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Ethics, Place & Environment
A Journal of Philosophy & Geography
Volume 11, 2008 - Issue 1
123
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Original Articles

Mr Walzer's Neighborhood: The Need for Geographic Particularity in Distributive Ethics

Pages 1-16 | Published online: 21 May 2008
 

Abstract

In Spheres of Justice, Michael Walzer articulates an approach to distributive ethics based on complex equality that is closely attentive to the specific ways particular communities value goods. A renewed interest in place and geography among practitioners and theoreticians is giving rise to questions that are beyond the scope of Walzer's system and reveal abstractions at the geographic level that undercut his overall approach. This internal inconsistency weakens, but does not ultimately discount, Walzer's overall system of distributive ethics. When calibrated to allow for geographic particularity, Walzer's approach becomes even more useful to critique a range of contemporary development movements.

Acknowledgements

The author wishes to thank Glen Stassen and Lisa Williams for their helpful comments on a draft of this paper.

Notes

Note

1 Jackson's notion of the racial exclusivity of the suburbs has been helpfully challenged (Wiese, Citation2004, pp. 4–5), but his basic account of the characteristics of the postwar suburb is sound.

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