Reviews for Horizons of justice

The average rating for Horizons of justice based on 2 reviews is 4.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2008-10-21 00:00:00 James Fesler An excellent discussion of the ways in which shame and disgust are used as instruments of social control. Nussbaum argues that laws based on individual or social disgust, without evidence of some concrete harm, undermine both equality and democracy. She further argues that social controls based on shame or disgust (usually relative to the body) create categories of people who are seen (and who come to see themselves) as flawed and defective over and above any acts they may have committed. Moreover, Nussbaum argues, social controls based on public shaming--- on the kinds of non-state social pressures any conervative moralists amd social thinkers admire ---become tools of majoritarian tyranny and often impose grossly excessive sanctions. Very much worth reading by anyone interested in how social pressure is used to create hiearchies of virtuous and 'shameful' citizens and how controls on 'deviant' behaviour are imposed.

Review # 2 was written on 2014-04-05 00:00:00 Thomas Potvin This is a fascinating book that covers a lot of territory in an intelligent and engaging way. I especially liked Nussbaum's exploration of shame and stigma related to poverty, specifically to the different ways in which we (Americans) have historically viewed (and dealt with) people who are living in poverty. For instance, she sees Ehrenreich's book Nickel and Dimed as a good example of constructive shame and of an effective call to policy changes--of "the connection between human dignity and some degree of public support for basic needs."