Tom Campbell

(1938 - 2019)

Forty years ago, in his landmark work A Theory of Justice, John Rawls depicted a just society as a fair system of cooperation between citizens, regarded as free and equal persons. Justice, Rawls famously claimed, ought to be “the first virtue of social institutions.” Ever since then, moral and political philosophers have expanded, expounded or criticized Rawls’s main tenets, from perspectives as diverse as egalitarianism, left and right libertarianism, and the ethics of care. The most important and influential views in this ‘post-Rawlsian’ era constitute the focus of this volume, which seeks to give a general picture of the main strands in contemporary justice theorizing, as well as addressing more recent developments, especially regarding methodological issues. How to build a theory of justice and how to delineate its proper scope; the relationship between justice and equality, justice and liberty, and justice and desert; and the critique of the Rawlsian paradigm especially from the feminist perspective and from the growing strand of non-ideal theory are the main topics addressed in this selection of essays.

This interdisciplinary selection of essays represents the explosion of scholarly interest since the 1960s in the pioneering feminist, philosopher, novelist and political theorist, Mary Wollstonecraft. Organized by theme and genre, the collection deals with the full range of her work, reproduces the most important modern Wollstonecraft scholarship, tracks the development of the author's reputation from the nineteenth century and demonstrates Wollstonecraft's importance in contemporary social, political and sexual theory and in Romantic studies.

This volume of seminal and recent articles by philosophers in the distributive justice debate covers a range of representative positions, including libertarian, egalitarian, desert and welfare theories. The introduction and articles are designed to allow students and professionals to see some of the most influential pieces that have shaped the field, as well as some key critics of these positions. The articles intersect in such a way as to develop an appreciation of the types of theories and the central issues addressed by theories of distributive justice.

This paper examines the extent to which the voluntary adoption of codes of conduct by multinational corporations (MNCs) renders MNCs accountable for the performance of actions specified in a code of conduct. In particular, the paper examines the ways in which codes of conduct coordinate the expectations of relevant parties with regard to the provision of assistance by MNCs on grounds of rescue or justice. The paper argues that this coordinative role of codes of conduct renders MNCs more accountable for the performance of actions specified in a code of conduct than they would be without a code of conduct. This interpretation of the significance of codes of conduct is contrasted with the view that codes of conduct render MNCs accountable for performing actions specified in a code of conduct by grounding contractual obligations for the performance of such actions.

The concept of rights is now so dominant in the language of politics that it is becoming difficult to identify its use with any particular approach to the solution of social problems or to gain a clear picture of its significance, its advantages and its disadvantages as a way of conceptualizing and resolving contentious political issues. None the less there is a perceptible shift towards an emphasis on rights in contemporary politics which many welcome and encourage and others question and even reject, a shift which is matched in jurisprudence by the renewed stress which many theorists place on rights as a basic legal concept despite recurrent problems associated with the concept as a tool for legal analysis and moral justification. Conflicting theories of legal rights are canvassed and this in turn feeds into the debate concerning the reality or significance of non-legal rights, for the process of law reform is often presented as a matter of giving legal embodiment to the rights which various interested categories of people are asserted to possess already.

The concept of rights is now so dominant in the language of politics that it is becoming difficult to identify its use with any particular approach to the solution of social problems or to gain a clear picture of its significance, its advantages and its disadvantages as a way of conceptualizing and resolving contentious political issues. None the less there is a perceptible shift towards an emphasis on rights in contemporary politics which many welcome and encourage and others question and even reject, a shift which is matched in jurisprudence by the renewed stress which many theorists place on rights as a basic legal concept despite recurrent problems associated with the concept as a tool for legal analysis and moral justification. Conflicting theories of legal rights are canvassed and this in turn feeds into the debate concerning the reality or significance of non-legal rights, for the process of law reform is often presented as a matter of giving legal embodiment to the rights which various interested categories of people are asserted to possess already.