A vital and underappreciated dimension of social interaction is the way individuals justify their actions to others, instinctively drawing on their experience to appeal to principles they hope will command respect. Individuals, however, often misread situations, and many disagreements can be explained by people appealing, knowingly and unknowingly, to different principles. On Justification is the first English translation of Luc Boltanski and Laurent ThГ©venot's ambitious theoretical examination of these phenomena, a book that has already had a huge impact on French sociology and is likely to have a similar influence in the English-speaking world.
In this foundational work of post-Bourdieu sociology, the authors examine a wide range of situations where people justify their actions. The authors argue that justifications fall into six main logics exemplified by six authors: civic (Rousseau), market (Adam Smith), industrial (Saint-Simon), domestic (Bossuet), inspiration (Augustine), and fame (Hobbes). The authors show how these justifications conflict, as people compete to legitimize their views of a situation.
On Justification is likely to spark important debates across the social sciences.
Author(s): Luc Boltanski, Laurent Thevenot, Catherine Porter
Series: Princeton Studies in Cultural Sociology
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Year: 2006
Contents
Preface: How We Wrote This Book
Generalizing Field Observations and Producing Statistical Equivalency
Ordinary Identification and Scientific Qualification
From Comparison to Judgment
Construction of Proofs and Tension between the General and the Particular
The Tension between Different Forms of Generality
Attention to Critical Operations
Generality and the Common Good: Concepts of Worth in Political Philosophy
The Search for a Common Model
The Social Bond Put to the Test of Things
The Line of Argument
Part One: The Imperative to Justify
1. The Social Sciences and the Legitimacy of Agreement
The Critique of Sociology’s Lack of Realism
Individualism: A Different Social Metaphysics
Political Metaphysics as a Social Science
The Question of Agreement
Association and Forms of Generality
The Order of the General and the Particular
The Requirement of General Agreement and the Legitimacy of Order
The Reality Test and Prudent Judgment
2. The Foundation of Agreement in Political Philosophy: The Example of the Market Polity
A Social Bond Based on an Inclination toward Exchange in One’s Own Interest
Individuals in Concert in Their Lust for Goods
The Sympathetic Disposition and the Position of Impartial Spectator
Part Two: The Polities
3. Political Orders and a Model of Justice
Political Philosophies of the Common Good
The Polity Model
An Illegitimate Order: Eugenics
4. Political Forms of Worth
The Inspired Polity
The Domestic Polity
The Polity of Fame
The Civic Polity
The Industrial Polity
Part Three: The Common Worlds
5. Judgment Put to the Test
Situated Judgment
The Polity Extended to a Common World
Reporting on Situations
A Framework for Analyzing the Common Worlds
The Sense of the Common: The Moral Sense and the Sense of What Is Natural
The Arts of Living in Different Worlds
6. The Six Worlds
The Inspired World
The Domestic World
The World of Fame
The Civic World
The Market World
The Industrial World
Part Four: Critiques
7. Worlds in Conflict, Judgments in Question
Unveiling
Causes of Discord and the Transport of Worths
Clashes and Denunciations
The Monstrosity of Composite Setups
Setting Up Situations That Hold Together
The Humanity of an Equitable Judgment
Free Will: Knowing How to Close and Open One’s Eyes
8. The Critical Matrix
Critiques from the Inspired World
Critiques from the Domestic World
Critiques from the World of Fame
Critiques from the Civic World
Critiques from the Market World
Critiques from the Industrial World
Part Five: Assuaging Critical Tensions
9. Compromising for the Common Good
Beyond Testing to Compromising
The Fragility of Compromises
An Example of a Complex Figure: Denunciation Supported by Compromise
Composing Compromises and Forming Polities
Developing a State Compromise: Toward a Civic-Industrial Polity
10. Figures of Compromise
Compromises Involving the Inspired World
Compromises Involving the Domestic World
Compromises Involving the World of Fame
Compromises Involving the Civic World
Compromises Involving the Market World
11. Relativization
Private Arrangements
Insinuation
Flight from Justification
Relativism
Violence and Justification
Afterword: Toward a Pragmatics of Reflection
The Place of Justifications in the Gamut of Actions
Below the Level of Public Judgment: Determining the Appropriate Action in Light of a Snag
From Anger to Crisis
The Moment of Truth in Judgment
The Tension of Judgment and the Qualification of Ungraspable Persons
Judgment between Power and Oblivion
The Humane Use of Judgment and Tolerance in Action
Knowledge about Actions
Notes
Preface
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Works Cited
