Kumar Neeraj Sachdev

Social and Political Philosophy: Contemporary Perspectives, edited by James P Sterba. (Routledge)

James Sterba's book has all the necessary ingredients for a good read on socio-political forms of justice. The approach followed in the book would definitely appeal more to liberals than others, such as communitarians.

The book presents social and political issues from various contemporary perspectives. The flow of ideas regarding the issues is easy to comprehend. The authors weave the discussion around the need to live in a just society. The impetus comes from the editor's earlier work, Justice for Here and Now. He calls for a "reconciliationist" conception of justice, which he views as a "peacemaking" way of doing philosophy, in which opposing parties sympathetically assess each other's position.

Sterba seems to support the idea put forward by one of the contributors that rationality needs to be universalized to include the interests of self and others. This balancing of interests pushes the discussion towards a libertarian justice that requires a political system in favour of individual liberty. Whereas libertarians talk only about non-interference, Sterba argues that this kind of libertarian justice leads to a right to welfare and a right to equal opportunity.

With this background the authors cover a range of moral ideals such as welfare liberalism, socialism, and feminism in formulating a broad conception of justice. The authors justifiably claim and show that such an approach connects to the pursuit of racial, homosexual and multicultural justice. Further they refer to the principles of environmental justice and just war pacifism to make the conception of justice more holistic.