Understanding Harm

Examines broad political theoretical issues while exploring injuries associated with poverty, discrimination, sexual harassment, and disabling injury

“Do No Harm.” Generally speaking, our society’s commitment to this principle has grounded its system of ethics, legal rules, and policies. Yet, in the context of the law, determining what it means for people to be harmed is a much more complex theoretical question.

In Understanding Harm, legal scholar Mark Kelman expands our contemporary legal and moral understandings of injury and welfare, directly addressing what it means for people to be well or badly off. Engaging with political theory, legal analysis, and empirical findings, Kelman examines how and why people may (or may not) be harmed by disability, poverty, discrimination, and sexual harassment. He provides a comprehensive exploration of how individuals who have been harmed by unjust social practices or the bad acts of others are often injured through the lack of adequate accommodations, restrictions on access to material resources, or economic disadvantages. In doing so, he sharply critiques current legal approaches to injury, examining the intricacies of modern harm-inducing practices. Providing a fresh perspective on today’s most pressing societal issues, Understanding Harm calls for readers to rethink our approach to harm, and to question what can, and should, be done for people who have been harmed.

Author Biography

Mark G. Kelman is Vice Dean and the James C. Gaither Professor of Law at Stanford Law School. He is the author of many books, including What is in a Name?: Taxation and Regulation across Constitutional Domains, The Heuristics Debate, and A Guide to Critical Legal Studies. Previously, Kelman served as Director of Criminal Justice Projects at the Fund for the City of New York.