Luc Boltanski, Laurent Thévenot: On Justification: Economies of Worth (1991/2006)

A vital and underappreciated dimension of social interaction is the way individuals justify their actions to others, instinctively drawing on their experience to appeal to principles they hope will command respect. Individuals, however, often misread situations, and many disagreements can be explained by people appealing, knowingly and unknowingly, to different principles. On Justification is the first English translation of Luc Boltanski and Laurent Thévenot’s ambitious theoretical examination of these phenomena, a book that has already had a huge impact on French sociology and is likely to have a similar influence in the English-speaking world.

In this foundational work of post-Bourdieu sociology, the authors examine a wide range of situations where people justify their actions. The authors argue that justifications fall into six main logics exemplified by six authors: civic (Rousseau), market (Adam Smith), industrial (Saint-Simon), domestic (Bossuet), inspiration (Augustine), and fame (Hobbes). The authors show how these justifications conflict, as people compete to legitimize their views of a situation.

On Justification is likely to spark important debates across the social sciences.

Keywords and phrases
political philosophy, civic world, Saint-Simon, world of fame, Durkheim, city of God, relativism, Social Contract, market world, Rousseau, domestic world, However, different worlds, higher common principle, inspired world, sociology, Jansenist, cial, Aristotle, metaphysics

Originally published in French as De la Justification: Les Economies de la Grandeur by Editions Gallimard, Paris, 1991
Translated by Catherine Porter
Publisher Princeton University Press, 2006
ISBN 0691125163, 9780691125169
389 pages

publisher
google books

PDF (no OCR; updated on 2012-10-31)