Walzer (The Company of Critics, 1988, etc.) thoughtfully answers
objections to his many influential volumes of social criticism.
Walzer attempts to set out careful definitions for various terms
that have arisen in public moral debate and beefs up the concepts
behind his much discussed work. For him, moral reasoning is at its
best when done at the "thick" level, in which the many components
of individual and communal decision-making, history, and
particularity can be dissected, analyzed, and accounted for. But it
is the "thin" level of moral discourse (where generally
recognizable slogans and terms predominate) that most often is the
meeting point for intracultural and cross-cultural discussion and
debate. Thus, the thin good of ending communism or providing aid to
the needy is something that large numbers of people can agree on,
but the thick good of making decisions about how to achieve such
goals is more difficult. After five tight chapters, Walzer posits
that we are all made up of several selves - based in our histories,
identities, and associations - that we juggle as we confront a
world of complex decisions and ambiguous choices. It is among those
selves, rather than in a community of eager discussants, that the
most profound moral reasoning occurs, a commentary on what Walzer
perceives as the current sad state of public discussion and moral
debate. Walzer emerges as a critic willing to take his punches, but
who finds himself caught in a trap of sound-bite debate and thin
sloganeering. Though Walzer could show himself more aware of some
issues, especially gender and race, this is a well-argued, if not
always energetic, set of carefully wrought ideas on the state of
public moral debate. (Kirkus Reviews)
When Michael Walzer's Spheres of Justice was published ten years
ago, the front page of The New York Times Book Review hailed the
work as "an imaginative alternative to the current debate over
distributive justice". Now in Thick and Thin, Walzer revises and
extends his arguments in Spheres of Justice, framing his ideas
about justice, social criticism, and national identity in light of
the new political world that has arisen in the past decade. Walzer
focuses on two different but interrelated kinds of moral argument:
maximalist and minimalist, thick and thin, local and universal.
According to Walzer the first, thick type of moral argument is
culturally connected, referentially entangled, detailed, and
specific; the second, or thin type, is abstract, ad hoc, detached,
and general. Thick arguments play the larger role in determining
our views about domestic justice and in shaping our criticism of
local arrangements. Thin arguments shape our views about justice in
foreign places and in international society. The book begins with
an account of minimalist argument, then examines two uses of
maximalist arguments, focusing on distributive justice and social
criticism. Walzer then discusses minimalism with a qualified
defense of self-determination in international society, and
concludes with a discussion of the (divided) self capable of this
differentiated moral engagement. Walzer's highly literate and
fascinating blend of philosophy and historical analysis will appeal
not only to those interested in the polemics surrounding Spheres of
justice but also to intelligent readers who are more concerned with
getting the arguments right.
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