Just Results
Author | : Ralph D. Ellis |
Publisher | : Georgetown University Press |
Total Pages | : 230 |
Release | : 1998 |
ISBN-10 | : 0878406670 |
ISBN-13 | : 9780878406678 |
Rating | : 4/5 (70 Downloads) |
Download or read book Just Results written by Ralph D. Ellis and published by Georgetown University Press. This book was released on 1998 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Just Results, Ralph E. Ellis provides an authoritative solution to one of the major problems in the field of public policy. Until now, analysts and planners have had no practical or accurate means of incorporating qualitative social concerns into the traditional quantitative formulas used in policymaking. By introducing a justice factor--a quantitative measure for social values--Ellis opens the door for more balanced policy decisions. Using concrete, real-world examples, Ellis shows how policy analysts can better account for the use value--or practical measurable utility--of universally agreed-upon social benefits such as life, health, safety, and environmental preservation when making cost-benefit analyses. In this way, policymakers, and by extension, society as a whole, can avoid making unjust tradeoffs between important social values and comparatively frivolous economic benefits. Drawing on philosophical works on justice from Kant through John Rawls, this book is informed by a theoretical defense of distributive justice that emphasizes diminishing marginal utility, thus favoring the poor. Just Results is a stimulating and highly applicable book that will be of great interest to philosophers, political scientists, policy analysts and planners.