As some thinkers have sought in the concept of global civil society an ethically driven site of deliberation and even resistance, so others have criticized global civil society for its lack of legitimacy and representativeness. This article attempts to answer these criticisms ? at least in part ? by invoking a moral commitment to the value of justification. I argue that the idea of justification, when examined, offers us a particular understanding of legitimacy which would be attainable for global civil (...) society actors. The article begins by setting out the case for concern about the legitimacy of global civil society. I then outline a certain understanding of justification, showing how a commitment to this conception provides both a response to critics of global civil society and an ethical baseline for humane actors within global civil society. I move on to trace the significance of the moral relevance of justification for actors' strategies. Lastly, however, I highlight the difficulty of justification in a diverse world. This is to say that the issues of legitimacy and strategy facing global civil society are only made more tractable, not dissolved, by an appeal to the importance of justification. (shrink)

Countering the present trend in the discourse on justice wherein human reason is perceived and marginalized as an embarrassment to justice and the trend to reject the concept of formal justice, this paper argues that there is formal justice and the essence of justice is setting things right and setting righteousness to stand straight. By this token, justice means the rule of reason, not the rule of power and desire, and the ethics of justice differs fundamentally from the ethics of (...) care/benevolence. The popular assumption that justice as the rule of reason is incompatible with the idea of justice as accommodating diversity is unjustified. The paper joins the present discourse on justice from a historical perspective. It examines the historical Confucian and neo-Confucian concept of justice in a way of its dialogues with other Western concepts of justice such as Plato's concept of justice. (shrink)