New Books In Critical Theory

Andrew Lister's Justice and Reciprocity (Oxford University Press, 2024) examines the place of reciprocity in egalitarianism, focusing on John Rawls's conception of "justice as fairness." Reciprocity was a central to justice as fairness, but Rawls wasn't explicit about the different forms of reciprocity, nor the diverse roles reciprocity played in his theory. The book's main thesis is threefold. First, reciprocity is not simply a fact of human psychology or a duty, but a limiting condition on other duties. Second, such conditions are a natural consequence of thinking of equality as a relational value. However, third, we can identify limits on this conditionality, which explains how some duties of justice can be unconditional. The book explores the ramifications of this argument in a series of debates about distributive justice: productive incentives, duties to future generations, unconditional basic income, and global justice. In each domain, thinking about reciprocity as a limiting condition helps explain oth