<i>Making Space for Justice: Social Movements, Collective Imagination, and Political Hope</i>

Making Space for Justice is an ambitious, insightful, and laudable work of philosophy. Michele Moody-Adams brings to life the ways in which social movements should inspire philosophers (and those who care about making space for justice generally) to look past discursive arguments and consider the importance of imagination and hope for creating a just society. Moreover, beyond demonstrating what one can learn from social movements, Moody-Adams also offers her own forceful political philosophy.The book is divided into three parts. The first part introduces Moody-Adams’s view of social movements and some of the crucial ideas of the book, such as the importance of conscientious citizenship, reconciliation, and humane regard.Chapter 1 offers a deep engagement with the civil rights movement—in particular, the work and philosophy of Martin Luther King Jr.—to rebut some misconceptions about social movements. The disciplined struggle of the civil rights movement shows that social movements are not “intrinsically subject to destructive and irrational impulses and forces” (14). Instead, they can be effective and constructive in fighting for justice. Further, the civil rights movement shows that the metaphilosophical concern that social movements can’t tell us anything about social justice “that philosophy would otherwise not appreciate” (19) is misguided. In particular, the movement’s use of nonviolent action showed how social movements can create “perceptual space” for justice, even when discursive reason “proved ineffective” (21).Drawing on King, Moody-Adams also offers a conception of “conscientious citizenship” that includes “obligations to endure civic sacrifice,” promote civic trust, compromise, and respect other citizens (37). This conception of conscientious citizenship supports leaving space both “for the redemption of at least some perpetrators of injustice” and for a reconciliation with (at least some of) them in our future community (38).Chapter 2 begins with an epigraph from John Dewey: “The task of democracy ... is creation of a freer and more humane experience in which all share and to which all contribute” (47). Moody-Adams convincingly argues that Dewey was right to contend that democracy is also a way of life, which “expresses the belief that ‘the habit of amicable cooperation ... is a priceless addition to human life’” (49). Moody-Adams’s rich understanding of democratic citizenship serves as a useful reminder that democracy isn’t just a system of government. Rather, it is also something that we do together (and not just at the ballot box). This understanding of democracy has a range of important implications, including ones she doesn’t draw herself. For instance, capitalism as a way of life plausibly doesn’t fit with democracy as a way of life—a democratic way of life involves democratic control and cooperation, including over the means of production and our productive decisions. Moody-Adams’s enriched understanding of democracy (much like the actions of the social movements she considers) invites us all to (re)consider our institutions and ways of life and how they fit with democratic cooperative ideals.Chapter 3 further highlights how considering social movements can deepen our understanding of justice. One such insight Moody-Adams highlights is the “duty not to look away from serious injustice” (86). From here Moody-Adams presents a key contribution to political philosophy, the idea of “humane regard.” Moody-Adams argues that social movements have shown that “social justice is fundamentally humane regard for persons,” where for society to give persons their due requires combining respect for humans’ agency “with compassionate concern for human vulnerability to pain and suffering” (96).The second part of the book explores four different types of imagination that social movements use in pursuit of justice. Chapter 4 outlines the four—“epistemic, sympathetic, narrative, and aesthetic” (130)—and motivates their importance. The chapter begins with an astute discussion of recent protests that have targeted monuments and memorials that people believe have harmful expressive values. Moody-Adams calls such efforts “aesthetic activism” (118). While Moody-Adams ably defends the value of such activism against skeptics, she also insightfully interprets such activism as a reminder that to remake the world we must “first reimagine it” (119). The epistemic imagination Moody-Adams discusses makes sense of cases like the development of the term sexual harassment, where there wasn’t an epistemically adequate term to capture the wrong women were suffering. As Moody-Adams notes, such a development also utilized sympathetic imagination, since understanding what was wrong with being subjected to that harm required humane insight into that suffering (131).Chapter 5 further explores “language activism” and the inventing of new terms in the fight for justice. I regard Making Space for Justice as a great work of metaphilosophy, and Chapter 5 also features interesting reflections on the difference between philosophers and “engaged moral inquirers.” Engaged moral inquirers, for Moody-Adams, are willing “to endure great personal risk” and are ready to communicate moral insights in ways beyond discursive reason-giving and argument. These are traits few philosophers have—Moody-Adams notes that Socrates is one of the few who would qualify—and are also important traits for playing a substantive role in shaping social change (173). Moody-Adams is careful to stress that academic philosophy still has much value, including to social movements (175). Yet, if Moody-Adams is right that philosophers will struggle to obtain certain insights about justice without looking at social movements, I think it is worth reflecting on the limits of moral/political philosophy that refuses to engage with (or in) engaged moral inquiry.Chapter 6 makes a careful case for the importance of “narrative activism.” Narratives can attract participants to social movements (192), shape our understandings of the past, create group identities, and shape our normative expectations about important aspects of our social lives (195). Such activism also crucially challenges oppressive narratives.The third part of the book consists in chapters 7 and 8, which argue that political hope can be pivotal in making space for justice. Specifically, Moody-Adams argues for a “positional hope,” which involves standing firm on the possibility of achieving the desired outcomes even through adversity (230).These chapters feature difficult questions about reconciliation. As in earlier chapters, Moody-Adams holds onto the value of reconciliation. Yet, recognizing the contributions of figures like Malcom X and the Black Panthers, she acknowledges the value of “rhetoric that refuses to be conciliatory,” because of benefits from the “radical flank effect” and because such rhetoric can be a “means of voicing” ignored claims (252). Moreover, Moody-Adams acknowledges that reconciliation “is a forward-looking project that may require us to temporarily bracket concerns about injustice” and pursuits of remedies for said injustices (260). Such a tension becomes especially apparent when considering backward-looking concerns of justice, such as reparations (260–65). Ultimately, Moody-Adams argues for a defensible “future-oriented politics” that takes history seriously (267). She argues that such a politics would require constructive hope, and not insisting “that the stain of some injustices can never be overcome” (272).I found Making Space for Justice to be a refreshing work of philosophy. Full of insights about what it means to do moral/political philosophy, the book is an exemplar of how to do philosophy. The book also offers nuanced discussions of many important social movements and a rich conception of what justice involves. Though I’m not ready to endorse the claim that “social justice is fundamentally humane regard for persons,” the view is one that needs considering and promises to breathe fresh air into philosophical discussions about justice.I want to end by considering exactly how to make sense of the value of reconciliation that Moody-Adams discusses. At times the book suggests that social movements should pursue projects of reconciliation for instrumental reasons—such as when Moody-Adams warns about “hovering on the edge of civil war” if we fail to pursue reconciliation (258). While I recognize these instrumental arguments for reconciliation, they suggest that reconciliation is not itself valuable, and, indeed, it may be lamentable that to make space for justice we will have to reconcile with some people who have failed to show humane regard for others. Further, if reconciliation is only to be pursued insofar as we instrumentally have to, that leaves a consistently open question: How much and with whom must we (regrettably) reconcile to achieve justice?Moody-Adams also offers arguments that reconciliation is good in itself. She approvingly refers to King saying, “The end is reconciliation; the end is redemption; the end is the creation of the beloved community” (259). Here reconciliation is itself an end to be pursued. I take it that one reason to hold such a view is Moody-Adams’s view of civic grace, according to which one should treat one’s opponents with civic goodwill and be ready to put aside bitterness and resentment to work together toward shared social goals (273).Nevertheless, it’s not clear to me that being in a “beloved community,” with all those who have consistently opposed showing humane regard to everyone, is good in itself, or a worthwhile end. One might think that civic grace is something that we only owe to those who are at least willing to treat others with humane regard or reciprocal civic grace. Thinking back to (the end of) Reconstruction, we can see the cost of reconciliation with those who would not show everyone humane regard. Take a contemporary example. As I write during a wave of protests against Israel’s genocide in Gaza, we can think of the far too many people still adamantly opposing a ceasefire. Indeed, seeing the Gaza Solidarity Encampments at universities throughout the United States and elsewhere, we see far too many people, including university administrators and politicians from different political parties, earnestly decrying a social movement and peaceful protests. Such responses serve to suppress humane regard toward those suffering unconscionable war crimes. Whatever the practical good of reconciliation, and however many opponents of these encampments are willing to show humane regard to others, it does not seem to me that a beloved community with those who show no humane regard for some others is in itself a good. And one thing that I think we can learn from the Solidarity Encampments, from social movements, and from Making Space for Justice, is that a worthy end and one of the great values of social movements is the creation of community with those who are willing to show civic grace and humane regard to others. To be clear, I don’t think that Moody-Adams fetishizes reconciliation or elides the complexities surrounding it. But I am left wondering about when and the extent to which reconciliation is a worthy end in itself, and how much of a reciprocity condition there is on civic grace.Regardless, Making Space for Justice is a wonderful, thoughtful book that should influence how we think of philosophy, social movements, and what can be learned from them. Moody-Adams’s book is full of insights on many topics. Its innovative view of justice and what it is to make space for it deserves careful consideration by anyone working in political philosophy.