Love and Justice as Competences

Luc Boltanski is Professor of Sociology at the École des hautes études en sciences sociales, Paris

• ForewordPart One: What People Can Do1. A Sociology of Disputes2. The Political Basis for General Forms3. Ordinary Denunciations and Critical Sociology4. The Sociology of Critical Society5. A Model of Competence for Judgement6. Principles of Equivalence and Justifiable Proofs7. Tests and Temporality8. Four Modes of Action9. Below the Threshold of the ReportPart Two: Agape: An Introduction to the States of Peace1. Disputes and Peace1.1 The Limits of Justice1.2 Anthropology and Tradition1.3 The Theological Tradition2. Three Forms of Love2.1 An Initial Inventory2.2 Love as Reciprocity: Philia2.3 Eros and the Construction of General Equivalence2.4 Agape and the Withdrawal of Equivalence2.5 The Insouciance of Agape2.6 Duration and Permanence2.7 The Example of Little Flowers2.8 Parable and Metaphor3. Agape and the Social Sciences3.1 Agape: Practical Model, Ideal or Utopia?3.2 Marx and the Theory of Justice3.3 The Paradoxes of Gifts and Counter-gifts4. Toward a Sociology of Agape4.1 The Model of Pure Agape4.2 Access to the States of Agape4.3 From Love to Justice4.4 From Justice to Love4.5 Agape and EmotionPart Three: Public Denunciation1. The Affair as a Social Form2. The Actantial System of Denunciation3. The Requirement of Desingularization4. The Difficult Denunciation of Kith and Kin5. Maneuvering to Increase One's Own Stature6. What One Must Not Do Oneself7. Generalization and Singularity8. Dignity Offended9. Confidence BetrayedAnnex 1. Building the Factorial AnalysisAnnex 2. A Sampling of Typical LettersWorks Cited

'When an injustice is committed, most of us simmer in anger and indignation and feel compelled to denounce the perpetrators. Yet, despite its widespread character, the actual social and emotional experience of injustice has hardly been studied. This book is the first major sociological study of denunciation, that most ordinary act present in personal and public life. Boltanski is the leading sociologist of his generation, and this book's virtuosity shows why.'Eva Illouz, Hebrew University of Jerusalem