Just Cause: Freedom, Identity, and Rights / Edition 1

by Drucilla Cornell

Overview

One of the distinguishing features of Drucilla Cornell's work is its emphasis on the significance of ideals. The essays collected here examine how the ideals of freedom and equality associated with the democratic revolutions of the West have survived the challenges of twentieth century critiques. Cornell argues that, far from threatening these ideals, feminism, race theory and other new theories have deepened their meaning and so allowed them to survive.
In particular, Cornell here engages with issues surrounding representation and rights. Drawing on her experiences as a union organizer, she recounts how workers, and in particular women workers, came to imagine themselves in a way that allowed them to engage in political activism. The kind of representation— the imaginative acts by which we envisage the world and our role in it— is entwined, she argues, with struggles for representation in democratic practice.
Cornell's work on law also reveals her vision of the role of the ideal. Included here are two of her most important contributions to legal theory—her well-known defense of worker's rights (also included is the response to her essay by Judge Richard Posner) and her ground-breaking defense of Spanish-language rights.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780847697915
Publisher:	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	09/26/2000
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	224
Product dimensions:	5.56(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Drucilla Cornell is professor of women's studies, politics, and law at Rutgers University.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 Introduction Part 2 Representation and the Ideal Law in Politics Chapter 3 Las Grenudas: Recollections on Consciousness-Raising Chapter 4 Diverging Differences: Comment on Felski's "The Doxa of Difference" Chapter 5 Antiracism, Multiculturalism, and the Ethics of IdentificationWith Sara Murphy Chapter 6 Freedom's Conscience Chapter 7 Enlightening the Enlightenment Part 8 Why Rights? Chapter 9 Worker's Rights and the Defence of Just-Cause Statutes Chapter 10 Hegel and Employment at Will Chapter 11 Spanish Language Rights: Identification, Freedom, and the Imaginary Domain Chapter 12 Notes Chapter 13 Index

Editorial Reviews

Drucilla Cornell's Just Cause is an important text for scholars in political philosophy, legal studies, political science and feminist studies, as well as for those interested in grounding commitments to activism in such diverse areas as worker's rights and multiculturalism. Just Cause is a valuable book...

Philosophy in Review