Social Research articles from March 1997

Social Research archives from March 1997

Equality and respect.(The Decent Society)
March 22, 1997... 1. Let me begin with a preliminary caution, and with a statement of intent. I propose to deal here with issues that pertain to the alleged moral value of equality. So far as I am aware, nothing that I shall say concerning these issues implies...

Recognition and moral obligation.(The Decent Society)
March 22, 1997... It is indeed the case that in one form or another the concept of "recognition" has always played an essential role in practical philosophy. Thus, in the ethics of classical antiquity the conviction was prevalent that only that person whose...

Humiliation and the politics of identity.(The Decent Society)
March 22, 1997... There are many different ways of maltreating people and there are several ways of classifying these. Recent moral and political theory has focused on four main types of maltreatment: causing suffering, restricting freedom, violating rights,...

Freedom with honor: a republican ideal.(The Decent Society)
March 22, 1997... The decent society, as Avishai Margalit (1996) defines it for us, is one in which the institutions do not humiliate people. They do not deprive a person of honor. Specifically, they do not undermine or jeopardize a person's reasons for...

Humiliation.(The Decent Society)
March 22, 1997... Avishai Margalit's The Decent Society (1996) is a contribution to a relatively new tradition of books about concrete ethical topics that march resolutely off in the opposite direction from the abstract aridity of most substantial ethical...

Responses to humiliation.(The Decent Society)
March 22, 1997... In this essay I look at two related questions. Both arise from Avishai Margalit's (1996) characterization of a decent society as one in which its institutions do not humiliate its citizens, and a civilized society as one in which citizens do...

From decency to civility by way of economics: "First let's eat and then talk of right and wrong."(The Decent Society)
March 22, 1997... "Adecent society," Avishai Margalit says, "is one whose institutions do not [systematically] humiliate people. . . . A civilized society is one whose members do not [typically] humiliate one another" (1996, p. 1). Margalit draws the...

On humiliation.(The Decent Society)
March 22, 1997... Avishai Margalit's The Decent Society (1996) is about humiliation. We rarely give that much thought. We see it as being marginal; ugly, yes, and injurious, and of course regrettable, but of no bearing on politics, on political ethics. Margalit...

Decent equality and freedom: a postscript.(The Decent Society)
March 22, 1997... A decent society is a society that does not humiliate. More precisely, it is a society whose institutions do not humiliate people who depend on them. This, at any rate, is what I claim in my book The Decent Society (1996). In the...