Title: The Development of Albert Camus's Concern for Social and Political Justice by Mark Orme
Abstract: MLR, 104.3, 2009 877 but comparatively weak on aesthetics, and the account ofVImaginaire which we are offered accordingly sidesteps the brief closing section entitled 'L'oeuvre d'art'. More fundamentally, the focus on the concepts comprising the early philosophy, because not presented as a deliberately selective approach on the part of the author, in places obstructs rather than encouraging awareness of the evolution in Sartre's thinking, from the 1950s onwards in particular. Entries for concepts from the period ofCritique de la raison dialectique are comparatively few innumber, and the influence which Marxism in particular exerted on Sartre is not explored in detail. One wonders why there isno entry for Marx given that other influences on Sartre, such as Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Freud, and Bergson, are all treated individually. The concept of 'materialism', central by no means exclusively toMarxist philosophy, does not make the cut either.Of course, any attempt to present a taxonomy of an oeuvre as tentacular as Sartre's isbound tobe selective. And thephilosophical rigour and claritywhich characterize much of Cox's writing in The Sartre Dictionary will ensure its lasting value for Sartre scholars and enthusiasts alike. University of Edinburgh Sam Coombes TheDevelopment ofAlbert Camus sConcern for Social and Political Justice. ByMark Orme. Madison: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press. 2007. 350 pp. ?41.50. ISBN 978-0-8386-4110-1. Mark Orme's study examines how the idea of justice expressed by Camus in his non-fictional writings evolved in response to changing personal and historical circumstances. The books subtitle, Justicepour un juste, seems to imply an attempt to do justice to a man who was himself just, and although Orme quotes a highly self-critical passage by Camus that gives the lie to the deeply entrenched view of Camus as a moral guide' (p. 202), he concludes that Camus may be regarded as embodying Joubert's ideal of justice as 'truth in action'. Nevertheless, Orme does not gloss over what he sees as Camus's ambiguous relationship with colonialism or theweaknesses ofVHomme revolte,with its tendentious interpretations ofmajor thinkers and conspicuous lack of practical solutions to the problems it identifies. Orme divides Camus's preoccupation with justice into three main phases: a personal engagement during his formative years, culminating in his campaigning journalism on indigenous issues forAlger republicain; a commitment to collective justice during the Second World War and up to thewriting ofVHomme revolte-, and finally,what Orme describes as a 'scaling-down process' (p. 198) as a result of thehostile reception to the latterand the personal crisis Camus experienced during the Algerian war. A similar scaling-down is evident inOrme's discussion of this final phase, towhich he devotes a single chapter, with just eleven pages on what he describes as 'Camus' Algerian Monolog'. The book's early chapters, however, cover some less familiar ground, including Camus's youthful writings, his initial involvement in the theatre, and his pre-war journalism. As regards LeMythe de Sisyphe and VHomme revoke,Orme sees them as thera peutic exercises forCamus, attempts at 'writing the selfbetter' (p. 109) byworking 878 Reviews his way through despair. VHomme revolte,Orme argues, was in part a way for Camus to purge his anguish at having supported capital punishment during the post-Liberation purges, thereby increasing injustice at the very moment when he believed thathe was serving justice. But VHomme revolted attack on revolutionary violence led to accusations of self-righteousmoralizing, while Camus's search for a solution to theAlgerian conflictwhich would safeguard the European community and do justice to the indigenous population without conceding independence was doomed to failure. Thereafter, torn apart by thewar and by his inability, in his private life, to practise the justice that he had preached in public, Camus would campaign against specific injustices such as the death penalty, and seek peace of mind in a return tohis roots (Le Premier Homme). In his conclusion Orme suggests thatCamus is closer to JohnRawls than John StuartMill in his understanding of justice* (p. 208), being concerned with fairness rather than utilitarian calculations of maximum aggregate benefit. Unlike either Rawls or Mill, however, Camus never developed a theory of justice and defined what hemeant by social justice only once, speaking invague...
Publication Year: 2009
Publication Date: 2009-01-01
Language: en
Type: article
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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