Just Planning
The Art of Situated Ethical Judgment
Heather Campbell
Abstract
The conceptualizations of justice that
have most influenced recent debates in
planning theory have focused on proce-
dural concerns, while questions of value
and the good have been regarded as
problematic given a world of plurality
and difference. This article argues that
questions of value are an inescapable part
of the activity of planning and hence its
purpose is to identify the key dimensions
of a reconceptualized notion of justice
for planning. The argument is presented
through consideration of two key themes:
the relationship between the individual
and the collective, and the notion of “rea-
sonableness” in relation to matters of
public policy related to planning. The
implications of this analysis lead on to
consideration of the scope of collective
obligations and the nature of judgment
and reasoning in planning. The article
concludes by arguing that justice in plan-
ning is about situated ethical judgment—
a conceptualization of justice that raises
significant issues in relation to future
developments in planning thought.
Keywords: justice; ethical judgment; planning
theory
Heather Campbell is a professor and head
of the Department of Town and Regional
Planning at the University of Sheffield.
She is also one of the founding coeditors
of the journal Planning Theory and
Practice. Her research interests center on
the interaction between theoretical ideas
and planning practices.
92
C harles Taylor (1993) has lamented the extent of “moral skepticism” inherent
within contemporary intellectual thought that results, as he sees it, in the ero-
sion of the space for reasoning and the triumph of the arbitrary. Such an intellectual
context poses particular challenges for the development of the conceptual basis of
an activity such as planning, premised as it is on the need for action and the ability
to make choices between good and bad, right and wrong, in relation to the making
and shaping of places. Recognition of the oppressive and exclusionary capacity of
homogenizing models of identity leaves planners floundering in a sea of difference
and fragmentation: if no contention has any more validity than any other, how can
planners justify arriving at closure, even temporarily, on a particular course of action?
The depth of the resulting conundrum is accentuated by the contested nature of the
issues with which planning is concerned. Notions of what makes for good places and
the appropriate distribution of the spatial consequences of governmental, market,
and individual decisions are characterized by dissent, dispute, and even violence
(Flyvbjerg 1998; Watson 2003; Yiftachel 1998). Contestation, with respect to both
process and outcome, is inherent in the planning activity (Campbell 2002).
Moreover, it is not only different worldviews and identities that may be in friction;
often basic issues of economics add an edge to the passionately held concerns at
stake. The inadvertent coalition between the implications of the individualism inher-
ent in the politics of identity and the spread of neoliberalism (Sayer and Storper
1997; Storper 2001) has if anything further accentuated the underlying conflicts with
which planning (and planners) must engage. There is, however, no formula available
through which the right and the good may be calculated. Consequently, in this con-
text of contestation, planners are fundamentally concerned with making ethical judg-
ments (Campbell 2002; Campbell and Marshall 1999; Harrison 2002; Upton 2002).
What societies ask of the institutions charged with the responsibility for arriving at
such judgments is that they be just. The concept of justice is therefore central to the
theory and practice of planning (Fainstein 2000, 2005).
The link between planning and concepts of justice is long and enduring. This can
be seen in the initial (and perhaps continuing) influence of utilitarian streams of
thought (Campbell and Marshall 2002) and more recently in the way debates within
planning theory have been shaped, both implicitly and explicitly, by Rawls’s notion
Journal of Planning Education and Research 26:92-106
DOI: 10.1177/0739456X06288090
© 2006 Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning
Just Planning 䉳
of “justice as fairness” and Habermas’s concept of “discourse
ethics” (see Stein and Harper 2002). The communicative or
collaborative turn1 in planning thought has attempted to take
on board the operation of power in its various manifestations
but without descending into fatalism. It therefore seeks to
develop a normative, rather than purely analytical, frame-
work for planning, with the deontological ethical insights of
Rawls and Habermas strongly influential. Crucially, however,
neither Rawls nor Habermas intended his constitutional-level
conceptualizations of justice to be applied to the everyday sit-
uated judgments with which planning and many other areas
of policy making are concerned (see Campbell and Marshall
[2005] for the detailed development of this argument). This
is reflected in debates beyond the planning field, where con-
cern has been expressed about the “idealization” at the heart
of the dominant liberal conceptions of justice, resulting in
their failure to connect with everyday problems and contexts
(see, for example, Okin 1999; O’Neill 2000; Ricoeur 1992;
Storper 2001; Young 1990). This in turn has led to calls for a
reconceptualized framework for justice, one that incorpo-
rates universal understandings with an appreciation of the
particularity of individual situations and contexts (see, for
example, Harvey 1996, 2000; Nussbaum 1993; O’Neill 2000).
This article therefore takes as its starting point the search
for a framework for justice that aims to link “abstract princi-
ples to particular cases” (O’Neill 2000, 145). This approach,
which seeks to avoid the idealization inherent in the domi-
nant liberal theories of justice, promises much for an activity
such as planning, which involves situated ethical judgment in
circumstances of profound contestation. The objective of this
article is to attempt to identify and explore the key dimen-
sions of such a concept of justice. It should be emphasized
that this is seen very much as the start of a process rather than
a final statement. The parameters of the debate surrounding
justice in planning are grouped around two key themes. First,
the relationship between the liberty and rights of individuals
and the extent of the obligations owed to others is consid-
ered. In other words, concern is with the relationship
between the individual and the collective. The second theme
is what constitutes “reasonable” in relation to matters of
public debate such as the issues of right and wrong, good and
bad with respect to the making and remaking of places. The
appropriate balance between procedural concerns and ques-
tions of value and the good are examined in this connection.
The implications of this analysis for a reconceptualized
notion of justice in planning are drawn together in the final
part of the article. In particular, the scope of the polity with
which planning is concerned to be just and the links between
judgment, reasoning, and justice are explored. However,
before embarking on the main argument, it is necessary to sit-
uate the article a little more, both in relation to the underly-
ing assumptions about the arena with which the article is
93
concerned, namely, planning, and the existing literature on
justice and planning.
䉴 Background
Crucial to the argument that follows is the assumption
that debate about justice in planning is about more than
merely summarizing the ideas of the great justice philoso-
phers. Few, if any, of these philosophers had planning in
mind as the context in which they intended their ideas to be
applied. Their concerns are with the constitutional essentials
of whole societies: appropriate relationships and interrela-
tionships between individuals, communities, governments,
markets, and the wider world, now often including the nat-
ural environment. Their horizons are therefore broader than
a subsection of public policy making concerned with the cre-
ation of place and the mediation of space. This is not to dis-
miss this hugely significant body of work but to caution the
appropriateness of direct translation. Concern about justice
in planning must constantly bear in mind that it is a subset of
public policy, which assumes that collective intervention, par-
ticularly in land and property markets, will yield benefits to
the common good. It is therefore about constraining, restrict-
ing, or simply raising questions about individual property
(and to some extent personal) rights and freedoms, on the
assumption that this will yield a greater good. As Baum
(2005) has recently written, planning is about “extraordinary
behaviour” and, hence, “if people in communities recognised
the virtues of planning, planners would not be necessary.”
This perspective on planning therefore influences the
range of ideas and sources that is drawn upon in the sub-
sequent discussion. For example, Hendler’s (1995) edited
volume contains summaries of various philosophical posi-
tions (see McConnell [1995] on Rawls and Blanco [1995] on
communitarianism), but debate is not taken much further in
terms of the theory and practice of planning. Also, in fairness
to these authors, analysis and critique of the work of thinkers
such as Rawls has evolved significantly over the past ten years.
The concern in this article is to explore, or at least start to
explore, the nature of justice in planning, not to review jus-
tice and planning or to focus on the ethical frameworks of
individual planners. The article is perhaps closest in spirit, if
not directly congruent in its analysis and conclusions, to
Fainstein’s recent work on the “just city” (1999, 2000, 2005).
As noted above, a combination of Rawlsian and Habermasian
concepts of justice have underpinned the collaborative or
communicative turn in planning thought. In a previous
paper with Marshall, I questioned the appropriateness of
direct translation of these conceptualizations of justice into
planning (Campbell and Marshall 2005). Elements of this
perspective are considered in the course of this article,
94
although the intention is not to repeat these arguments but
rather to move the discussion forward. The arguments
presented in this article are therefore positioned in relation to
debates within planning theory but, given the limited nature of
existing work in planning, are inspired by ideas and develop-
ments within the wider social sciences and philosophy. The
challenge for the article is to adequately connect these ideas to
the “extraordinary” qualities of the planning activity.
䉴 Justice, the Individual, and the Polity:
A Reconsideration
Justice, within the dominant liberal conceptions, is
premised on the maintenance of the liberty of the individual.
Moreover, it is not possible to achieve justice where citizens lack
freedom and autonomy. Notwithstanding the tendency for
John Rawls’s conception to be applied to situations with which
it was not originally concerned, his “principle of greatest equal
liberty,” which is prioritized above all others, has been very influ-
ential. It states (in the final amended restatement), “Each per-
son has the same indefeasible claim to a fully adequate scheme
of equal basic liberties, which scheme is compatible with the
scheme of liberties for all” (2001, 42). Rawls was concerned that
in a pluralist world individuals should be able to choose their
own way of life, free from external influence or coercion except
where this infringed the liberties of others. Consequently liberty
could only be limited for the sake of liberty and was to be safe-
guarded through a comprehensive system of rights.
This focus on individual liberty and rights, in contrast to
more collectivist aspirations, has been further reinforced in
the neoliberal agendas that have underpinned government
policies across the world. However, a commitment to individ-
ual self-expression has been stimulated not only by various
strands of liberalism but also by postmodern sensibilities
about identity and difference (Phillips 1996). The impor-
tance of a sensitivity toward the lived experience of all within
society often seems to render the public sector redundant, as
there can be no “public.” Only the individual, who is the site
of all interactions with the world, can know his or her own
preferences. Interests are therefore subjectively derived from
within each individual, with collectivist notions of interest
(and even the very concept of justice itself) treated with sus-
picion due to the association with control and oppression.2
There is a striking similarity between this and neoliberalism’s
preoccupation with minimizing regulation to ensure the
unfettered expression of individual preferences, although in
this case preference is articulated through the operation of
the market. As Storper (2001) has observed in relation to the
work of the postmodern and cultural-turn scholars,
They see the rise of identity-based and community-based
politics as collective expressions of the needs of the down-
trodden, as essentially linked to a progressive vision of the
Campbell
future. But . . . many of these demands can be seen, from
a micro-analytical point of view, as simple extensions of
modern liberal individualism, not as potentially radical
forms of new collectivism. (p. 171)
Despite the divergent intellectual inheritance underlying
the current stress on individual liberty, its implications for the
conceptualization of justice in planning are significant. In
certain circumstances such an emphasis even seems to rule
out the possibility of justice in relation to the spatial and
place-related issues with which planning is concerned due to
the irreconcilability of individual interests. The following
therefore seeks to explore the notion of liberty in relation to
planning, most particularly the nature of the relationship
between the individual and the collective.
Individual Liberty and Autonomy?
Individual liberty is hugely prized within contemporary
thought and rhetoric, as noted above, but what does liberty
mean in the context of justice in planning? The following
attempts to show how liberty, without context and a relational
understanding of human existence, is both problematic and
of limited meaning.
Hart (1975) raised early concerns about the priority Rawls
attaches to liberty. He was particularly struck by Rawls’s
requirement that liberty could only be limited for the sake of
liberty and not as a result of other social and economic advan-
tages. Hart was concerned about the inevitable conflicts
between liberties and argued that restrictions on liberty were
made not on the basis of liberty itself but rather because of
the resulting consequences. Justice was not therefore purely
about the maintenance of liberty. He observes in relation to
restrictions on the basic liberties of speech and private prop-
erty (such as the use of land and cars) that they “are com-
monly accepted as trade-offs not of liberty, but of liberty for
the protection from harm or loss of amenities or other ele-
ments of real utility” (p. 245). Hart’s analysis highlights how
the exercise of individual liberties in practice is likely to result
in conflict that is, moreover, not susceptible to just resolution
purely by recourse to the maintenance of individual liberty.
The discussion of liberty in relation to justice has so far
taken place largely in the realm of the hypothetical, assuming
that all have the same opportunities to exercise liberty. Rawls
certainly constructs such a situation by placing his citizens’
representatives in the “original position” behind the “veil of
ignorance.” In a sense here, and in his work on “basic goods”
and “basic income,” Rawls is accepting that there are differ-
ences in socioeconomic resources; but he then deals with this
through the creation of a hypothetical situation where
no one knows the distribution of resources or endowments.
Such a contrivance may be justified in relation to constitutional
Just Planning 䉳
essentials, but it simply does not obtain in the arenas in which
planning practitioners work. In circumstances of socioeco-
nomic inequalities, the capacity to exercise liberty will also be
unequal. Moreover, the poor and relatively powerless are ren-
dered vulnerable to exploitation by the powerful and well
resourced (Daniels 1975; O’Neill 2000). A concept of
justice that concerns itself with the liberty and equality of indi-
viduals in the political arena is always going to be rendered
problematic in the face of gross inequalities in the socioeco-
nomic context. The scope of the liberty of the poor and vul-
nerable is inevitably constrained. Sen (1999) makes a similar
point in constructing his concept of “freedom” in relation to
development, in much broader terms than traditional liberal
versions of “liberty,” thereby including within the notion of
“freedoms” concerns both with process and substance.
Assumptions that individuals are the best judges of their
interests, or that individuals have no capacity to judge outside
of their subjective desires, lead to and result from a stress on
individual liberty. It has already been noted that individual
liberties may conflict and are themselves limited by circum-
stance. A further issue of concern, however, centers on
whether because we desire something we ought to have it
(Cooke 1999; Taylor 1993). In relation to planning matters,
the nature of interests is often complex and problematic; for
example, individuals generally both desire clean air and to be
able to drive their car(s) freely. Our preferences are there-
fore often inconsistent and overlapping. This array of indi-
vidual interests places the activity of planning in a precarious
position. On one hand, moral skepticism renders it voiceless,
whilst on the other, attempts to adjudicate between conflict-
ing positions smack of coercion, exclusion, and oppression.
Space for action is, however, opened up if individuals are
seen as part of a larger whole and in relation to one another.
The concern with the maintenance of liberty and the
autonomy of the individual has tended to obscure from view
the extent to which individuals are interdependent and part
of mutually beneficial relational webs. Notwithstanding the
importance of respecting individual and community identity,
Harvey (1996), building on the work of Young (1990), points
out that difference should not be construed as “absolute oth-
erness, a complete absence of relationship or shared attrib-
utes” (p. 360). Rather, individuals exist within a “community
of common interests” (Harvey 2000, 240) and a “shared com-
mon humanity” (Low and Gleeson 1997, 35). This is not a
precursor to the imposition of a homogenizing discourse but
to a relational understanding of the existence of individuals
within society, captured succinctly in Young’s (1993, 130)
phrase “togetherness in difference.”
The domination of notions of individual liberty and
autonomy as “mere sheer choice” are shown by O’Neill
(2000) to be problematic and inappropriate in relation to
practical issues. She notes the frequent association between
autonomy and independence, whether as rational agents or
95
through a capacity to express preferences developed from lived
experiences. However, acts of seeming independence often
simultaneously entail aspects of dependence; and not all
independent actions merit approbation, as in the case of the
independence employed in the pursuit of acts that are unlaw-
ful or cause harm to others. Similarly, linking rationality to
independence is problematic, as deference or dependence
could be entirely rational in situations of threat or gross
inequalities in power.
Crucially, therefore, autonomy and liberty are not merely
about independence, and to conflate these concepts is to
miss the moral significance of autonomy. For politics, public
policy making and hence planning are about deciding and
acting, not about spectating. This by implication suggests
agency and a capacity to reason. Justice in such circumstances
involves an appreciation of dependence, independence, and
perhaps most important, interdependence in relation to the
conduct and development of human societies. It requires, in
the words of O’Neill (2000),
an empirically realistic view of the capacities and capabili-
ties agents have, of ways in which they are vulnerable to
others, and of ways in which existing institutions may be
either resilient or fragile. This is the context within which
the construction of more robust and reliable institutions
which can secure justice even for the relatively weak must
be undertaken. (p. 7)
The above emphasizes that if a conception of justice is to have
practical application, then individual liberty and autonomy
must be viewed in relation to everyday policy making contexts—
contexts where liberties conflict and some (perhaps many)
are vulnerable and where individuals (and the capacity to
express their identity) exist in relation to others and there-
fore as part of an interdependent whole.
Rights: Moral Rights and Obligations
Closely linked to the focus on individual liberty and
autonomy with respect to an account of justice is the notion
of rights. The rhetoric of rights now dominates much political
debate, but rights in the absence of any sense of associated
obligations are meaningless (O’Neill 2000). Rights cannot be
possessed, and more crucially the most significant claim
rights are relational and therefore impossible to realize with-
out others being obliged to take certain actions. “Rights refer
to doing more than having, to social relationships that enable
or constrain action” (Young 1990, 25). Focus on rights, while
leaving the associated obligations obscured, tends to foster
passivity, at least in terms of a capacity for collective action: a
preoccupation with “what I ought to get,” and not a concern
with “my wider responsibilities.” The latter often implies a
responsibility that only adds up to something meaningful if it
is upheld collectively. Free speech, or the right to be con-
sulted about a proposed development, is only meaningful if
96
others listen or are open at least to considering the views
being put forward (see Campbell and Marshall 2000). As Sen
(1999) observes, individuals have agency but the state has
responsibilities. Moreover, a focus on rights overlooks
entirely those obligations, which do not have associated rights
attached, that O’Neill (1996) refers to as imperfect. Such
obligations are those, for example, that are concerned with
showing (unspecified) others care or providing basic shelter.
This lack of reciprocity makes the obligation itself no less
great. The interdependent quality of individual existence is
therefore further emphasized once obligations are brought
into the discussion about rights. Consequently, despite his
general focus on “freedoms” as the most appropriate means
to secure development, Sen emphasizes that the state will at
times have a responsibility (or an obligation) to curtail free-
dom in one area to create greater freedoms elsewhere.
A crucial issue in thinking about justice in planning con-
cerns an enduring debate about the nature of rights, cap-
tured in a disjunction between those taking a broadly
libertarian position and those who are proponents of social
justice (O’Neill 2000). Libertarians see rights in terms of neg-
ative or liberty rights, which are universal, implying an oblig-
ation not to interfere and enshrined in laws that set out
relationships, including how such rights are to be enforced.
In contrast, those adopting a focus on social justice are con-
cerned with positive or moral rights, more particularly rights
to goods and services.3 The difficulty in the latter case is that
there is less clarity over the link between the right and the
obligation and also the universality or uniformity of their
application; delivery rests with certain institutions and indi-
viduals rather than with everyone. This has led the libertari-
ans to doubt the validity of the notion of rights to goods and
services. However, O’Neill (2000) has pointed out that deter-
mining a scheme of delivery, refraining from obstructing
delivery, or contributing proportionally to the costs of deliv-
ery can all be universally held obligations. The issue is that
establishing the relationships between what ought to be pro-
vided and by whom, and who will be accountable for failure
to deliver, are dependent upon effective institutional and
therefore collective action. By contrast, liberty rights are far
more easily and clearly determined.
The planning activity, with its concern for the spatial impli-
cations of socioeconomic and environmental processes, fre-
quently finds itself trapped between libertarian and social
justice conceptions of rights and obligations. Moreover, plan-
ning displays confusion when it attempts to construct law-like
statements over matters concerning moral rights. Intriguingly,
there is growing evidence of societies favoring a libertarian
approach to the specification of rights and obligations with
respect to place, as can be seen in the legal contracts associated
with living in gated communities. Justice in this case is secured
by fair administration of the legal system. This is an entirely
coherent approach to the creation of just places. It is, however,
Campbell
at odds with the assumptions that have long underpinned
the idea of planning. In practice, it seems entirely plausible to
argue that planning is concerned both with liberty and with
moral rights; the problem comes when a structure of libertar-
ian rights and obligations is devised to deal with moral rights
concerning goods and services (and vice versa). The desire for
the clarity inherent in negative rights, when applied to issues
concerned with moral rights, can only mislead and confuse cit-
izens over the outcomes that a field of public policy such as
planning can be expected to deliver. Consequently a concep-
tion of justice in planning must not be lured into only focusing
on liberty rights, but must include a robust analysis of the
nature of the rights with which it is concerned, and its role in
relation to the specification and enforcement of the concomi-
tant obligations. Moreover, if planning has any aspiration of
concern for the poor, needy, and vulnerable, it (and the soci-
eties within which it is embedded) will have to grapple with the
complex relations of obligations associated with moral rights.
These issues are fundamental and deserve the most serious con-
sideration, particularly within the large number of countries
worldwide currently involved in identifying and implementing
reforms to their planning systems (see Campbell 2003).
Summary: The Limitations of a Rights-Based Justice
Overall, these arguments suggest that to frame an account
of justice in planning on individualism and rights to liberty is
inappropriate and likely to be unproductive. Individuals exist
in relationship to one another and as such are interdepen-
dent and bound by relations of sometimes nonreciprocal
obligation. Such circumstances imply in turn a dependence
upon the effective action of institutions that embody collec-
tive concern. This argument has significant implications for
the scope of persons, places, and even creatures (Young
2000) over which obligations of justice extend in relation to
planning. As the nature and scope of the polity included in
the realm of justice says much about the activity which plan-
ning is or aspires to be, consideration of this issue will be used
to draw together the ideas presented in the article and to
focus more directly on the implications for planning.
However, first it is necessary to explore about what is the plan-
ning community concerned to act justly?
䉴 Being Reasonable:
With What Is Justice Concerned?
The emphasis within intellectual thought and popular
rhetoric on the self-expression of individuals and communi-
ties has cast doubt on whether concepts of justice should be
concerned with the way people live their lives. In a world of plu-
ralism, where the existence of multiple truths is appreciated,
Just Planning 䉳
libertarians celebrate noninterference, and postmodern
critiques warn of the oppressive tendencies of homogenizing
discourses, the legitimacy of choosing between substantive
versions of better and worse in relation to politics or planning
is seen to be inappropriate. Notwithstanding the observation
that Rawls’s concept of “justice as fairness” and Habermas’s
notion of justice in relation to moral norms in “discourse
ethics” were not intended to be applied to the everyday poli-
tics of planning decisions, their influence has been consider-
able both within planning and more broadly. Central to the
ideas and lessons that have been derived from this work has
been an emphasis on the neutrality of the state in relation to
different conceptions of the good life. The state upholds jus-
tice by ensuring the rights of free and equal citizens to choose
between different conceptions of the good. Rawls emphasizes
that the “right is prior to the good” and hence the ability to
choose is more important than the choice (Mulhall and Swift
1997). Justice therefore becomes concerned with the processes
and procedures through which choices are made, leading to a
focus on deliberation and public reasoning and hence the link
(although not total accord) between the work of Rawls and
Habermas. In a sense, the “what” question about justice has
been placed to one side and substantive issues about values and
the good placed in the realm of the private. The just has been
separated from the good and limited to fair procedure
(Ricoeur 1992). The influence of such an approach is evident
in much of the work associated with the communicative or col-
laborative turn in planning thought. However, how far can and
should questions of value be separated from procedural matters
in relation to justice? The following discussion explores this
crucial issue for an account of justice in planning, as previously
by drawing on wider debates.
Public Reasoning: Justice as the Ability to Choose?
The notion that it is inappropriate or even impossible to
attempt to resolve disagreements over different conceptions
of the good has led to a focus on the processes of public
deliberation. To oversimplify a vast literature, what is just
(and reasonable) results from a process of open, uncoerced
reasoning between free and equal citizens. Concern is not
therefore principally with instrumental rationality, which is
associated with the private realm, but rather with reasonable-
ness, which is linked to the public realm (after Rawls 1993).
Citizens are prepared to accept a decision as reasonable, and
consequently just, if it results from a fair and open process.
Moreover, they will be reasonable if others agree to be rea-
sonable. Reasoning together through this process of open
deliberation, and hence communicative rationality, is impor-
tantly assumed to lead to agreement and consensus (after
Habermas 1990, 1996). Justice is therefore based on the
premise that what is reasonable (and just) is determined by
97
the nature of the process of public reasoning, a process that,
if reasonable and based on legitimately executed dialogue,
will lead to agreement. Reasonable conduct on the part of cit-
izens results in a reasonable outcome. This general perspec-
tive on justice has been hugely influential and in the
planning field can be seen in the development of thought
around deliberative practices, in particular the creation of
arenas which facilitate open uncoerced dialogue.
Exclusion of Outsider or
Innovator Voices as “Unreasonable”
Fundamental to the application of Rawls’s and Habermas’s
conceptions is the removal of matters of substance from the
realm of the public and moral norms and, therefore, justice.
The result, however, is something of a circular argument: for
what is reasonable and just becomes whatever is defined as
reasonable and just, and likewise any other approach is nec-
essarily unreasonable (Mulhall and Swift 1997). Mouffe
(1996) illustrates this in relation to Rawls’s emphasis on the
right over the good:
This is why he cannot provide a convincing argument
for justifying the frontiers of his pluralism, and why he gets
caught in a circular form of argumentation: political
liberalism can provide a consensus among reasonable
persons who by definition are persons who accept the prin-
ciples of political liberalism. (p. 250)
She goes on,
They [citizens] probably have very different and even
conflicting conceptions of the good, but those are
strictly private matters and do not interfere with public
life. Conflicts of interests about economics and social
issues—if they still arise—are resolved smoothly through
discussions within the framework of public reason, by
invoking the principles of justice that everyone
endorses. (p. 252)
Consequently, dissent and disagreement are ruled out,
because that would result from acting unreasonably and
therefore would be unreasonable. This is somewhat prob-
lematic in relation to planning, where contestation over mat-
ters of value and the good are everyday occurrences. Should
these simply be dismissed as unreasonable? Should unrea-
sonable citizens be excluded? The tensions and conflicts
encountered in relation to planning cast doubt on even the
ability of a closed self-contained democratic community
(assumed, for example, by Rawls [1993] in relation to con-
stitutional essentials and then applied to other spheres) to
provide sufficient common ground for the assumptions of
reasonableness to be fulfilled. A further issue is whether or
not it is desirable. O’Neill (1997) suggests that
public reasoning as Rawls construes it is citizens’, hence
insiders’, reasoning, so may not convince foreigners or
98
outsiders—or citizens who stand back from the way things
are, and ask whether they should be that way. (p. 422)
Moreover,
Looked at from the perspective of outsiders, others’ agree-
ment might be thought to reflect matters quite other than
their reasonableness. Their refusal to agree might be
thought to reflect either the diversities of identities or con-
flicts between real interests, rather than their unreason-
ableness. Their willingness to agree might be thought an
indicator of the rawness of domination or of compliant
subservience rather than a condition of their reasonable-
ness. (p. 423)
An unreasonable outcome may therefore be regarded by
some as resulting from a reasonable (and just) process. As
Owens and Cowell (2002, 64) observe in relation to the envi-
ronmental field, “nor do deliberative and inclusive processes
necessarily produce outcomes compatible with broader prin-
ciples of environmental or social justice.” No principle is
endorsed just because it is accepted.
A Shift to Proceduralism Does Not Remove
Bias or Avoid Imposition
The deontological, and hence procedural, focus of the
dominant liberal theories of justice seems to suggest reasoning
takes place in a vacuum. Communitarians have been strongly
critical of this and the resulting separation between the right
and the good. MacIntyre (1981, 1999), for example, argues
that reasoning occurs in the company of others, others who
have particular backgrounds and presuppositions. However, it
is not only communitarians who are concerned about the
abstraction from specific contexts. Young (1990) emphasizes
that an account of justice should start from a particular social
context not from a hypothetical conception of “reasonable
people.”4 O’Neill (1997) goes further, observing that the issue
is not merely one of abstraction but “idealization.” This ideal-
ization assumes a context in which reasoning takes place that
does not accord with existing societies and is also deeply
imbued with unacknowledged values (see also Ricoeur [1992]
on Habermas). This notion of idealization is extremely impor-
tant in relation to thinking about a concept of justice in plan-
ning, for it tends to suggest that the world is at fault when there
is dissent (for example) and must be corrected, rather than for
the need for a more context-sensitive approach. This is not to
suggest a relativist approach but that normative thinking about
justice needs to start from an understanding of the way con-
texts are and the processes that shape their destinies. Also
important, the ideal that lies behind these seemingly abstract
accounts of justice is the Western liberal nation-state. Rawls
(2001), for example, would not deny this, although it would be
unfair to suggest his approach merely mirrors contemporary
American society, about which he expressed reservations.
However, that is not the crucial issue. More significant is the
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implication that contemporary procedural accounts of justice
are neutral with respect to questions of value, when inevitably
they embody certain traditions and values (Daniels 1975;
MacIntyre 1981, 1999; Mulhall and Swift 1997; Peffer 1990;
Vincent 1998). In the planning arena, for example, intellectual
thought has argued strongly for uncoerced deliberation as the
basis of just practice, yet the structure and nature of that delib-
eration, including who is invited to participate, embody sets of
underlying values: they do not (and cannot) avoid such con-
structions.
The aspiration in a world of pluralism to avoid imposing a
particular way of life on others by focusing on procedural
concerns in relation to justice therefore appears something
of a myth. The justification for any procedure or standard
must originate further back than the procedure itself
(Ricoeur 1992; Williams 1999). Questions of value cannot be
separated from procedures; they are intertwined. Murdoch
(1970) makes the observation that we do not find that we
agree about the “facts” but disagree about the “values.” Values
influence the way we see the world in the first place and are
necessarily inscribed in processes of deliberation and reason-
ing. Consequently, to suggest that considerations of value
should be omitted from an account of justice in planning is
to leave them hidden from scrutiny, not to avoid their oppres-
sive capabilities (Connor 1993). There is also a crucial
de-politicizing aspect to the abandonment of values and the
good, for the opportunity for reevaluation is removed, not
the values themselves (Storper 2001): “value and evaluation
have not so much been exiled, as driven into the critical
unconscious, where they continue to exercise force but with-
out being available for analytic scrutiny” (Connor 1993, 34).
Citizens, seemingly, may privately have values, but the public
sector, including politicians and those that work within that
arena, should not. Politics and political activities such as
planning become empty without a conception of justice that
takes on board issues of value (O’Neill 1993). They become
“a method of aggregating whatever ideals people happen to
have, without conversation or judgement on those ideals
themselves” (O’Neill 1993, 93). If it is accepted that planning
is essentially concerned with ethical questions, such an
approach crucially renders the most important aspects of
moral argument closed and opaque (after Taylor 1993).
Whether planners choose to acknowledge the values implicit
in their actions or not, and there seem few reasons to justify
why they should not, planning can never be neutral. Fischer
(1980, 2003) has long made this point in relation to public
policy making more generally.
Nussbaum (1993) neatly captures the conundrum that is
posed in practical situations, where the concern is to decide
“what is the just thing to do,” in a case study of a women’s
literacy project in Bangladesh. The study shows the initial
reticence of the rural women to engage with a government-
sponsored project designed to increase literacy, since as far as
Just Planning 䉳
they were concerned it did not serve their interests. However,
rather than abandon the project, the development workers
reappraised their approach, endeavoring to be more sensitive
to the lives of the women and their context but not rejecting
the values that stimulated the decision to act in the first place.
This demonstrates that rejecting matters of value and the
good from justice leaves little space to act with respect to mar-
ginalization, illiteracy, or the absence of basic shelter, but
actions in these situations must be sensitive to the context.
Nussbaum writes of the importance of seeing the common
humanity in a situation and that to view the context before us
“as an interesting set of local traditions, is not to respond suf-
ficiently to the concrete situation it is; for whatever it is, it is
concretely human” (p. 258). Very similar experiences can be
found in most planning situations. Wilson (2005) and Burley
(2005) vividly demonstrate how as a community development
worker and planning practitioner, respectively, they found
themselves challenging patronage, corruption, and racism in
the face of strong community opposition to any “outsider”
intervention.
The Limits of Consensus
The dominant liberal accounts accompanied by perspec-
tives based on the politics of identity have together ques-
tioned the appropriateness of issues of value and the good
being included within the ambit of justice. The way people
live their lives is not therefore a concern of the state, beyond
the maximization of individual liberties and the facilitation of
effective deliberation. Notwithstanding the arguments about
the value positions that actually underlie such an approach,
profound issues arise in practice when communities favor
morally unacceptable actions—for instance, those that are
racist or in some other way exclusionary in nature, or more
straightforwardly when reasonable (or unreasonable) people
disagree (Ricoeur 1992). As was noted earlier in relation to
the work of Hart (1975), reasonable people may even “differ
as to the value of conflicting liberties” (p. 242), and rational
discourse in a Habermasian sense could lead to rational dis-
agreement (McCarthy 1999). These situations are very famil-
iar to planners, yet much current planning theory leaves
them with little guidance for action, beyond upholding due
procedures and negating the existence of conflict in the
search for consensus. Furthermore, they are simultaneously
the subject of severe criticism for imposing policies that are
insensitive to the identities of individuals and communities.
Work adopting a Foucauldian perspective, which has exam-
ined the “dark side” of the activities of the state, highlights
moral injustices (see Flyvbjerg 1998). The difficulty with this
approach for a concept of justice in planning is that despite
the implicit concern with moral values, it explicitly rejects the
legitimacy of engaging in critical debate about the human
99
good as a basis for normative theorizing and therefore
proposals for alternative forms of action (Harvey 1996, 2000;
Nussbaum 1993; Soper 1993).
An account of justice in planning needs to be concerned
with “what is to be done,” not only reviewing “what has been
done.” This suggests a concern with the interplay between the
universal and the particular, with questions of values and
procedure, and also not merely with the analytical but with
the evaluative and the normative. The final part of the article
seeks to bring these arguments together, starting by consid-
ering the appropriate scope of a concept of justice in plan-
ning and going on to conclude that justice in planning is
about situated ethical judgment and practical reasoning.
䉴 Justice for Whom?
The scope of the polity included in the remit of planning
says much about the nature of the activity it is perceived to be
or aspires to become. In a world of pluralism, the scope over
which principles of justice should extend has been a source
of much debate. Abstract liberal conceptions, which imply
universal application, have been much criticized for their
insensitivity to differences of identity between communities
and individuals and their idealization of certain versions of
family life and national sovereignty. Communitarians per-
ceive identity to be formed within the historical and cultural
context of a particular community, and therefore it follows
that the scope of justice should be similarly bounded (see, for
example, Walzer 1983). Community is therefore constitutive
of justice. Interdependence and obligations are limited to
fellow citizens within the same community. Although Rawls’s
concept of justice is usually regarded as universalist, in prac-
tice he presupposes that justice as fairness can be established
only within self-contained liberal democratic nation-states;
too much pluralism is assumed to make agreement on the
just impossible (Brown 1998).
Concern with community as either constitutive of the self
or as a basis for deliberation has resulted in the scope of
justice being limited to a focus on that with which citizens
can maintain sufficient common ground. This can lead to
extreme localism, as can be seen in some deep green and
relativist accounts. These approaches appear to cast doubt on
justice outside of communities where there is a regular possi-
bility of face-to-face contact. Furthermore, some feminist
writers are so suspicious of the homogenizing tendencies of
the dominant liberal theories of justice and their blindness to
the lived experiences of women’s lives that they see the need
to supplement the term justice, by, for example, the concept
of “care” often linked to a sense of interdependency (Gilligan
1993). Traditional concepts of justice are regarded as exclud-
ing and marginalizing the “other voice,” in turn devaluing
alternative moral and ethical concerns, such as “care.” Okin
100
(1989) has also observed that the tendency to confine matters
of justice to the political (see Rawls 2001, for example5) has
particular implications for women, who are often more con-
cerned than men with the private realm. Moreover, the pri-
vate realm is far from impervious to the implications of a
political conception of justice, as the family is a crucial con-
text through which justice is nurtured.
Concepts of justice that embody excessive generalization
across individuals and communities undoubtedly raise issues
of concern, but more particularist or relativist accounts are
not without their problems. The focus on communities of
shared experience and identity introduces questions of
authenticity in relation to the definition of legitimate com-
munities. In so doing, it is inevitable that exclusion as well as
inclusion will take place: some being placed outside the scope
of justice of a particular community, others being embraced
by it (Eagleton 1996; Harvey 1996; Phillips 1996). Conse-
quently, the politics of identity or presence that results tends
to pit one community against another and may even rein-
force dogmatism and bigotry. Crucially, also, if the essence of
community becomes the site for justice and constitutive of
it, there can be no basis for criticism or reevaluation by “out-
siders,” including state employees (Harvey 2000; O’Neill
2000; Storper 2001). Such a perspective in turn “tends to
prejudice the position of the weak whose weakness is mir-
rored and partly constituted by their marginalization in
received ways of thought and by their subordination and
oppression in established orders” (O’Neill 2000, 145).
Consequently, several feminist writers amongst others have
begun to question whether relativist accounts in relation to
justice serve well the interests of women (Nussbaum and Sen
1993; Okin 1999; Phillips 1993). The essentializing of tradi-
tional, often conservative, community relationships is likely
to have the result of merely reproducing existing patterns of
advantage and disadvantage both within and between groups
(Beebeejaun 2003). That said, as Phillips (1993) observes,
being a victim does not necessarily make you right.
Relational Justice
The apparent choice in considering the scope of justice in
planning between universalist and communitarian or rela-
tivist positions leaves something of an unhappy dilemma.
Abstract liberal theories in their insensitivity to difference
appear uncritical of the social relations of privilege from
which they abstract, while in celebrating community identity
relativist accounts focus on existing social forms that are the
very source of domination and subordination. However,
recognition of the relational and interdependent nature of
human existence suggests a way of navigating between these
two positions. Individuals seldom live their lives within closed
communities; rather, they are simultaneously part of many
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communities with the potential for interaction with many
more, including interactions that cross the borders of nation-
states (Brown 1998; O’Neill 2000; Phillips 1996). The trend
toward fixing the boundaries and characteristics of groups
and communities should therefore be avoided, although this
does not imply ignoring the marginalized (Phillips 1996).
Young (2000) observes that normative concern with self-
determination has become too focused on noninterference
and independence. Such an approach ignores the relational
aspects of human existence, and consequently she argues
that focus should centre on nondomination rather than non-
interference. The scope of justice therefore needs to be
extended beyond mere difference to an identification of sig-
nificant difference (Nussbaum 1993; Squires [1993] after
Harvey [1993]) and, given the focus of this article, with
respect to the processes influencing different experiences of
place. The argument is not that all humans are the same but
that they exist in relation to one another and that they may
confront common situations (Nussbaum 1993).
Importantly, this perspective suggests that the scope of
justice is not only limited to those with whom we share a com-
mon identity and/or encounter through face-to-face contact.
This implies obligations to strangers. This may seem an obvi-
ous observation, for even at the local scale of the city, indi-
viduals dwell together without knowing one another.
However, much of the literature seems to suggest obligations
of justice are owed mainly to our own community, ignoring
that politics is inherently about relationships between
strangers (Young 2000). So, if the scope of justice extends to
strangers, should strangers in distant lands be included?
Given the interconnectedness of social, economic, and polit-
ical processes and the increasing potential for interaction, “It
would be arbitrary to exclude distant others from the domain
of justice” (O’Neill 2000, 157-58). On what grounds could the
moral standing of strangers in distant lands be denied? This
question still carries force, even with respect to planning-
related concerns, because of the relational nature of spatial
processes. Spatial processes impact upon the localities plan-
ners serve, and in turn the actions taken locally have implica-
tions beyond these (arbitrary) local and national boundaries.
This can be seen in the recognition of transnational policy
frameworks in the European Union but may extend further
afield through, for example, the export of polluting or oth-
erwise environmentally degrading industries to other coun-
tries. It is perhaps concern about the environment, rather
than long-enduring socioeconomic inequalities, that has in
recent times most profoundly drawn attention to the inter-
connectedness of the world and encouraged a broadening of
the scope of justice.
The incorporation of the environment into the debate
about justice brings with it not only concern about obligations
with respect to environmental equity across existing genera-
tions and future generations but also obligations to the natural
Just Planning 䉳
environment per se. Deep green perspectives argue that the
natural environment should be treated justly regardless of
the material, welfare, aesthetic, or spiritual implications for the
human species (Naess 1989; and for a wider discussion of envi-
ronmental ethics including deep green perspectives, see
Leopold 1968; Singer 1993). However, as O’Neill (1993, 8)
notes, “While it is the case that natural entities have an intrin-
sic value in the strongest sense of the term, i.e. in the sense of
value that exists independently of human valuations, such
value does not as such entail any obligations on the part of
human beings.” That is not to suggest that human well-being is
independent of the natural environment; it is significantly con-
stitutive of human well-being; and more fundamentally, the
human community is dependent on the natural world for its
very survival. The doubt is whether the natural environment
has a nonrelational worth. Certainly in relational terms, the
socioeconomic and political processes that act upon and often
degrade the natural environment are not confined within
localities or nations, and hence the scope of environmental jus-
tice necessarily extends beyond the limit of small communities
and even national territories (Harvey 1996; Low and Gleeson
1998; Owens and Cowell 2002).
Justice in relation to intragenerational environmental
equity has been accompanied (perhaps overshadowed) by a
concern for intergenerational equity. It is now appreciated
that the diversity and qualities of the natural environment are
finite and that current inhabitants have a nonreciprocal
obligation to future (and also past) generations. They are
part of “a community with ourselves” and in that sense,
O’Neill (1993, 35) argues, are not strangers. More pro-
foundly, given the concerns of planning, a lack of concern for
the future suggests a lack of concern for the collective well-
being of society (Arendt 1958).
The Scope of Justice in Planning
Overall, these arguments suggest that the scope of justice
in relation to planning should be based on a relational
understanding of human existence that takes on board the
interconnectedness and interdependence of individuals and
communities, rather than only concentrating on differences.
In this way, the collective implications of individual prefer-
ences and actions are appreciated, alongside the meaningless
quality of rights in the absence of an understanding of oblig-
ations, which themselves may not be reciprocal. Arendt
(1958, 58) warns of the erosion of the public realm and its
substitution by a mass society where “men have become
entirely private, that is, they have been deprived of seeing and
hearing others, of being seen and being heard by them. They
are all imprisoned in the subjectivity of their own singular
experience, which does not cease to be singular if the same
experience is multiplied innumerable times.”
101
Limiting the scope of justice in planning to individuals and
their subjective preferences implies, as discussed earlier, an
approach to place making based on legal contract. However, if
individuals and communities are seen to be interdependent,
across both time and space, justice must necessarily embrace
the collective implications of actions. Harvey (1996, 2000) has
noted that currently we seem more aware of the differences that
divide individuals and communities than what unites (see also
Phillips 1993). This is not to suggest that differences of identity
or acts of oppression and marginalization should be ignored,
far from it: but a justice which is concerned with more than
noninterference needs to navigate between the individual,
or individual community, and the collective—the particular and
the universal. This is reflected more generally in Young’s (1990,
2000) emphasis on “togetherness in difference” and “differen-
tiated solidarity.” Following O’Neill (1996), she argues, “An
agent stands in relations of justice with all those others whose
actions that agent assumes in the background of his or her own
actions” (Young 2000, 223); and therefore, “Differentiated soli-
darity does not presume mutual identification and affinity as an
explicit or implicit condition for attitudes of respect and inclu-
sion” (Young 2000, 221). Bellamy (1998) goes further, arguing
that given the fragmentation within contemporary societies,
social solidarity needs to be politically constructed. This there-
fore means relating the universal to the particular, asking nor-
mative questions of situated contexts and being sensitive to
what they have to say in response.
The final section of the article builds on the preceding
arguments to consider more directly the implications for the
theory and practice of planning. It should be emphasized
these comments represent initial thoughts rather than a final
statement.
䉴 Practical Reasoning: Putting Values Back
into a Concept of Justice in Planning
It is crucial to developing an account of justice in plan-
ning to situate the debate in the context of that activity and,
hence, the everyday contested decision making about the spa-
tial implications of various processes for particular places.
Planning is concerned with making ethical choices about
better and worse with respect to specific contexts; it is about
action, more particularly collective action, based on an
understanding of the relational nature of human existence.
In contrast, those concepts of justice that have been most
influential within recent intellectual debates in planning are
focused on constitutional essentials and moral norms, not
practical action. Most important, to deny or sidestep compet-
ing conceptions of value and the good in an effort to respect
differences in practice removes the capacity for reevaluation
and in turn may inadvertently lead to the further marginal-
ization of the least advantaged.
102
It should be emphasized that the concern with incorpo-
rating questions of value within a concept of justice is about
much more than economic value. White (1990, 58) notes that
economics tends to reduce value to self-interest, an approach
that is “intellectually and ethically intolerable,” particularly
where issues of collective concern are at stake. Moreover, it
should be clear from this that values and the good are not
regarded in a narrow utilitarian6 sense, often characterized by
cost-benefit analysis—and forcefully critiqued, especially with
respect to the environment (see Low and Gleeson 1998;
O’Neill 1993; Owens and Cowell 2002). Questions of value
are not therefore conceived in terms of mere preferences (as
discussed earlier in relation to individual liberty). O’Neill
(1993) demonstrates this in relation to the environment
by arguing that human well-being is not reflected in the sat-
isfaction of preferences. It is the reasons not the preferences
that matter.
The inheritance of a concern with practical reasoning and
the interplay of the universal and the particular, in relation to
justice, are most often linked to Aristotle. The elitism and
exclusionary nature of Greek society at that time has led to
much criticism of this approach. The varied interpretations
of Aristotle’s work are far beyond the scope of this discussion;
nor is the perspective explicitly Aristotelian in nature. In the
remainder of the article, however, some of the issues and
implications associated with an account of justice that incor-
porates questions of value are explored, including the issues
associated with reasoning and judgment as well as the twin
concerns of indeterminacy and imposition.
Judgment: The Link between Reasoning and Justice
Reasoning and justice are inescapably linked, and this
remains the case when matters of substance and value are
included. The lingering concern is that such an approach
brings with it uniformity and a singular conception of the
good life. However, incorporating questions of value into an
account of justice in planning does not imply that there is
only one “good life.” The just is not determined by an algo-
rithm, particularly with respect to a situated activity such as
planning. There is always scope for discretion, which in turn
emphasizes that practical reasoning is essentially about judg-
ment. On the other hand, to suggest that justice involves judg-
ment is not to imply it is arbitrary or dependent upon
“untutored intuition.” Good judgment is founded upon
knowledge, understanding, and experience (O’Neill 1993).
Debate about practical reasoning must move on from the
false dichotomy that suggests it results in either uniformity
imposed through inflexible rules or arbitrary reflection of
preferences (O’Neill 2000). Rather, it is about negotiating a
path between the universal and the particular, leading to
action.
Campbell
The importance of reasoning on the basis of substantive
understanding of a particular context is emphasized by
Young (1990). She states, “It is impossible to reason about
substantive moral issues without understanding their sub-
stance, which always presupposes some particular social and
historical context: and one has no motive for making moral
judgements and resolving moral dilemmas unless the out-
come matters, unless one has a particular and passionate
interest in the outcome” (p. 104). Practical reasoning there-
fore takes place within a specific context, in which particular-
ities of substance matter. However, without recourse to values
in a universal sense, it is impossible to know which particulars
or differences are significant and should inform reasoned
action (see, for example, Harvey 1993; O’Neill 2000;
Nussbaum 1993; Ricoeur 1992). As Merrifield (1997) observes
in relation to his work on Toxteth in Liverpool, you have to
have an understanding of universal values before you can
determine the importance of the particular. If all that is
acknowledged are particulars and the processes of delibera-
tion that bring such issues, for example, to the attention of
planners, how can choices be made between better and
worse? Planning is left in the realm of the arbitrary or, possi-
bly more sinisterly, without any defense against force. Bellamy
(1998) argues (in a critique of Walzer) that it is universal (or
thick) conceptions of moralities that secure local (or thin)
variations and in turn ensure social justice for the poor and
marginalized, not the other way around.
At a practical level, the introduction of the London con-
gestion charge exemplifies how progressive change is often
dependent on the clear articulation of strong values, often in
the face of controversy and popular opposition (Livingstone
2004). It is striking that, having decided that the introduction
of a congestion charge was in the long-term social and envi-
ronmental interests of Londoners, the approach of Ken
Livingstone’s (mayor of London) team was not to ignore
dissenting voices but to consult, learn, and educate. The
detailed insights they gained from this process influenced the
detailed implementation of the scheme, while not dissuading
them of the overall merits of the charge. The subsequent
effectiveness of the congestion charge in London is attrib-
uted to the interplay of a clear social justice agenda with a
detailed understanding of local particularities. (See also the
Bangladesh example presented earlier from Nussbaum’s
[1993] work.) This example suggests that (some) practition-
ers (as well as politicians) may know far more about the inter-
play of the universal and the particular, at least at an intuitive
level, than is acknowledged within much theoretical work.
The overall argument, therefore, is that politics and asso-
ciated activities such as planning are about moving from indi-
vidual and community identity to the good of the collective,
while attempting to avoid the worst excesses of the oppressive
state. This embraces a view of human existence discussed
earlier, as relational and interdependent in nature, where
Just Planning 䉳
obligations are acknowledged, not just rights. Contestation
between multiple obligations with respect to the spatial impli-
cations of various processes for particular places, if not
inevitable, is at the very least highly probable. In such cir-
cumstances the crucial mediating role is performed primarily
by the institutions of the state, with the justice of their actions
involving practical reasoning and judgment, which incorpo-
rates questions of value. This is captured in Ricoeur’s (1992)
statement about what he refers to as practical wisdom:
A morality of obligation . . . produces conflictual situations
where wisdom has no recourse, . . . other than to return to
the initial intuition of ethics, in the framework of moral
judgement in situation; that is to the vision or aim of the
“good life” with and for others in just institutions. (p. 240)
This suggests that a concept of justice based on practical rea-
soning does not provide planners with a formula for action or
easy answers. If such were possible, the matters with which
planning is concerned would be trivial. This recognition in
itself is important. Societies should not expect, nor should
politicians and those who work with them suggest, that there
are guarantees. O’Neill (2000, 61) argues that “the real task of
practical judgement is simply to seek ways of acting that respect
multiple obligations. Although there is no algorithm to be fol-
lowed, the process of practical judging may be better or worse,
and may improve or deteriorate.” In relation to specific cases,
the parameters of justice set out in this article will be indeter-
minate, but that, crucially, does not deny their importance or
mean that it is impossible to distinguish some actions as more
just than others. Sen (1999) makes a similar point by acknowl-
edging that an inability to determine what is absolutely just
does not prevent us from being able to make a judgment
about injustice. “Anything goes” only serves the interests of
the already dominant, not the weak or the poor, and it is
surely the needs of the latter that must be in the foreground
of a just planning activity. Justice is not about absolutes, for
planners can never fully comprehend nor control their con-
texts; but planning has no meaning in the absence of action,
and that implies closure around a particular course of action.
A greenfield site cannot both be left for future generations to
enjoy and provide affordable, or more likely executive,
homes. An appreciation of multiple truths should teach plan-
ners not that they should refrain from engaging with matters
of substance and value but rather the necessity to reflect criti-
cally on the basis of substantive value positions on the fallibil-
ity of the judgments made. It should be noted, moreover, that
it is an appreciation of multiple truths, not of no truths. White
(1990) captures this effectively in the suggestion that we
should be tentative, not in the sense that I do not mean what
I say but that I acknowledge that one day, maybe soon, I may
have to change. Similarly, “Openness does not require that
one leaves the door open, but that one is always willing to
open the door. Responsibility is the experience of that open-
ness” (Wood 1999, 117).
103
䉴 Final Thoughts
This article did not set out to provide a handbook for just
planning practice, were such an enterprise either possible or
desirable. However, in these final observations an attempt is
made to highlight the implications of the preceding for the
theory and practice of planning.
The recent history of planning thought has seen the
replacement of the planner as instrumental rationalist by the
planner as facilitator.7 Inherent in both these positions is an
emphasis on the neutrality of the planner and hence on
appropriate procedures and due process, although of a very
different nature in each case. It is therefore assumed that
Rawls’s underlying premise that a just process will lead to just
outcomes applies every bit as much in the realm of everyday
policy making as with constitutional essentials. Perhaps, more
particularly, it is assumed that active citizenship is the best
means to secure progressive change and practitioners are
urged to be reflexive in all that they do. But are the views of
all active citizen groups necessarily right and good? What
grounds do we have for saying we should listen to the views of
a low-income community that is about to have a waste incin-
erator located on their door step, over and above a middle-
class NIMBY (phrase used intentionally) group protesting
about a low-income housing development, or an economi-
cally demoralized community seeking to limit the growth in
numbers of asylum seekers within their locality? If we do con-
sider there to be differences in the merits of these arguments,
and the preceding suggests we should, then we need to
acknowledge the importance of questions of substance and,
more particularly, value in relation to justice in planning.
Similarly, it is all very well to suggest that practitioners should
be reflexive—but about what? When has reflexivity been
done well, and when poorly? Again, planning is about an
engagement with questions of value, and not values as merely
individual preferences, but in a relational and collective
sense. A relational understanding of justice is necessary to
avoid narrow, essentializing forms of localized justice: to help
to work out what is significant from what is not, the legitimate
from the morally unacceptable. It is not as if procedural
approaches get around the admittedly enormous difficulties
of determining the nature of the good; they merely leave the
values hidden from scrutiny, under a myth of value-neutrality.
This article has therefore argued that planning is about
making decisions, which involves determining what is impor-
tant and significant in a particular situation; that the decisions
made are unlikely to please everyone; and that this task should
be informed by a relational understanding of justice, which
explicitly acknowledges the values involved in making such
judgments, and which does not presume objectivity nor that
decisions will be correct for all time. Bringing values and sub-
stance into the open will provide the public, politicians, and
other planners with insights as to why decisions were made and
104
hence why in the future, as circumstances, knowledge, and
values change, different courses of action might be appropriate.
If there is any validity in these conclusions about justice in
planning, they raise particular challenges for the develop-
ment of planning theory. Fainstein (2005) concludes a recent
article, in which she suggests greater attention should be paid
to the “just city,” by emphasizing Friedmann’s (2002) call for
theorists to engage in both critique and vision in the context
of a global political-economy. I would not dissent from this
view in general terms. However, critique must mean more
than purely analysis. It must also include: a concern with eval-
uation and hence the development of evaluative frameworks
(what do we need to know to be able to come to a judg-
ment?), and in this there may be much to be gained from the
work of writers such as Sen; an ability to link analysis and eval-
uation to normative concerns; a concern with analysis and
evaluation which is constructive in intent, not merely with the
easy task of deconstruction (Forester 2004); and an under-
standing of context and its relationship to the planning activ-
ity that avoids “idealization” (to use O’Neill’s term discussed
earlier) once theorizing becomes concerned with the norma-
tive. Finally, there also needs to be recognition that planning
is concerned with spatial processes and the nature of place.
Attention, therefore, needs to be focused on the nature of
spatial justice and spatial equity. Space and place are central to
planning, and with this comes the complicating issue of geo-
graphical scale. What may be “just” at the scale of the locality
may look very different at the level of the city, region, nation,
transnational region, or the globe, as well as across genera-
tions. It seems arguable that much recent work within plan-
ning theory has contributed to understanding justice at the
scale of the locality but in so doing has overlooked planning’s
vitally important contribution to seeking just outcomes
beyond the confines of the locality.
The association of justice with practical reasoning in this
article is not about the reinstatement of the omnipotent public
servant but quite the reverse. Practical reasoning must not be
static: it must be open to the discomforting specter of constantly
learning and striving to do better. Justice has to be dialectical in
nature (Harvey 1996, 2000). Planning has been resoundingly
criticized for the staid and even oppressive nature of the spatial
forms that have resulted, yet the celebration of individual and
community identity tends to replace one static view of the world
with another or with many others. Consequently an account of
justice based on practical reasoning involves both the universal
and the particular, deliberation and judgment. Justice in
planning is about situated ethical judgment.
Author’s Note: The author is very appreciative of the thoughtful and
constructive comments provided by the editor and the four anonymous
reviewers. The arguments presented in this paper have also benefited con-
siderably from the support and stimulation provided by Robert Marshall
and Robert Upton as well as my colleagues in the Department of Town
and Regional Planning at the University of Sheffield.
Campbell
䉴 Notes
1. It should be noted that the body of work that goes under
the label of the communicative, or collaborative, turn (see, for
example, key writers such as Forester [1989, 1999] and Healey
[1997]) is more divergent in nature than either its proponents or
critics often suggest. Moreover, as these authors seek to clarify
and refine their position, any statement about this body of work
tends toward oversimplification. (See, for example, Healey’s
[2003] explanation of the origins and intentions behind her
conceptualization of collaborative planning.)
2. The individual may be constructed in relation to a particu-
lar community (or even communities), but the tendency is to
focus on differences rather than similarities and therefore to lose
sight of collectivist concerns. The community and the collective
are not the same.
3. This follows Berlin’s (1969) initial distinction between neg-
ative and positive liberties.
4. Similarly, Benhabib’s (1992) work has sought to incorpo-
rate contextual criteria to make process orientated accounts of
justice more relevant and even “reasonable.”
5. In Rawls’s (2001) restatement, he does acknowledge Okin’s
(1989) criticism.
6. It should be noted that the strands of thought underpin-
ning the utilitarian tradition are much richer than the formulaic
procedure of cost benefit analysis suggests (see Campbell and
Marshall 2002).
7. The oversimplification inherent to this statement, I hope,
will be accepted at this point in the article.
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