The Pecking Order : Social Hierarchy as a Philosophical Problem / Niko Kolodny.
Kolodny, Niko, author.
2023
Available Online

Linked e-resources

Linked Resource Online Access
Concurrent users Unlimited
Authorized users Authorized users
Access notes DRM-Free
Document Delivery Supplied Can lend chapters, not whole books

Details

Title The Pecking Order : Social Hierarchy as a Philosophical Problem / Niko Kolodny.
Author Kolodny, Niko, author.
ISBN 9780674292819
DOI https://doi.org/10.4159/9780674292819
Published Cambridge, MA : Harvard University Press, [2023]
Copyright ©2023
Language English
Language Note In English.
Description 1 online resource (432 p.)
Other Standard Identifiers 10.4159/9780674292819 doi
Summary A trenchant case for a novel philosophical position: that our political thinking is driven less by commitments to freedom or fairness than by an aversion to hierarchy.Niko Kolodny argues that, to a far greater extent than we recognize, our political thinking is driven by a concern to avoid relations of inferiority. In order to make sense of the most familiar ideas in our political thought and discourse-the justification of the state, democracy, and rule of law, as well as objections to paternalism and corruption-we cannot merely appeal to freedom, as libertarians do, or to distributive fairness, as liberals do. We must instead appeal directly to claims against inferiority-to the conviction that no one should stand above or below.The problem of justifying the state, for example, is often billed as the problem of reconciling the state with the freedom of the individual. Yet, Kolodny argues, once we press hard enough on worries about the state's encroachment on the individual, we end up in opposition not to unfreedom but to social hierarchy. To make his case, Kolodny takes inspiration from two recent trends in philosophical thought: on the one hand, the revival of the republican and Kantian traditions, with their focus on domination and dependence; on the other, relational egalitarianism, with its focus on the effects of the distribution of income and wealth on our social relations.The Pecking Order offers a detailed account of relations of inferiority in terms of objectionable asymmetries of power, authority, and regard. Breaking new ground, Kolodny looks ahead to specific kinds of democratic institutions that could safeguard against such relations.
Access Note Access limited to authorized users.
System Details Note Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.
Digital File Characteristics text file PDF
Source of Description Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 29. Mai 2023)
In EBOOK PACKAGE COMPLETE 2023 English
EBOOK PACKAGE COMPLETE 2023
EBOOK PACKAGE Philosophy 2023 English
EBOOK PACKAGE Philosophy 2023
Harvard University Press Complete eBook-Package 2023
Available in Other Form print 9780674248151
Linked Resources Online Access
Record Appears in Online Resources > Ebooks
All Resources
Frontmatter
Contents
Introduction: A Negative Observation and a Positive Conjecture
I A First Instance of the Negative Observation: Justifying the State
1 The Received Materials: Improvement and Invasion
2 Is the Claim against the State's Force?
3 Is the Claim against the State's Threats?
4 Last Attempts
II The Positive Conjecture: Claims against Inferiority
5 Relations of Inferiority
6 Disparities of Regard
7 Reductive Gambits
8 The State and the Secondary Tempering Factors
9 The State and the Firm
10 Collective Inferiority
III Further Instances
11 Claims against Corruption: The Negative Observation
12 Claims against Corruption: The Positive Conjecture
13 Claims against Discrimination
14 Claims to Equal Treatment
15 Claims to the Rule of Law
16 Claims to Equal Liberty
17 Claims to Equality of Opportunity
18 Claims against Poverty, Relative and Absolute
19 Claims against Illiberal Interventions: The Negative Observation
20 Claims against Illiberal Interventions: The Positive Conjecture
IV Contrasts
21 Being No Worse Off
22 Relations of Equality
23 Nondomination
V A Last Instance: Democracy
24 Preliminaries
25 The Negative Observation: Correspondence
26 The Negative Observation: Influence
27 The Positive Conjecture: Equal Influence
VI A Democracy Too Lenient and Too Demanding?
28 Pathologies of American Democracy
29 The Permissiveness of Formal Equality
30 Gerrymandering: A Case Study of Permissiveness
31 The Demandingness of Informal Equality
32 Arbitrary Voting
Conclusion: Not So Much Liberty As Noninferiority
Notes
References
Acknowledgments
Index

Browse Subjects

Show more subjects...

Statistics

from
to
Export