Gender Justice and Society Practice Flashcards

This set of flashcards covers vocabulary and key concepts from the 'Gender Justice and Society' lectures, including social contract theories, types of justice, liberty, power, and global ethics.

Political Philosophy

The practice of theorising what political norms should be and the practice of bringing those norms about.

The State of Nature (Hobbes)

A condition called 'Warre' of every man against every man, where life is 'solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short' because there is no common Power to keep men in awe.

Social Contract

The act of individuals giving up their own liberty to be governed in exchange for peace and societal function.

Amour de soi-même

Rousseau's term for 'self-love', an innate passion which, when properly construed, involves caring for the well-being of others.

General Will

A concept in Rousseau's philosophy where sovereignty is only legitimate if it represents the collective will of the people.

Tacit Consent

The idea that by living in and voting in a country, an individual gives consent to be governed.

Corrective Justice

A form of justice that seeks to correct for an injustice, such as returning stolen property to its rightful owner.

Distributive Justice

Justice regarding how goods and resources should be distributed across society.

Procedural Justice

The justice of due process, such as a jury deliberating correctly, independent of whether the final verdict is right or wrong.

Substantive Justice

Justice that is results-based and produces just outcomes, such as a jury correctly identifying that an accused person is not guilty.

Comparative Justice

Justice focused on the outcomes of individuals relative to one another.

Original Position

A methodological tool used by Rawls where free and equal individuals jointly deliberate on justice from behind a veil of ignorance.

Veil of Ignorance

A condition in the original position where individuals do not know their social status, personal characteristics, history, or conception of the good.

Reflective Equilibrium

The point at which an individual's principles and judgements align through rational deliberation.

The Difference Principle

Rawls's principle that social and material inequalities must be regulated so that the worst off in society are better off than under any other system.

The Racial Contract

According to Charles Mills, a contract that explains European hegemony by asserting the humanity of Europeans in opposition to the sub-humanity of non-Europeans to sanction exploitation.

Ideal Theory

Theological modeling using idealized societies without structural oppression as a starting point, often excluding actual historic oppression.

Ideology

A configuration of power that makes contingent, variable features of existence appear universal, natural, or necessary.

Non-Ideal Theory

The alternative to ideal theory that identifies real-world injustices and motivations with the goal of rectification.

Utopophobia

David Estlund's term for the realist tendency to overemphasize likelihood and ignore moral possibilities in political philosophy.

Heian Period

Japan's era from $794-1185$ CE, marked by artistic achievements like 'The Tale of Genji' and a proto-feudal social hierarchy.

Bushido

The 'way of the warrior', characterized in Heian Japan by virtues such as courage, honor, and loyalty to one's station.

Rashomon Effect

The phenomenon arising from several divergent perspectives on the same event, leading to different interpretations and narratives.

Instrumentalism (Democracy)

The view that democracy is valued primarily for its outcomes, such as epistemic success or good policies.

Proceduralism (Democracy)

The view that democracy is valued for its just procedures, such as the fairness of the vote itself.

Direct Democracy

A system where the population directly decides on laws and policies.

Representative Democracy

A system where elected officials represent the population in making policy decisions.

Epistocracy

A system of rule by the knowledgeable, proposed as an alternative to democracy.

Condorcet Jury Theorem

A theorem suggesting that if voters have a greater than $50\%$ chance of being right, the probability of a correct popular vote approaches $1$ as the number of voters increases.

Experimentalist Model (Dewey)

John Dewey's characterization of democracy as using social intelligence and experimentation to solve practical problems.

Anarchism (Goldman)

A philosophy of social order based on liberty unrestricted by man-made law, viewing all government as resting on violence.

Negative Liberty

The area within which a person or group is left to do or be what they are able without interference from others.

Positive Liberty

The freedom that comes from being one’s own master, or knowing who the source of control is that determines one's actions.

Harm Principle

John Stuart Mill's principle that an individual's liberty should only be limited when their actions would harm another.

Akrasia

The phenomenon of 'weakness of will', where an individual acts in ways not in accordance with their higher or rational desires.

Autonomy (Kant)

The state of acting freely and rationally in alignment with the moral law, rather than being driven by impulse.

Locutionary Act

The act of making a meaningful statement where words have specific references.

Illocutionary Act

The performance of an act 'in saying' something, such as issuing a command or making a promise.

Perlocutionary Act

The consequence or effect produced in the world as a result of an utterance.

Labour-Mixing

John Locke's theory that individuals acquire property in the state of nature by mixing their own labor with natural resources.

End-of-state Theories

Theories of justice that determine the fairness of a situation by looking only at its current structure or distribution.

Historic Theories of Justice

Theories, like Nozick's, that evaluate the justice of a situation based on how that situation came to be.

Wilt Chamberlain Example

Nozick's argument that free transactions between individuals will inevitably upset any patterned distributive justice system.

Docile Bodies

Foucault's term for individuals made malleable and unable to fight back through internalised disciplinary practices.

Testimonial Injustice

An epistemic injustice where a speaker's credibility is deflated due to prejudice on the part of the hearer.

Hermeneutical Injustice

An injustice where someone's experience is misunderstood because the collective social understanding lacks the concepts to name it.

Civil Disobedience

An intentionally unlawful, principled, and non-violent collective act of protest aimed at changing specific laws or policies.

Nationalism (Global Justice)

The position that conceptions of global justice must prioritize duties towards one's own compatriots.

Cosmopolitanism (Global Justice)

The view that all human beings belong to a global community and owe duties to one another regardless of nationality.

Equity

Shue's concept of fairness in global environmental justice, distinguishing it from literal egalitarianism.

Collective Action Problem

A situation, like climate change, where individual actions are not harmful alone but the collective actions of the population are.

Deep Improvisation

Bagley's model of erotic love where lovers reciprocally work out shared values, analogous to musical improvisation.