Justice and the Politics of Difference [Paperback]

Iris Marion Young (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0691023158 | ISBN-13: 978-0691023151 | Publication Date: August 17, 1990

This book challenges the prevailing philosophical reduction of social justice to distributive justice. It critically analyzes basic concepts underlying most theories of justice, including impartiality, formal equality, and the unitary moral subjectivity. Starting from claims of excluded groups about decision making, cultural expression, and division of labor, Iris Young defines concepts of domination and oppression to cover issues eluding the distributive model. Democratic theorists, according to Young do not adequately address the problem of an inclusive participatory framework. By assuming a homogeneous public, they fail to consider institutional arrangements for including people not culturally identified with white European male norms of reason and respectability. Young urges that normative theory and public policy should undermine group-based oppression by affirming rather than suppressing social group difference. Basing her vision of the good society on the differentiated, culturally plural network of contemporary urban life, she argues for a principle of group representation in democratic publics and for group-differentiated policies. "This is an innovative work, an important contribution to feminist theory and political thought, and one of the most impressive statements of the relationship between postmodernist critiques of universalism and concrete thinking.... Iris Young makes the most convincing case I know of for the emancipatory implications of postmodernism." --Seyla Benhabib, State University of New York at Stony Brook

Editorial Reviews

Review

With remarkable precision and clarity, Young constructs a 'pluralized' account of oppression, aiming to describe all the groups and all the ways they are oppressed. -- Signs

From the Back Cover

"This is an innovative work, an important contribution to feminist theory and political thought, and one of the most impressive statements of the relationship between postmodernist critiques of universalism and concrete thinking.... Iris Young makes the most convincing case I know of for the emancipatory implications of postmodernism."--Seyla Benhabib, Yale University

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 286 pages
• Publisher: Princeton University Press (August 17, 1990)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0691023158
• ISBN-13: 978-0691023151
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #68,781 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #19 in Books > Gay & Lesbian > Nonfiction > Philosophy

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

34 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars This is the conversation we need to have, December 25, 2000

By 

E. M. Dale (USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Justice and the Politics of Difference (Paperback)

Young's clasic book is most often read in seminars on social criticism and/or feminist studies. This is as it should be, for Young's work brilliantly illuminates the direction debates about justice and oppressed groups must go. However, I read the book from the point of view of the work of Warnke, Habermas, and Gadamer, more along the lines of hermeneutics and ideology critique. What I found was an absolutely riviting account of how we define the groups to which we belong, how we believe those groups interact with each other, and the way that the competing demands of these groups are met and dealt with. As Warnke does, Young realigns the concept of justice along a communitarian axis rather than an individualistic axis, proposing that we look at justice in terms of communitites than individuals. Only in this way will the individuals within those communities be able to come to the table with their respective concerns. Like Habermas, she investigates the rhetoric of power that underlies old ways of discussing justice in terms of distribution, denying that justice is a finite commodity that must be rationed. And like Gadamer, Young stresses the need for an understanding of presuppositions in developing theories of history and interpretation. After all, how we define "our" group in great part determines how we define "others".

I found her turn from a rural to an urban paradigm of community to be nothing short of revolutionary. She develops an idea of community-oriented justice that revolves not around the model of self-suffient hamlets, but around the interlocking and often messy communities that exist side-by-side (though often in isolation from each other) in cities. Showing that the idea of self-sufficiency is unworkable in the curent context, Young holds out hope that these interconnected yet distinct communities will show us the way to not only survive but flourish in the postmodern world. Justice does not compete with difference; it grows out of it.

An excellent study, it should be read by any and all, though the jargon cannot help but be technical at times. I agree with the previous reviewer, a good second-year book for students of social work, religion, philosophy, education, or politics, and a great any-time book for anyone concerned with issues of justice in the world today.

29 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars conceptual building blocks for a better world, August 20, 1997

By 

Dennis Fischman "changing the world" (Somerville, Massachusetts, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Justice and the Politics of Difference (Paperback)

Iris Young makes us think about justice not as a set of debts we owe other individuals but as a set of relations between social groups. In a just society, no group is oppressed. Her chapter "Five Faces of Oppression" is a classic. She brings new insights to debates about welfare, affirmative action, and disability. This book also offers a thought-provoking discussion of community. Young argues that we have based our idea of community on the rural life of an earlier age and that city life is where we should look for ideas about how community thrives in diversity.

Young tries to write for a general audience as well as for scholars. Sometimes, she succeeds, although the parts of the book that address particular groups and their predicaments or particular social policies are more accessible than the parts in which she critiques other theories. I would recommend this book for second-year students in college and up. It marks a turning point in social and political thought.

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Groundbreaking Work, May 15, 2006

By 

F.V.M. (Ann Arbor, MI) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Justice and the Politics of Difference (Paperback)

Ignore the silly reviews (here on Amazon) that attempt to pigeon-hole this work as somehow relevant ONLY if one believes the principles of radical feminism. Yes, Young is a feminist. But this book is about much, much more than that. It asks a question that has long needed answering: Do classical conceptions of justice (i.e. distributive justice) adequately account for the diverse experiences of differently situated actors? And if not, how are some groups and individuals marginalized by the dominant philosophical conceptions of justice which have become part of the background understanding of Western civilization? It is Young's wonderful journey seeking an answer to this question that we find in "Justice and the Politics of Difference," and the journey is worth taking with her.