Western moral and political theorists have recently devoted considerable attention to the perceived victimisation of women by non-western cultures. In this paper, the author argues that conceiving injustice to poor women in poor countries primarily as a matter of their oppression by illiberal cultures presents an understanding of their situation that is crucially incomplete. This incomplete understanding distorts Western theorists’ comprehension of our moral relationship to women elsewhere in the world and so of our theoretical task. It also impoverishes our assumptions about the intercultural dialogue necessary to promote global justice for women., Alison M. Jaggar, and Anglické resumé
A strongly recommended conclusion in sociology about trends in class inequality has been summarised by Goldthorpe as a high degree of 'temporal constancy and cross-national communality'. This conclusion, here called 'the stability thesis', was first challenged by Ringen in 1987 and again, on more methodological grounds, by Ringen and Hellevik in two papers published in 1997. These challenges resulted in a process of debate and reassessment. It is now possible to sum up and conclude. The stability thesis rests on empirical results from odds-ratio readings of mobility table data. The authority of this methodology is re-examined in terms of normative significance and statistical validity. Mobility table data which have generated stability thesis findings are reanalysed with the standard gini-index methodology in the study of inequality, then yielding different findings which contradict the stability thesis. The main conclusion is that the stability thesis can now be considered overturned. Keywords: social inequality, social justice, social reform, class analysis, social stratification.
This article begins with the observation that most contemporary theories of justice pay no attention to the concept of need. And, as my main thesis, I shall argue that this is not correct. First of all (I) I shall explain the reasons for this theoretical deficit and I shall strictly distinguish (II) the concept of “need” from other concepts, such as “wish” and “drive”, which are routinely interpreted as its synonyms. Then (III) I shall offer a definition of need which is based on a complex conception of human personality. I shall introduce an enumeration of the various levels of the person by which various categories of need correspond with various objects. In the next step (IV) I shall tackle the question of whether in some regard it is necessary to treat needs as reasons for conduct. In this context I shall briefly present a historico-naturalistic account which aims to provide a grounding for judgements about questions of human needs. (V). Finally I shall deal with the social dimension of human needs and I will put forward reasons for the view that a theory of social justice should deal with the concept of need as its main theme (VI).