Cruelty, Injustice, and the Liberalism of Fear

This article analyzes the relationship between the ideas of cruelty and injustice in Judith Shklar’s political theory. Shklar’s The Faces of Injustice is sometimes read as an instantiation of the liberalism of fear, which regards cruelty and the fear that it inspires as the summum malum. I challenge this interpretation and instead argue that her account of injustice should be read independently of her commitment to the liberalism of fear. In doing so, I show how her exploration of the faces of injustice—especially the importance she accords to passive injustice and the sense of injustice—raises important challenges for the liberal case for putting cruelty first. Although democratic attitudes and institutions constitute the best available remedy for the sense of injustice, on Shklar’s account, those who focus too much on the requirements of democratic citizenship risk treating injustice as a greater evil than cruelty, which could, in turn, facilitate cruelty and undermine liberal democracy. I conclude by suggesting that the republican-inspired theory of citizenship from The Faces of Injustice, which Shklar outlines in response to the problem of passive injustice, reflects a distinct strand of her political theory that goes beyond the more familiar defense of law-bound constitutional government associated with the liberalism of fear.