Melissa S. Williams | |
---|---|
Born | 1960 |
Nationality | American |
Education | Bryn Mawr College (MESc) Harvard University (AM, PhD) |
Occupation(s) | Professor, academic, author |
Melissa S. Williams (born 1960) is an American academic who specialises in democratic theory and comparative political theory. She was the founding director of the University of Toronto's Centre for Ethics. As of 2018, she is a professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Toronto. [1] [2]
She gained an MESc from Bryn Mawr College, and AM and PhD degrees from Harvard University. [1] Her doctoral advisers were Judith Shklar and Dennis F. Thompson. [3] Her PhD thesis won the American Political Science Association's Leo Strauss Award. [2]
A major work is the book Voice, Trust, and Memory: Marginalized Groups and the Failings of Liberal Representation, published by Princeton University Press (1998), [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] which won a First Book Award in political theory or political philosophy from the American Political Science Association in 1999. [12] She has served as editor of the journal NOMOS of the American Society for Political and Legal Philosophy. [13] [14]
John Bordley Rawls was an American moral, legal and political philosopher in the liberal tradition. Rawls received both the Schock Prize for Logic and Philosophy and the National Humanities Medal in 1999, the latter presented by President Bill Clinton, in recognition of how Rawls's work "revived the disciplines of political and ethical philosophy with his argument that a society in which the most fortunate help the least fortunate is not only a moral society but a logical one".
A Theory of Justice is a 1971 work of political philosophy and ethics by the philosopher John Rawls (1921-2002) in which the author attempts to provide a moral theory alternative to utilitarianism and that addresses the problem of distributive justice. The theory uses an updated form of Kantian philosophy and a variant form of conventional social contract theory. Rawls's theory of justice is fully a political theory of justice as opposed to other forms of justice discussed in other disciplines and contexts.
Difference feminism holds that there are differences between men and women but that no value judgment can be placed upon them and both sexes have equal moral status as persons.
Feminist legal theory, also known as feminist jurisprudence, is based on the belief that the law has been fundamental in women's historical subordination. Feminist jurisprudence the philosophy of law is based on the political, economic, and social inequality of the sexes and feminist legal theory is the encompassment of law and theory connected.The project of feminist legal theory is twofold. First, feminist jurisprudence seeks to explain ways in which the law played a role in women's former subordinate status. Feminist legal theory was directly created to recognize and combat the legal system built primarily by the and for male intentions, often forgetting important components and experiences women and marginalized communities face. The law perpetuates a male valued system at the expense of female values. Through making sure all people have access to participate in legal systems as professionals to combating cases in constitutional and discriminatory law, feminist legal theory is utilized for it all.
Critical race theory (CRT) is a cross-disciplinary examination – by social and civil-rights scholars and activists – of how laws, social and political movements, and media shape, and are shaped by, social conceptions of race and ethnicity. Goals include challenging all mainstream and "alternative" views of racism and racial justice, including conservative, liberal, and progressive. The word critical in the name is an academic reference to critical thinking, critical theory, and scholarly criticism, rather than criticizing or blaming people.
Political representation is the activity of making citizens "present" in public policy-making processes when political actors act in the best interest of citizens. This definition of political representation is consistent with a wide variety of views on what representing implies and what the duties of representatives are. For example, representing may imply acting on the expressed wishes of citizens, but it may alternatively imply acting according to what the representatives themselves judge is in the best interests of citizens. And representatives may be viewed as individuals who have been authorized to act on the behalf of others, or may alternatively be viewed as those who will be held to account by those they are representing. Political representation can happen along different units such as social groups and area, and there are different types of representation such as substantive representation and descriptive representation.
Standpoint theory, or standpoint epistemology, is a theory for analyzing inter-subjective discourses. Standpoint theory proposes that authority is rooted in individuals' personal knowledge and perspectives and the power that such authority exerts.
Judith Nisse Shklar was a philosopher and political theorist who studied the history of political thought, notably that of the Enlightenment period. She was appointed the John Cowles Professor of Government at Harvard University in 1980.
Iris Marion Young was an American political theorist and socialist feminist who focused on the nature of justice and social difference. She served as Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago and was affiliated with the Center for Gender Studies and the Human Rights program there. Her research covered contemporary political theory, feminist social theory, and normative analysis of public policy. She believed in the importance of political activism and encouraged her students to involve themselves in their communities.
The American Society for Political and Legal Philosophy (ASPLP) is a learned society founded in 1955 by political theorist Carl Friedrich. Its aim is to bring together scholars in political science, law, and philosophy who are interested in interdisciplinary exploration of a range of problems in political and legal philosophy. The ASPLP's main activities are to hold an annual conference, on a topic chosen in advance by the membership, and to publish the papers, along with formal commentary and invited additional essays, in Nomos, its yearbook. As Friedrich explained in the Preface to Authority, the first yearbook: "We are calling the series NOMOS, which is the broadest Greek term for law, because in this term there are also traditionally comprised the notions of a basic political order and of customs and a way of life." He continued: "It describes reasonably well, and perhaps better than any term of modern English, what must be the focus of a society such as ours, uniting the several social sciences, law, and philosophy." That commitment to interdisciplinary normative inquiry has characterized the ASPLP and the Nomos series ever since.
Ethics: An International Journal of Social, Political, and Legal Philosophy is a peer-reviewed academic journal established in 1890 as the International Journal of Ethics, renamed in 1938, and published since 1923 by the University of Chicago Press. The journal covers scholarly work in moral, political, and legal philosophy from a variety of intellectual perspectives, including social and political theory, law, and economics. It publishes both theory and application of theory to contemporary moral issues, as well as historical essays, provided they have significant implications for contemporary theory. The journal also publishes review essays, discussion articles, and book reviews. The journal employs a double-blind peer review process.
Anne Phillips, is Emeritus Professor of Political Theory at the London School of Economics (LSE), where she was previously Graham Wallas Professor of Political Science. She was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 2003.
Glen Francis Newey was a political philosopher, last acting as a Professor of Practical Philosophy at the University of Leiden. He previously taught in Brussels at the Université Libre de Bruxelles and until 2011 was Professor in the School of Politics, International Relations & Philosophy at Keele University, Staffordshire, England. He was a prominent member of the "Realist" school of political philosophers which also includes such figures as Bernard Williams, John N. Gray, and Raymond Geuss. Newey also wrote extensively about toleration, casting doubt on whether it remains a coherent political ideal in modern liberal-democratic societies.
Thomas Risse is a Berlin-based international relations scholar. He currently acts as chair for “transnational relations, foreign- and security policy” at the Otto-Suhr Institute for Political Science at Freie Universität Berlin. Furthermore, he has several engagements in German and international research networks, he also heads the PhD program of the Hertie School of Governance in Berlin.
Feminist political theory is an area of philosophy that focuses on understanding and critiquing the way political philosophy is usually construed and on articulating how political theory might be reconstructed in a way that advances feminist concerns. Feminist political theory combines aspects of both feminist theory and political theory in order to take a feminist approach to traditional questions within political philosophy.
Jane Jebb Mansbridge is an American political scientist. She is the Charles F. Adams Professor of Political Leadership and Democratic Values in the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.
The Demands of Liberal Education is a 1999 political philosophy book by Meira Levinson that establishes a liberal political theory of children's education that fits the mutual needs of the state and its diverse citizenry. She writes that the intent of a liberal education—an education that follows from a liberal society's values—is to maximize the autonomy of individual children through increasing their capacity for liberty. Levinson argues autonomy as a right to children. The book, published by Oxford University Press, aims to address a lacuna between educational policy and liberal political theory.
The Jane Mansbridge bibliography includes books, book chapters and journal articles by Jane Mansbridge, the Charles F. Adams Professor of Political Leadership and Democratic Values, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University.
Rebecca Morton was an American political scientist. She was Professor of Political Science at New York University New York and New York University Abu Dhabi.