49 pages • 1 hour read
Iris Marion YoungJustice and The Politics of Difference
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1990A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
Social Groups and Social Movements as Keys to a Theory of Justice
All societies are composed of social groups. These groups, according to Young, define the identity of persons, as members share a common history and culture. Social groups exist in relation to one another and structure human dynamics. Individuals belong to multiple groups, and, as a result, their identities are not entirely transparent even to themselves. For example, people are simultaneously members of racial or ethnic groups, gendered groups, and age groups. Yet social groups have been absent from prevailing theories of justice, which incorrectly presume that there is one universal perspective for humanity dictated by abstract reasoning. In reality, this universal perspective is that of the dominant group or groups. In the late 20th-century US, Young identifies that perspective as white, male, young, able-bodied, heterosexual, and economically privileged.
This perspective creates the standards by which society measures all others, defining difference from this standard negatively. Even though most people embrace the principle of equality at a conscious level, they impose the dominant standards unconsciously and judge those who deviate from them harshly. For example, a Black person or a woman who speaks forcefully in a professional or political setting is judged differently than a white male, with the former called pushy and the latter assertive. New social movements in the 1960s, 1970s, and beyond object to the injustice of this universal perspective and seek to have their voices included. These movements for civil rights are unmasking the biases of this “universal” perspective. Young, as both a participant in these social movements and a political theorist, provides the underlying academic critique of such a universal perspective and conceptualizes a broader meaning of oppression.
Social groups bring diverse perspectives to the table based on their unique life experiences and culture. A just society must therefore provide them with formal representation. It follows that theories of justice must acknowledge the existence of social groups and incorporate them into their recommendations. As Young notes, this incorporation requires political theorists to address nonrational and nonverbal forms of oppression, such as feelings and unintentional bodily reactions. If injustice takes those forms, as it does when white people avoid Black people or able-bodied people avoid those with disabilities, then political theorists must explain this injustice and expose it. For Young, a theory of justice must not only acknowledge social groups but provide formal representation to all oppressed and disadvantaged social groups in decision-making structures. Differential treatment of social groups is therefore warranted. The liberal system of representing individuals and treating all equally has benefited only the dominant groups and excluded others. A theory of justice must start with social groups as its building blocks.
Expansion of Democracy as Synonymous with Justice
Young includes decision-making, the division of labor, and culture in her conception of justice, which she defines in contrast to the liberal conception of justice—one focused solely on how goods and services are distributed among the populace. In this latter conceptualization, the concern is with the outcome, not with how that outcome was decided. Young insists that the process of making decisions is as or more important than the outcome. In fact, the decision-making process influences the outcome, i.e., the distribution of goods. When theorists only consider outcomes, they miss the biases of the system itself.
Beginning with injustice as felt and experienced by social groups, Young equates it with domination, which exists when people cannot participate in determining their actions or the context of their actions because of institutional conditions (38). She also equates injustice with oppression, which has five faces, all of which prevent people from learning and using their skills or inhibit people’s ability to play and communicate (38). When rules about what work is, who works for whom, and how work is compensated create relations of power and inequality (50), oppression exists in the form of exploitation. Marginalization, another form of oppression, is present when a category of people is expelled from useful participation in social life. Powerlessness exists when people must do what they are told and have no opportunity to develop and exercise their skills (56). Groups who are the victims of cultural imperialism are both invisible in the culture and defined stereotypically as other. They are voiceless. Systemic violence, the final face of oppression, potentially causes members of a social group to avoid the public sphere or to stay in the shadows.
Injustice in every instance deprives people of a voice. It follows for Young that justice demands democracy. Society must allow people to participate in any decision that impacts their lives. Such participation is not arbitrarily limited to what is deemed the governmental sphere, but rather extends to all spheres of life where decisions influence actions and the conditions of action. Therefore, the workplace must be democratized. The division of labor turns most jobs into task-executing ones, which deprives people of their ability to use their skills and forces them to do only as instructed. Given the impact of media imagery and its propagation of cultural imperialism, social groups must have a voice there as well; Young encourages groups to take control of their own identities and define themselves with positive imagery.
Young’s critique of the universal perspective leads her to champion democracy as well. There is not one universal perspective from which any rational person would reach the same conclusion. Nor is the bureaucratic state neutral: Its functionaries use their own unique perspectives when making judgments. Because reason cannot dictate answers to moral problems or policy, the only legitimate alternative for making decisions is democracy. People must engage with those who have perspectives different from their own and reach decisions democratically. All oppressed and disadvantaged social groups must receive representation in these democratic forums. In short, democracy, redefined to include all and extended to all spheres of life, is synonymous with justice.
The Failings of Liberal Theories of Justice
The core premise of Young’s work is that the liberal theory of justice, based on a distributive paradigm, fails to satisfy the concerns raised by new social movements (and, in doing so, fails to satisfy justice itself). People in these movements challenge the injustice of domination and oppression; they claim rights and a voice. Yet the distributive theory of justice applies poorly to nonmaterial goods such as power because such concepts are relational rather than distributed. The systemic biases of the political and social systems go unquestioned in these theories as well. All questions of justice become questions of distribution, with the system itself taken as a given. The distributive paradigm of justice presumes the neutrality of the state. Interest groups compete for resources and the state acts as a neutral arbiter in making policy decisions. Young exposes this neutrality as a fiction: Decision-makers draw upon their own perspectives in making choices. While that perspective masquerades as neutral—the dictate of universal reason—it is instead the perspective of the dominant groups in society, namely white, male, heterosexual, able-bodied, young, and economically privileged. As a result, the liberal theory of justice excludes the voices and perspectives of oppressed and disadvantaged groups in the false name of neutrality or objectivity.
Liberal theory also struggles to explain or even describe another feature of injustice in the late 20th-century US: that it is not necessarily intentional. People react with different feelings and behaviors to members of dominant and oppressed social groups. Racism and sexism, as just two examples, frequently operate on an unconscious and unintentional level. Young explains the psychological forces at work when persons encounter members of a group that has historically been defined as other: They avert their eyes, avoid interaction, or feel nervous. The effects of this negative treatment on the social group defined as other or deviant from the dominant standards are oppressive. Yet it is difficult to call this unintentional treatment out for fear of being accused of overreacting. Since injustice festers, to the detriment of multiple social groups, at this unconscious level, Young insists that political theorists must address it. Political theory cannot limit itself to the realm of reason and abstraction but must incorporate the role of feelings and bodily reactions in its treatment of justice. Otherwise, the theories are not addressing the most consequential question of the day: the empowerment of all social groups. The distributive theory of justice fails to confront these issues and therefore a more comprehensive theory of justice that accounts for difference and procedures must develop.
