Perpetuating AdvantageRobert E. GoodinLabel: Oxford University PressDescription: Injustices are in the first instance brute acts of identifiable individuals. But they are typically perpetuated more subtly through seemingly innocent workings of innocuous social structures. Critics of structural injustice are quick to call out that ruse. They say much about all the sites where such structural injustices reside - but without saying much as yet about how exactly structural injustice actually works. By what specific mechanisms are unfair advantages and disadvantages perpetuated? What specifically can we do to interrupt them? That is the focus of this book in which Robert Goodin identifies several fundamental mechanisms of structural injustice: social position networks language social expectations and norms reputation and organization. His discussion is deeply informed by a wide range of social sciences mined with a philosopher's sharp eye to what matters and lucidly explained with a deft turn of phrase. Having exposed each of those specific mechanisms of structural injustice Goodin proceeds to explore what they all have in common. The underlying drivers he shows are a combination of scale effects and attention scarcities. That combination limits - but also informs - what can reasonably be done to overcome the various nefarious mechanisms that perpetuate unfair social advantage and disadvantage.
