On Justice

This unifying proposal for understanding distributive justice discourse across cultures sheds light on how best to understand political philosophy.

Unfulfilled legal needs are at a tipping point in much of the Canadian justice system. The Justice Crisis assesses what is and isn’t working in efforts to strengthen a fundamental right of democratic citizenship: access to civil and family justice. Contributors to this wide-ranging overview of recent empirical research address key issues: the extent and cost of unmet legal needs; the role of public funding; connections between legal and social exclusion among vulnerable populations; the value of new legal pathways; the provision of justice services beyond the courts and lawyers; and the need for a culture change within the justice system.

How do we think about justice? Is it an act? An ideology? A philosophy? We are divided in our understandings of justice between those who seek fundamental social change versus those who seek incremental change and between those who argue that justice exists versus those who think it is a ruse between internal and external perspectives. However, a promising axis of scholarship aimed at bridging these divides is emerging. Thinking about Justice introduces readers to these three ways of thinking about justice in a variety of contexts including prisons, policing, the courts, youth crime, Aboriginal people, the media, poverty and work in the sex industry. Ultimately, Thinking about Justice seeks to embrace the potentialities of justice, to explore the avenues through which justice seekers interact, debate and achieve some mode of cohesion and find a new, inclusive way forward."

Though the revised edition of A Theory of Justice, published in 1999, is the definitive statement of Rawls's view, so much of the extensive literature on Rawls's theory refers to the first edition. This reissue makes the first edition once again available for scholars and serious students of Rawls's work.

Keeping Hold of Justice focuses on a select range of encounters between law and colonialism from the early nineteenth century to the present. It emphasizes the nature of colonialism as a distinctively structural injustice, one which becomes entrenched in the social, political, legal, and discursive structures of societies and thereby continues to affect people’s lives in the present. It charts, in particular, the role of law in both enabling and sustaining colonial injustice and in recognizing and redressing it. In so doing, the book seeks to demonstrate the possibilities for structural justice that still exist despite the enduring legacies and harms of colonialism. It puts forward that these possibilities can be found through collaborative methodologies and practices, such as those informing this book, that actively bring together different disciplines, peoples, temporalities, laws and ways of knowing. They reveal law not only as a source of colonial harm but also as a potential means of keeping hold of justice.

A timely and persuasive argument for Higher Education’s obligations to our democratic society, Longing for Justice combines personal narrative with critical analysis to make the case for educational practices that connect to questions of democracy, justice, and the common good. Jennifer S. Simpson begins with three questions. First, what is the nature of the social contract that universities have with public life? Second, how might this social contract shape undergraduate education? And third, how do specific approaches to knowledge and undergraduate education inform how students understand society? In a bold challenge to conventional wisdom about Higher Education, Simpson argues that today’s neoliberal educational norms foreground abstract concepts and leave the complications of real life, especially the intricacies of power, unexamined. Analysing modern teaching techniques, including service learning and civic engagement, Simpson concludes that for Higher Education to serve democracy it must strengthen students’ abilities to critically analyse social issues, recognize and challenge social inequities, and pursue justice.

"This book turns to the wisdom of an older generation of Christian activists from all across Canada (including Quebec), in order to inspire a direction and model for future faith-based action for social and ecological justice. Written by Joe Gunn, a long-time leader within the Canadian justice ecumenical milieu, and current Executive Director of Citizens for Public Justice, the book promises to be a thoughtful and inspiring reflection based on interviews Joe will conduct with key Canadians from several ecumenical backgrounds. These are folks who have served as active models of social justice struggles across the nation over the years. While their witness, and that of many Christians, have contributed to the ending of apartheid, the partial cancellation of debts to poor countries, and the engagement in reconciliation and solidarity with Indigenous people, challenges remain: poverty, in Canada alone, continues to deprive families of abundant life, and achieving climate justice in a world addicted to oil appears daunting. The rationale behind the book is that it is important to evaluate 'what works' from varied perspectives in every era, as well as to know where we have been in order to discern how to proceed. This line of thinking then, is especially important now, since the call to justice is arguably greater today than it has been in the past. With the inclusion of at least one chapter reflection by a Millennial Christian activist on the wisdom of an older generation of Christian activists, this book can inform and inspire a newer generation of faith-based public justice activists today."--

The need for informed analyses of health policy is now greater than ever. The twelve essays in this volume show that public debates routinely bypass complex ethical, sociocultural, historical, and political questions about how we should address ideals of justice and equality in health care. Integrating perspectives from the humanities, social sciences, medicine, and public health, this volume illuminates the relationships between justice and health inequalities to enrich debates. Understanding Health Inequalities and Justice explores three questions: How do scholars approach relations between health inequalities and ideals of justice? When do justice considerations inform solutions to health inequalities, and how do specific health inequalities affect perceptions of injustice? And how can diverse scholarly approaches contribute to better health policy? From addressing patient agency in an inequitable health care environment to examining how scholars of social justice and health care amass evidence, this volume promotes a richer understanding of health and justice and how to achieve both. The contributors are Judith C. Barker, Paula Braveman, Paul Brodwin, Jami Suki Chang, Debra DeBruin, Leslie A. Dubbin, Sarah Horton, Carla C. Keirns, J. Paul Kelleher, Nicholas B. King, Eva Feder Kittay, Joan Liaschenko, Anne Drapkin Lyerly, Mary Faith Marshall, Carolyn Moxley Rouse, Jennifer Prah Ruger, and Janet K. Shim.