Confronting injustice : moral history and political theory / David Lyons.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Lyons, David, 1935- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Race discrimination--United States--History.

Race discrimination.

Social justice.

History.

United States.

Social justice--United States--History.

Physical Description:

x, 240 pages ; 23 cm

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2013.

Summary:

The essays presented in this volume challenge both theorists and citizens to confront grave injustices committed by the American nation. David Lyons encourages us to take a fresh look at the beginnings of America, including the colonists' early adoption of race-based slavery even though it was unlawful and why those who rebelled against English oppression were responsible for greater injustices against their Native American neighbors. Confronting injustice requires us to consider how delegates to the 1787 Constitutional Convention readily embraced increased protections for chattel slavery, why the federal government later abandoned Reconstruction, and why the nation allowed former slave owners to establish a new system of racial oppression called Jim Crow. It requires us to ask why America's official rejection of white supremacy is combined with an unwillingness to address continuing racial stratification. Confronting Injustice calls upon political theorists to test their views in the crucible of social history. It challenges those who debate abstractly the idea of an obligation to obey the law to consider the implications of grievous injustices. It calls upon those who assume that their society is now 'reasonably just' to ask when that transformation occurred, despite the fact that children who are black or poor are denied equal opportunity. Book jacket.

Contents:

The balance of injustice and the war for independence

Slavery and the rule of law in early Virginia

The legal entrenchment of illegality

Unfinished business : racial junctures in US history and their legacy

Corrective justice, equal opportunity, and the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow

Normal law, nearly just societies, and other myths of legal theory

Moral judgment, historical reality, and civil disobedience

Political responsibility and resistance to civil government

Courage and political resistance

Epilog : from politics to philosophy.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [210]-223) and index.

ISBN:

9780199662555

019966255X

OCLC:

824657560