All lectures from the course Solidarity and Social Justice including notes and all the right answers to all tutorial questions, which also covers most of the comprehension questions. With this summary, you can easily make the midterm exam, as the lectures and the questions also cover the literature!
Lectures Solidarity and Social Justice
Lecture 1: Introduction
Solidarity:
• Sociological and philosophical roots:
– Shared aims and interests;
– Shared life experiences (work, community);
– Fraternity (brotherhood);
– Community; a willingness to share resources;
– A moral principle underlying society & the welfare state
• Psychological roots:
– Cooperation / Altruism / Prosocial behavior
– Belongingness / Affiliation
– Social identity / Inclusion & Exclusion
Social justice:
• Sociological and philosophical roots:
– Redistribution of resources
– Division of divide fundamental rights and obligations
– An underlying moral principle / set of principles in society
• Psychological roots:
– Distributive fairness
– Procedural fairness
– Self-transcending (vs. self-enhancing) value / motive
Do we have self-transcending motives of justice and solidarity or is all behaviour
ultimately driven by self-interest?
Homo economicus
• Rational Choice Theory
– People are rational beings, weighing costs and benefits and striving for
maximum net benefit • Theory of Evolution
– Natural selection: There are hereditary traits with blind variation and
differences in fitness of the variants of these traits Descent with modification /
survival of the fittest
• Humans are basically self-interested
Natural selection favors selfishness
,• These models cannot adequately account for human cooperation…
Batson and colleagues
• Objective: “Try to be as objective as possible about what had happened to the
person interviewed and how it had affected his or her life”
• Imagine-other: “Try to imagine how the person being interviewed feels about
what has happened and how this affected his or her life”
• Imagine-self: “Try to imagine how you yourself would feel if you were
experiencing what has happened to the person being interviewed and how this
experience would affect your life”
What is justice? And why is it important?
Rawls: an introduction
• ”Justice is the first virtue of social institutions, as truth is of systems of
thought.”
• Injustice is only ok if it helps to prevent greater injustice
• Common interests / conflict of interests
• Justice requires trust
Key terms: part I
• CONCEPT (of justice): abstract idea, notion
• CONCEPTIONS (of justice): what we perceive
• PRINCIPLES (of justice): fundamental truth/foundation for a belief system
• The ‘initial’ or original position: a hypothetical situation
The ‘initial’ (or original) position
• Assumes no one knows their place in society
• In this initial position, everyone is equal
• ‘Veil of ignorance’
• This ‘initial position’ is key to understanding Rawls’ thought experiment
• From this position, it follows that principles of justice are needed
Key terms: part II
• Difference principle (versus utility)
• Social contract
• Justice as fairness
Problems with Rawls
• Theory vs. Reality
• Lack of trust in governing bodies?
, • Individual responsibility for outcomes?
• Rights and benefits for whom?
Summary
• Many conceptions of what justice is; an ongoing debate
• Principles of justice: foundation for society
• ‘Initial’ position: veil of ignorance
• Inequality? Only if…
Lecture 2: Solidarity: a sociological perspective
Today’s lecture:
• Solidarity: sociology/history/(philosophy)
– Sociological and historical roots
– Durkheim: mechanical vs organic solidarity
– Aspects of solidarity
– Sneak peek: welfare state solidarity
• Solidarity
– Social identity theory
Solidarity: historical roots
• Shared aims and interests (common identity)
• Family / kinship (verwantschap) ties are not static, but dynamic (ups and
downs)
• Fraternity; voluntary bands with people (brotherhood); from Christian to
political value (French Revolution political meaning)
• Gemeinschaft: shared life experiences (work, community); Community; a
willingness to share resources;
• Gesellschaft: society (solidarity as a moral principle underlying society (and the
welfare state))
• Last week: (political) philosophy: Rawls. Justice as fairness (social contract)
– Hobbes, Locke, Spencer (to some extent Rawls)
• Solidarity: sociological critique of social contract
– Leroux (you focus too much on the individual, relations around ind. are
also important!), Comte (if we look at the social order in society, this shift to
capitalism has a disruptive effect on social order. What holds us together in the
dirty cities of industrialization?), Tönnies (Gemeinschaft vs. Gesellschaft. Before
industrialization: people sharing a small set of resources, now: what integrating
mechanisms actually work?), Durkheim
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