On Justification ─ Economies of Worth

A vital and underappreciated dimension of social interaction is the way individuals justify their actions to others, instinctively drawing on their experience to appeal to principles they hope will command respect. Individuals, however, often misread situations, and many disagreements can be explained by people appealing, knowingly and unknowingly, to different principles. On Justification is the first English translation of Luc Boltanski and Laurent Thevenot's ambitious theoretical examination of these phenomena, a book that has already had a huge impact on French sociology and is likely to have a similar influence in the English-speaking world.

In this foundational work of post-Bourdieu sociology, the authors examine a wide range of situations where people justify their actions. The authors argue that justifications fall into six main logics exemplified by six authors: civic (Rousseau), market (Adam Smith), industrial (Saint-Simon), domestic (Bossuet), inspiration (Augustine), and fame (Hobbes). The authors show how these justifications conflict, as people compete to legitimize their views of a situation.

On Justification is likely to spark important debates across the social sciences.

Luc Boltanski is Professor at L'Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris. He is the author of "Distant Suffering: Morality, Media and Politics, Le Nouvel Esprit du Capitalisme", and (with Laurent Thevenot) "Les Economies de la Grandeur". Laurent Thevenot is Professor at L'Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales. He is the author of "L'action au pluriel: Sociologie des regimes d'engagement", coauthor of "Les Economies de la Grandeur", and coeditor of "Les Objets dans L'Action, Cognition et Information en Societe", and (with Michele Lamont) "Rethinking Comparative Cultural Sociology: Repertoires of Evaluation in France and the United States"