Thick and Thin

About this book

"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 wh…

Themes & subjects

About the author

Michael Walzer

3 March 1935

Michael Laban Walzer (born on March 3, 1935) is a prominent American political theorist and public intellectual. A professor emeritus at the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) in Princeton, New Jersey, he is editor emeritus of Dissent, an intellectual magazine that he has been affiliated with since his years as an undergraduate at Brandeis University. He has written books and essays on a wide range of topics—many in political ethics—including just and unjust wars, nationalism, ethnicity, Zionism, economic justice, social criticism, radicalism, tolerance, and political obligation. He is also a contributing editor to *The New Republic*. To date, he has written 27 books and published over 300 a…