Argues that there is a shared public obligation to establish and maintain a culture of justice, with implications for education, poverty, free speech, and “PC” culture.
Description
In A Culture of Justice, Eric Thomas Weber shows how culture can enable or inhibit the pursuit of justice. Weber argues that there is a shared, public obligation to establish and maintain a culture of justice. Culture can be employed to threaten people’s self-respect, to diminish their sense of positive power to pursue meaningful life plans. Weber also addresses problems of poverty and stigmatization as well as of racism and threats conveyed by means of public speech and the cultivation of hatred. Advancing John Dewey’s idea that democracy is a way of life, not merely a set of political mechanisms, he draws implications for policies and practices related to poverty, education, free speech, and the inadequately named set of norms that we call “political correctness.” Written in an accessible style, A Culture of Justice offers numerous everyday examples and conflicts for the reader to consider.
Eric Thomas Weber is Professor and Director of Graduate Studies in Educational Policy Studies and Evaluation at the University of Kentucky and serves as Executive Director of the Society of Philosophers in America (SOPHIA). He is the author and editor of several books, including Uniting Mississippi: Democracy and Leadership in the South.
Endorsements
“A pleasure to read, A Culture of Justice will appeal to a wide audience of social and political philosophers, scholars and practitioners of education, and people thinking about racial justice. Weber makes clear the relevance of the great American pragmatists to addressing current social and political problems such as poverty, hate speech, and racism.”
— Nicholas Tampio, Fordham University