Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-fscjk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T02:56:02.068Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Values for Foxes? A Comment on Kyle Johannsen’s A Conceptual Investigation of Justice

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 January 2020

COLIN M. MACLEOD*
Affiliation:
University of Victoria

Abstract

This paper provides a critical rejoinder to some themes in Kyle Johannsen’s A Conceptual Investigation of Justice. The discussion focuses on Johannsen’s analysis of fundamental value pluralism and identifies a number of challenges to the form of value pluralism defended by Johannsen. I suggest that Johannsen’s analysis fails to explain how conflicts between fundamental values can be resolved, and that there is greater harmony between fundamental values than Johannsen recognizes.

Cet article propose une réponse critique à quelques thèmes du livre de Kyle Johannsen, A Conceptual Investigation of Justice. La discussion se penche sur l’analyse du pluralisme fondamental de la valeur proposée par Johannsen et met en cause cette même analyse. Je soutiens que l’analyse proposée par Johannsen ne parvient pas à expliquer comment des conflits entre des valeurs fondamentales peuvent être résolus et qu’il y a davantage de convergence entre des valeurs fondamentales que ne le reconnaît Johannsen.

Type
Book Symposium: Kyle Johannsen’s A Conceptual Investigation of Justice
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Philosophical Association 2020 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

1

Kyle Johannsen. 2018. A Conceptual Investigation of Justice. (New York, NY: Routledge). Page numbers unless otherwise attributed are from this book.

References

Anderson, Elizabeth 1999What Is the Point of Equality?Ethics 109 (2): 287337.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cohen, G.A. 2008 Rescuing Justice and Equality. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dworkin, Ronald 2011 Justice for Hedgehogs. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kymlicka, Will 2002 Contemporary Political Philosophy: An Introduction (2nd Edition). Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Lyons, David 1980The Nature and Soundness of the Contract and Coherence Arguments,” in Reading Rawls, edited by Norman, Daniels. Stanford CA: Stanford University Press, pp. 141168.Google Scholar
Rawls, John 1971 A Theory of Justice. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Scheffler, Samuel 2003What Is Egalitarianism?Philosophy and Public Affairs 31 (1): 539.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wolff, Jonathan 1998Fairness, Respect, and the Egalitarian Ethos.” Philosophy and Public Affairs 27 (2): 97122.CrossRefGoogle Scholar