"Fundamental rights and the supportive state."

Poverty amidst affluence, chronic unemployment, political apathy a cynicism, crime and corruption, sexism, racism, and a moral climate widespread hedonism-these are evils familiar to all of us. The abo is the first sentence in my recent book, Toward a Just Social Order. that book I use theoretical ideas from sociology and ethical philosop to locate and defend those institutional arrangements appropriate t just social order. My book is an exploration in social theory. More spcifically, it is a work in normative sociology. 2 What distinguishes this sort of social theory from the kind familiar most social scientists is where I begin, what I see as the aims of soc theorizing, and what I consider to be most relevant for the justification of social, political, and economic arrangements. I begin with the asumption that actual human needs-as experienced by people every where-ought to be an inescapable component in social theory. Th aim in normative theorizing, as I see it, is not only to explain the extence of various institutional regularities but also to specify the sorts o social, political, and economic arrangements required for meetin people's basic needs. It follows, then, that the justificatory test for a such arrangements is how well they meet the basic needs of moral equal human beings