The Soul of Justice : : Social Bonds and Racial Hubris / / Cynthia Willett.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Cornell University Press Backlist 2000-2013
• VerfasserIn: Willett, Cynthia,
• Place / Publishing House: Ithaca, NY : : Cornell University Press, , [2018]; ©2001
• Year of Publication: 2018
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (256 p.)

Cynthia Willett brings together diverse insights from social psychology, classical and contemporary literature, and legal and justice theory to redefine the basis of the moral and legal person.Feminists, communitarians, and postmodern thinkers have made clear that classical liberalism, with its emphasis on individual autonomy and excessive rationalism, is severely limited. Although she is sympathetic with the liberal view, Willett finds it necessary to go further. For her, attention to the social dimensions of the family and civil society is critical if issues of race, gender, class, and sexuality are to be taken seriously. Interdependency, not autonomy, is of increasing significance in an era of globalization.Willett proposes an alternate normative theory that recognizes the impact of social forces on individual well-being. Citizenship in a democracy should not be defined solely on the basis of rights to autonomy, such as bare rights to property or free speech, she explains. Rather, citizenship should be defined first of all in terms of the rights, responsibilities, and capacities of the social person.It is within the African American tradition of political thought that Willett finds a more useful definition of human identity and political freedom. The African American experience offers a compelling vision of social change and a deeper understanding of what it means to be a social person. By focusing on everyday battles against racism, Willett contends, we can gain valuable insight into the meaning of justice.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Prologue: Eros and Hubris -- I A Marriage of Autonomy and Care -- 1. The Ethics of Care and Its Limits -- 2. Hidden Narratives and Discourse Ethics -- 3. Joining Together Reason and Care -- 4. The Outsider Within -- II A Dialectic of Eros and Freedom -- 5. The Erotic Soul of Existential Marxism -- 6. This Poem That Is My Body -- III A Discourse of Love, a Practice of Freedom -- 7. The Mother Wit of Justice -- 8. The Genealogy of Freedom in Slave America -- 9. Narratives of Hubris, Songs of Love -- Down Here in Paradise -- Index