Differentiated Citizenship and Contextualized Morality

Political theorists, increasingly, are realizing the virtues of contextuality to conceptual analysis. Just as theory may provide useful standards for the assessment of political practices, so may application of theoretical constructs within particular contexts provide a critical corrective to theory...

Full description

Saved in:  
Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Mitnick, Eric J. (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
Check availability: HBZ Gateway
Interlibrary Loan:Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany)
Published: 2004
In: Ethical theory and moral practice
Year: 2004, Volume: 7, Issue: 2, Pages: 163-177
Further subjects:B self-invention
B Rights
B legal categorization
B differentiated citizenship
B Social Group
B constitutive theory
B Identity
B Culture
Online Access: Volltext (JSTOR)
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig)
Description
Summary:Political theorists, increasingly, are realizing the virtues of contextuality to conceptual analysis. Just as theory may provide useful standards for the assessment of political practices, so may application of theoretical constructs within particular contexts provide a critical corrective to theory. This essay relates work undertaken within sociolegal studies applying a constitutive methodology to such efforts to contextualize political theorizing. The essay describes how the emphasis placed by constitutive theory on locality and meaning entails a contextual analysis. The essay then demonstrates how a constitutive and contextual approach can enhance our understanding of the moral issues surrounding differentiated citizenship policy. While the most obvious cost associated with differentiated citizenship policy is a loss in formal equality, a contextual assessment demonstrates the prospect of an even deeper, though ultimately contingent, moral loss in self-invention.
ISSN:1572-8447
Contains:Enthalten in: Ethical theory and moral practice
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1023/B:ETTA.0000032759.77426.b6