Document Type
Article
Publication Date
1-29-2019
Publication Title
Humanity & Society
Keywords
Oppression, dehumanization, human injustice, human needs, social justice, human liberation
Abstract
The article presents an original needs-based partial theory of human injustice and shows its relationship to existing theories of human need and human liberation. The theory is based on an original typology of three social structural sources of human injustice, a partial theorization of the mechanisms of human injustice, and a needs-based theorization of the nature of human injustice, as experienced by individuals. The article makes a sociological contribution to normative social theory by clarifying the relationship of human injustice to human needs, human rights, and human liberation. The theory contends that human injustice is produced when oppression, mechanistic dehumanization, and exploitation create systematic inequality in opportunities to address human needs, leading to wrongful need deprivation and the resulting serious harm. In one longer sentence, this needs-based party theory of the sources, mechanisms, and nature of human injustice contends that three distinct social systemic sources—oppression, mechanistic dehumanization, and exploitation—produce unique and/or overlapping social mechanisms, which create systematic inequality in opportunities to address universal human needs in culturallyspecific ways, thus producing the nature of the human injustice theorized here: wrongfully unmet needs and serious harm.
Recommended Citation
Dover, Michael A., "A Needs-Based Partial Theory of Human Injustice: Oppression, Dehumanization, Exploitation, and Systematic Inequality in Opportunities to Address Human Needs" (2019). Social Work Faculty Publications. 32.
https://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/clsowo_facpub/32
Version
Preprint
Publisher's Statement
This is a pre-print manuscript that it is an unedited draft not for citation. Reprints upon publication may be requested from the author.
