How to Make Opportunity Equal (eBook)

Race and Contributive Justice

Paul Gomberg (Autor)

eBook Download: PDF

2008
John Wiley & Sons (Verlag)
978-0-470-69162-5 (ISBN)

Infos

This critical examination of racial equality takes a new approach to breaking down racial barriers by proposing a system of equal opportunity through shared labor and contributive justice.

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• Focuses on how race and class inevitably structure vastly unequal life prospects
  
• Shows how human society can be organized in a way that does not socialize children for lives of routine labour
  
• Looks towards contribution, not distribution, as a way to promote racial equality
  
• Argues that by sharing routine and complex labor, social relationships would be transformed, eliminating competition for limited opportunities to develop and contribute abilities

A discussion board for ideas and comments relating to the book can be found at: http://howtomakeopportunityequal.blogspot.com/

Paul Gomberg is Professor of Philosophy at Chicago State University. He has published widely in political philosophy, the history of philosophy, and on race in journals such as Ethics, American Philosophical Quarterly, and The Journal of Social Philosophy. His writing reflects his experience as an anti-racist activist and teacher.

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HOW TO MAKE OPPORTUNITY EQUAL Paul Gomberg makes a powerful and provocative case that real equality of opportunity can only be achieved by overturning the social division of labor that unfairly handicaps not just black but the working class in general. Charles W. Mills, University of Illinois at Chicago An important and original contribution to contemporary debates about justice in political philosophy; and accessible introduction to those debates for students and the lay reader; and a powerful and important challenge to policymakers, educators and employers, to think hard about their responsibilities for enabling people to lead flourishing lives. Harry Brighouse, University of Wisconsin-Madison In this impressive book, Paul Gomberg argues ardently, with great optimism, and with philosophical and sociological sophistication, for a radical new theory of egalitarian justice. David Copp, University of Florida Distributive injustices such as low pay, inferior healthcare and housing, as well as diminished opportunities in school continue to blight the lives of millions of the urban poor in America and beyond. This book announces a new theory of justice. Paul Gomberg: focuses on how race and class structure unequal life prospects shows how human society can be organized in a way that does not socialize children for lives of routine labor maintains that true equality of opportunity comes only when all labor, both routine and complex, is shared proposes a new paradigm for the theory of justice. While Rawls, Sen, Nozick, and Walzer conceive justice as addressing how various goods are fairly obtained or distributed, Gomberg argues that justice in distribution must advance contributive opportunities and duties. On Gomberg s contributive theory of justice, each person contributes to society not for individual material gain, but from a sense of what is required in order to build just relations with others. Passionate and radical, but rigorously argued, this book makes a vital and original contribution to philosophy and social thought.

Inhalt

Preface

Who Toils? Race, Equal Opportunity, and the Division of Labor

Against Leveling the Playing Field

Against Limiting Opportunity

Egalitarianism of Opportunity and Other Egalitarianisms

Can Everyone be Esteemed?

Opportunity for What? Defending the Constellation

Sharing Labor

Transforming Relationships

Is Inequality Necessary?

Are Some Born Smarter than Others?

Race and Political Philosophy

Justice and Markets

Contributive Justice

Acknowledgments.

References.

Index

Rezensionen

"Undeniably represents a significant contribution to the debate on equality of opportunity. It does valuable work in demonstrating the need to explore a more 'human-activity-based' approach to equal opportunity and provides as such a good starting point for further research. It is written for a broad audience: its argument is accessible and challenging not only for advanced students and professors in the social sciences, but also for general readers. Gomberg succeeds in combining abstract philosophical reasoning with lively illustrations and anecdotes borrowed from the history of the United States, but also from his own experience as a teacher in a public university with a high proportion of black students." (Metapsychology, October 2008)

"Gomberg writes in a hard-hitting, knowledgeable and engaging way about the problems of racism in society and marshals an array of evidence to illustrate his case."
(Ethical Theory and Moral Practice)

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 15.4.2008
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Philosophie ► Allgemeines / Lexika
• Themenwelt: Sozialwissenschaften ► Ethnologie
• Themenwelt: Sozialwissenschaften ► Soziologie
• Schlagworte: Philosophie • Philosophy • Political & Economic Philosophy • Politische u. Ökonomische Philosophie • Politische u. Ökonomische Philosophie • Social Philosophy • Sozialphilosophie
• ISBN-10: 0-470-69162-X / 047069162X
• ISBN-13: 978-0-470-69162-5 / 9780470691625