Social connection and practice dependence: some recent developments in the global justice literature: Iris Marion Young, Responsibility for Justice. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011; and Ayelet Banai, Miriam Ronzoni and Christian Schemmel, Social Justice, Global Dynamics. Oxford: Routledge, 2011

Abstract

This review essay discusses two recent attempts to reform the framework in which issues of international and global justice are discussed: Iris Marion Young's ‘social connection' model and the practice-dependent approach, here exemplified by Ayelet Banai, Miriam Ronzoni and Christian Schemmel's edited collection. I argue that while Young's model may fit some issues of international or global justice, it misconceives the problems that many of them pose. Indeed, its difficulties point precisely in the direction of practice dependence as it is presented by Banai et al. I go on to discuss what seem to be the strengths of that method, and particularly Banai et al.'s defence of it against the common claim that it is biased towards the status quo. I also discuss Andrea Sangiovanni and Kate MacDonald's contributions to the collection.

Keywords:

• Iris Marion Young
• social connection
• practice dependence
• status quo objection

Acknowledgements

The paper was written whilst I was a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at University College London (UCL) and a visiting fellow at the Justitia Amplificata Centre for Advanced Studies, Goethe University, Frankfurt. I would like to thank the Leverhulme Trust, UCL and Justitia Amplificata for their support; as well as the Forschungskolleg Humanwissenschaften, Bad Homburg, for a supportive and stimulating environment during my stay there. I also owe a debt of gratitude to the journal Editors; and to Christian Schemmel for helpful comments.

Notes

1. Kutz’s account of the grounding of our practices of attributions of blame and liability in interpersonal relations makes me think that the liability model is not necessarily subject to the same worry (Kutz 2000, pp. 17–65).

2. Another reason for thinking that contract law and fashion are relevantly different is that regulating contract law does not have to intrude in the same way on our capacity to make these judgments, and so is less burdensome than regulating fashion.

3. These interests include the interest in not being coerced, so Sangiovanni is not making the false claim that coercion is never morally relevant to the justification of some act or practice.

4. There are also issues about the mechanisms of deprivation which will also often be morally relevant to the justification of losses of liberty. I pass over these here.