First published in 1989. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Social justice has been the animating ideal of democratic governments throughout the twentieth century. Even those who oppose it recognize its potency. Yet the meaning of social justice remains obscure, and existing theories put forward by political philosophers to explain it have failed to capture the way people in general think about issues of social justice. This book develops a new theory. David Miller argues that principles of justice must be understood contextually, with each principle finding its natural home in a different form of human association. Because modern societies are complex, the theory of justice must be complex, too. The three primary components in Miller's scheme are the principles of desert, need, and equality. The book uses empirical research to demonstrate the central role played by these principles in popular conceptions of justice. It then offers a close analysis of each concept, defending principles of desert and need against a range of critical attacks, and exploring instances when justice requires equal distribution and when it does not. Finally, it argues that social justice understood in this way remains a viable political ideal even in a world characterized by economic globalization and political multiculturalism. Accessibly written, and drawing upon the resources of both political philosophy and the social sciences, this book will appeal to readers with interest in public policy as well as to students of politics, philosophy, and sociology.

This book offers a much-needed critical overview of the concept of social justice and its application in professional social work practice. Social justice has a rich conceptual genealogy in critical theory and political philosophy. For students, teachers and social workers concerned with empowerment, social change and human rights, this book provides a guide to the key ideas and thinkers, crucial historical developments and contemporary debates about social justice. It synthesises interdisciplinary knowledge and offers a new framework for practice, including a clear and practical exposition of four domains of skills and knowledge important for social justice informed social work. The book also contributes to social work pedagogy by offering a comprehensive set of learning outcomes that can be used to design curriculum, teaching and learning, and further research into social justice praxis. This book provides a range of philosophical and critical perspectives to support and inform social work professional knowledge and skills. In its tight knitting together of theory and practice this book links philosophical and moral principles with an understanding of how to engage with social justice in a way that is relevant to social work.

Our political age is characterized by forms of description as ‘big’ as the world itself: talk of ‘public knowledge’ and ‘public goods,’ ‘the commons’ or ‘global justice’ create an exigency for modes of governance that leave little room for smallness itself. Rather than question the politics of adjudication between the big and the small, this book inquires instead into the cultural epistemology fueling the aggrandizement and miniaturization of description itself. Incorporating analytical frameworks from science studies, ethnography, and political and economic theory, this book charts an itinerary for an internal anthropology of theorizing. It suggests that many of the effects that social theory uses today to produce insights are the legacy of baroque epistemological tricks. In particular, the book undertakes its own trompe l’oeil as it places description at perpendicular angles to emerging forms of global public knowledge. The aesthetic ‘trap’ of the trompe l’oeil aims to capture knowledge, for only when knowledge is captured can it be properly released.

This book is about the relationship between liberalism and socialism in Britain in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

An introduction to and analytical reconstruction of Thomas Paine's political philosophy and his account of human rights.

The notion of social justice permeates much of current Western political and cultural discourse with a newfound urgency. What it means to be socially just is a question Morris et al investigate and interrogate, looking at psychology’s contributions to the subject and considering the practicality of social justice in light of modern subjectivity. The book begins by examining the lack of equity and inclusivity in education and the ways in which psychology has been complicit in the margninalization of oppressed groups. Drawing upon Lacanian theory, it goes on to discuss how diversity initiatives take on an obsessive-neurotic characteristic that can stifle those it claims to understand and promote .The authors investigate the anxiety around the performance of being socially just or "woke" and suggest how psychology can contribute to the development of socially just humans, more attuned to the needs of others, through the appreciation of interconnectivity and compassion. An imperative text for scholars and students of philosophical and theoretical psychology, critical psychology, social psychology, psychoanalysis, social work, and education.

Since the 1960s, German scholars have developed distinctive methods for writing the history of political, social, and philosophical concepts. This work is a critical introduction to this emerging genre: the history of political and social concepts, or Begriffsgeschichte. Systematically surveying political, social, and philosophical discourses and their contexts, historians of concepts track linguistically how the advent, mentalities, and effects of modernity have been conceptualized in contested forms. After assessing the programs and achievements of this genre, and analyzing extended examples of its use, the author argues the need for an analogous project to chart the careers of concepts central to the political and social vocabularies of English-speaking societies.