Distributive Justice Debates in Social and Political Thought: Perspectives on Finding a Fair Share

Who has what and why in our societies is a pressing issue that has prompted explanation and exposition by philosophers, politicians and jurists for as long as societies and intellectuals have existed. It is a primary issue for a society to tackle this and these answers have been diverse.

This collection of essays approaches some of these questions and answers to shed light on neglected approaches to issues of distribution and how these issues have been dealt with historically, socially, conceptually, and practically. The volume moves away from the more dominating and traditionally cast understandings of distributive justice and shows novel and unique ways to approach distributive issues and how these can help enlighten our course of action and thought today by creating new pathways of understanding. The editors and contributors challenge readers by exploring the role and importance of restorative justice within distributive justice, exploring the long shadow of practices of trusteeship, and concepts of social and individual rights and obligations in welfare and economic systems, social protection/provision schemes, egalitarian practices and post-colonial African political thought.

Distributive Justice Debates in Political and Social Thought empowers the reader to cast a more critical and historically complete light on the idea of a fair share and the implications it has on societies and the individuals who comprise them.

Camilla Boisen is Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Political Theory at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. Her area of research is on colonial political thought in relation to the development of ideas of property rights, trusteeship and humanitarian intervention and their influence on contemporary problems such as post-colonial restitution.

Matthew C. Murray is the Senior Project Advisor for the Growthpolicy.org project at the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and serves as Special Lecturer of Philosophy at Providence College. Matthew is actively researching and publishing in the areas of critical theories of justice (subaltern, race, culture, gender and disability) and their effects on the ideas of and applications of distributive and social justice.