls' foremost interpreter. This volume collects new and previously published articles by Freeman on Rawls. Among other things, Freeman places Rawls within historical context in the social contract tradition, and thoughtfully addresses criticisms of this position. Not only is Freeman a leading authority on Rawls, but he is an excellent thinker in his own right, and these articles will be useful to a wide range of scholars interested in Rawls and the expanse of his influence.

Modern Social Contract Theory

Modern Social Contract Theory PDF Author: Albert Weale
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192594990
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 471

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Book Description
Modern Social Contract Theory provides an exposition and evaluation of major work in social contract theory from 1950 to the present. It locates the central themes of that theory in the intellectual legacy of utilitarianism, particularly the problems of defining principles of justice and of showing the grounds of moral obligation. It demonstrates how theorists responded in a novel way to the dilemmas articulated in utilitarianism, developing in their different approaches a constructivist method in ethics, a method that aimed to vindicate a liberal, democratic and just political order. A distinctive feature of the book is its comparative approach. By placing the works of Barry, Buchanan and Tullock, Harsanyi, Gauthier, Grice, Rawls, and Scanlon alongside one another, similarities and differences are brought out, most notably in the way in which principles are derived by each author from the contractual construction as well as the extent to which the obligation to adopt those principles can be rationally grounded. Each theory is placed in its particular intellectual context. Special attention is paid to the contrasting theories of rationality adopted by the different authors, whether that be utility theory or a deliberative conception of rationality, with the intention of assessing how far the principles advanced can be justified by reference to the hypothetical choices of rational contracting agents. The book concludes with a discussion of some principal objections to the enterprise of contract theory, and offers its own programme for the future of that theory taking the form of the empirical method.

Symposium on Democratic Justice and the Social Contract

Symposium on Democratic Justice and the Social Contract PDF Author: Albert Weale
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 156

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Book Description


A Theory of Justice

A Theory of Justice PDF Author: John RAWLS
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674042603
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 624

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Book Description
Though the revised edition of A Theory of Justice, published in 1999, is the definitive statement of Rawls's view, so much of the extensive literature on Rawls's theory refers to the first edition. This reissue makes the first edition once again available for scholars and serious students of Rawls's work.

Social Contract and Political Obligation

Social Contract and Political Obligation PDF Author: Peter J. McCormick
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000706575
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 360

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Book Description
First published in 1987. This study is concerned with the problem of political obligation, the normative question of why one should obey the law, and with social contract thought as an answer to this question. It is entitled a critique, but the critique is not of social contract theory as such, but rather of the "orthodox" treatment of contract that yields so readily to the rough handling and easy rejection that is the normal lot of contractarianism in contemporary treatments. In its place will be suggested a reinterpretation of contract that sees it as making different assumptions and requiring different premises, and that is proof against many of the orthodox refutations of social contract theory; the reinterpretation is thus in the nature of a vindication. First, from an examination of the most commonly cited champions of contractarianism (namely Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau) will be derive a reinterpretation of contract in the form of a new model or syllogism, the features of which will be brought out by contrasting it first with the contemporary ideas of John Rawls and then with the orthodox model itself. Democratic consent theory, as the heir to the remnants of the orthodox model, will be examined, and the ideas of T. H. Green will be considered as embodying an important feature of contractarianism omitted or ignored by the orthodox model (and hence by democratic theory.) Finally, the new model of contract will be suggested as a potentially useful approach to the problem of political obligation in the modern context. This title will be of interest to student of politics and philosophy.

The Social Contract

The Social Contract PDF Author: Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Political science
Languages : en
Pages : 298

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Book Description


Decolonizing Democracy

Decolonizing Democracy PDF Author: Christine Keating
Publisher: Penn State Press
ISBN: 0271068086
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 245

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Book Description
Most democratic theorists have taken Western political traditions as their primary point of reference, although the growing field of comparative political theory has shifted this focus. In Decolonizing Democracy, comparative theorist Christine Keating interprets the formation of Indian democracy as a progressive example of a “postcolonial social contract.” In doing so, she highlights the significance of reconfigurations of democracy in postcolonial polities like India and sheds new light on the social contract, a central concept within democratic theory from Locke to Rawls and beyond. Keating’s analysis builds on the literature developed by feminists like Carole Pateman and critical race theorists like Charles Mills that examines the social contract’s egalitarian potential. By analyzing the ways in which the framers of the Indian constitution sought to address injustices of gender, race, religion, and caste, as well as present-day struggles over women’s legal and political status, Keating demonstrates that democracy’s social contract continues to be challenged and reworked in innovative and potentially more just ways.

Rousseau's Social Contract

Rousseau's Social Contract PDF Author: David Lay Williams
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107511607
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 329

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Book Description
If the greatness of a philosophical work can be measured by the volume and vehemence of the public response, there is little question that Rousseau's Social Contract stands out as a masterpiece. Within a week of its publication in 1762 it was banished from France. Soon thereafter, Rousseau fled to Geneva, where he saw the book burned in public. At the same time, many of his contemporaries, such as Kant, considered Rousseau to be 'the Newton of the moral world', as he was the first philosopher to draw attention to the basic dignity of human nature. The Social Contract has never ceased to be read and debated in the 250 years since its publication. Rousseau's Social Contract: An Introduction offers a thorough and systematic tour of this notoriously paradoxical and challenging text. David Lay Williams offers readers a chapter-by-chapter reading of the Social Contract, squarely confronting these interpretive obstacles. The book also features a special extended appendix dedicated to outlining Rousseau's famous conception of the general will, which has been the object of controversy since the Social Contract's publication in 1762.

Jean Jaques Rousseau's Concept of Society and Government: A Study of the Social Contract

Jean Jaques Rousseau's Concept of Society and Government: A Study of the Social Contract PDF Author: Andrea Becker
Publisher: GRIN Verlag
ISBN: 3638292002
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 33

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Book Description
Seminar paper from the year 2001 in the subject Politics - Political Theory and the History of Ideas Journal, grade: 1 - (A-), University of Wyoming (Department of Political Science), course: Recent Political Thought, language: English, abstract: “Man is born free and, and everywhere he is in chains. One believes himself the other’s master, and yet is more a slave than they. How did this change come about? I do not know. What can it make legitimate? I believe I can solve this.”1 Regarding this quoted statement, Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Of the Social Contract or Principles of Political Right (in the following referred to as the Social Contract) of 1762 tries to explain and solve the problems of the society Rousseau lived in with the idea of a somewhat direct democracy and a radical popular sovereignty. Accordingly, the author’s theory is the counterpart to the early liberal Montesquieuian model of a state with a binding constitution, but also to the later classical liberal theories of democracy of John Stuart Mill. In general, Rousseau is known as a representative of the concept of direct democracy and as an intercessor of the identity of governors and the governed. Moreover, he pledged for the inseparability of popular sovereignty. 2 Taking this into consideration, Rousseau’s Social Contract – although censored and prohibited in his own time – remains a key source of democratic belief and is one of the classics of political theory. His theories were viewed so controversially that they were even publicly burned. So, the Social Contract and Emile or on Education (1762) became victims of the flames.3 This was, because basically, the Social Contract argues, that “the first and the most important consequences of the principles established so far is that the general will [volonté générale] alone can direct the forces of the state according to the end of its institution, which is the common good.”4 1 Jean-Jacques Rousseau: The Social Contract and Other Later Political Writings, edited and translated by Victor Gourevitch, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought), 1997, Book I, p. 41. 2 Manfred G. Schmidt: Demokratietheorien. Eine Einführung, 2. Auflage, Opladen: Leske + Budrich, 1997, pp. 23-24. 3 Merle L. Perkins: Jean-Jacques Rousseau on the Individual and Society, Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1974, p. 239. 4 Rousseau: The Social Contract, Book II, p. 57.