Synopses & Reviews
"Social philosophers, of all varieties, will find their preconceptions challenged here. Anthony de Jasay does, indeed, look at justice and its surroundings 'through a different window.' And his totally original arguments prompt urges to respond, even as frustration is anticipated. Can any of the several conventional wisdoms survive the provacative criticism that this book offers?"
James M. Buchanan, April 2002
Author of The State, Anthony de Jasay, has been described as one of the few genuinely original minds in modern political philosophy. He breaks new ground with Justice and Its Surroundings a new collection of trenchant essays that seek to redefine the concept of justice and to highlight the frontier between it and the surrounding issues that encroach upon it and are mistakenly associated with it.
Justice and Its Surroundings discusses rival notions which treat justice as something else” as fairness, equality, or moral intuition. Jasay states, Theories of justice inspired by the idea that its function is to rectify the way of the world by redistributing the good and bad things that happen to make up peoples lots tend to be intellectually weak and vulnerable to the weapon of logic.” Jasays chosen mission is to promote clear reasoning rather than plead for a good cause.
This straightforward and terse book analyzes the roles of collective choice, redistribution, and socialism and the claims that would enlist justice in their service. The issue of whether state authority is necessary, convenient, or neither, and the primacy of convention and contract are among the pivotal questions Jasay poses. He concludes by analyzing notions of freedom and making a clear distinction between freedoms and rights.
Anthony de Jasay is an independent theorist living in France. Jasay believes that philosophy should be mainly, if not exclusively, about clarifying conclusions that arise from the careless use of, or deliberate misuse of, language. There are echoes here of . . . Wittgenstein's later philosophy.” His books, translated into a half dozen languages, include The State and Social Contract, Free Ride.
[source/credit line] I. M. D. Little in Ordered Anarchy, 2007
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Synopsis
Justice and Its Surroundings author Anthony de Jasay has been described as one of the few genuinely original minds in modern political philosophy. The celebrated contemporary author of The State breaks new ground with this trenchant collection of essays on the topic of justice. In the introduction, Jasay spells out his mission: to promote clear thought and reasoning. He starts by enumerating many concepts that are often confused with the term "justice, " among them, the state and the redistribution of income and wealth.
Jasay analyzes the concepts of fault and personal responsibility as they relate to justice, and he assesses the rival schools of thought about justice that have grown up around this issue. Jasay reasons "Theories of justice inspired by the idea that its function is to rectify the way of the world by redistributing the good and bad things that happen to make up people's lots, tend to be intellectually weak and vulnerable to the weapons of logic."
Beyond this, Jasay discusses the concept of collective choice and the necessity, convenience, and legitimacy of the state. He looks at socialistic constructs and how theorists have invoked themes of justice to promote them. He concludes by analyzing notions of freedom and making a clear distinction between freedoms and rights.
Synopsis
Anthony de Jasay breaks new ground with Justice and Its Surroundings--a collection of trenchant essays that seek to redefine the concept of justice and to highlight the frontier between it and the surrounding issues that encroach upon it and are mistakenly associated with it.
This straightforward and terse book analyzes the roles of collective choice, redistribution, and socialism and the claims that would enlist justice in their service.
Anthony de Jasay is an independent theorist living in France.
Table of Contents
Anthony de Jasay,
Justice and Its Surroundings (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2002).
Introduction vii
PART ONE: THE NEEDLESS STATE
1. Who Gave Us Order? On Exclusion, Enforcement, and Its Wherewithal 3
2. Taxpayers, Suckers, and Free Riders 19
3. Prisoners’ Dilemma and the Theory of the State 30
4. Is National Rational? 54
5. Empirical Evidence 71
PART TWO: REDISTRIBUTION
6. A Stocktaking of Perversities 75
7. On Redistribution 84
8. Disjunction, Conjunction 118
PART THREE: JUSTICE
9. Justice as Something Else 127
10. Justice 142
11. On Treating Like Cases Alike 170
12. Slicing the Cake Nobody Baked 186
PART FOUR: SOCIALISM
13. Ownership, Agency, Socialism 199
14. Market Socialism: “This Square Circle” 215
PART FIVE: FREEDOM
15. Right, Wrong, and Economics 243
16. The Paretian Liberal, His Liberties and His Contracts (with Hartmut Kliemt) 256
17. The Bitter Medicine of Freedom 281
Works Cited 307
Index 313