A Theory of Communication and Justice

Description

This book outlines a theory of communication and justice for the digital age, updating classic positions in political philosophy and ethics, and engaging thinkers from Aristotle through Immanuel Kant and the American pragmatists to John Rawls, Jürgen Habermas, and Amartya Sen. In communication seeking to define justice and call out injustice, there is such a thing as the last word. The chapters in this book trace the historical emergence of communication as a human right; specify the technological resources and institutional frameworks necessary for exercising that right; and address some of the challenges following from digitalization that currently confront citizens, national regulators, and international agencies. Among the issues covered are public access to information archives past and present; local and global networks of communication as sources of personal identities and imagined communities; the ongoing reconfiguration of the press as a fourth branch of governance; and privacy as a precondition for individuals and collectives to live their lives according to plans, and to make their own histories. The book will be of interest to students and researchers in media and communication studies, cultural studies, political philosophy and ethics, and interdisciplinary fields examining the ethical and political implications of new information and communication infrastructures. Cover Half Title Endorsement Title Page Copyright Page Table of contents Illustrations Analysis Boxes Preface Note on the text 1 The end of communication What is, what ought to be, and what could be Turns of philosophy Theories of communication Justice – an essentially contested concept Communication as action The chapters of the volume 2 A brief history of justice Between chance and necessity The prehistory of justice Three traditions of justice Do good – virtue ethics Do the right thing – deontology Do the math – consequentialism The global futures of justice Migration as communication Communication as migration Does the world still need a theory of justice? 3 The structural transformation of Jürgen Habermas From the coffeehouse to the internet The rise and fall of the bourgeois public sphere Historical norms Retrospective systematics Reconstructed interests Interested knowledge Disinterested communication From the categorical imperative to communicative action “A third, somewhat less demanding way” How to do things with other people’s words Laws of communication The power of communication Speaking of ideals Communicative action in the public sphere Religious communication Global communication Remember Habermas! 4 John Rawls behind the veil of communication Habermas vs. Rawls Justice as fairness Principles and consequences Procedures and communications An overlapping consensus The rational and the reasonable The public uses of reason The laws of the lands The veil of communication 5 The long legacy of pragmatism Erro, ergo sum Theoretical, practical, and productive sciences The modern inversion of theory and practice The American revival of pragmatism The pragmatic maxim Communication as representation and resource Individual beliefs and collective actions Priests, prophets, and heirs of pragmatism Cambridge pragmatisms Postmodernist pragmatism Transcendental pragmatism Pragmatism, communication, and justice 6 Media of justice Medium theory The in-formation of justice Saying, writing, and printing it Mediated modernity Media of discovery, justification, application, and dissemination Communication flows One-to-one, one-to-many, and many-to-many communications Information flows, user flows, and context flows Many-to-one communication Performing justice Positive and negative freedoms Branches of governance The mediation of agency and structure 7 The communicative position The right to communicate The capability of communication Principles of communication and justice Justice as representativity Rights of information Rights of communication Rights of participation Rights of privacy Communication as condition and constituent of justice 8 Justice – measure for measure Measures and meanings The reality of justice The empirical, the actual, and the real Institutional, technological, and discursive mechanisms The empirical goods of justice Information goods Communication goods Participation goods Privacy goods Monitoring injustice Inferring justice Identifying injustice Practicing justice 9 The future of justice What is, what has been, and what will be Not enough Justice in time Agricultural, industrial, and informational goods The silk roads Capital and ideology Timing communications Unknown knowns References Index