"What injuries matter - morally, legally? How do we measure their costs? Which demand redress? Understanding Harm provides a theoretically sophisticated and practically grounded response to these questions. For those who care deeply about social justice, Kelman's brilliant and nuanced book about what injuries matter, why and how much is essential reading" - Kimberly A. Yuracko, Northwestern Pritzker School of Law
"Offers a masterful, interdisciplinary analysis and critique of our understanding of both injury and human flourishing sounding both at a theoretical level and, concretely, through a detailed, original examination of our conceptions of poverty, disability, discrimination, harassment, gender relations and sexuality, religious accommodation, and identity politics. Kelman offers fresh, rich, nuanced, and sometimes provocative takes on classical, foundational issues about human flourishing and on how the interdependence of subjective and objective components of human welfare bear on contemporary problems in a pluralist society. Rather than minimizing complexity for the solace that reductionism may offer, Kelman's book is an exemplar of rigorous, unflinchingly honest scholarship about difficult questions that interweaves contributions from philosophy, political theory, legal theory, feminist theory, queer theory, disability theory, empirical psychology, economics, and sociology. It should be required reading to advance the thought of philosophers, political theorists, lawyers, welfare economists, social scientists, and others seeking a deeper understanding of these pivotal matters." - Seana Shiffrin, author of Speech Matters: On Lying, Morality, and the Law
"Mark Kelman at his considerable best: wicked smart, tons of fun, impious about platitudes. Unraveling the knottiest dilemmas, Kelman brings to bear wide and deep learning in law, social science, ethics, and political theory. Grappling with this astonishingly rich book won't just change your mind on stuff you thought you understood. It will make you a better thinker." - Don Herzog, University of Michigan Law School
"Teeming with profound insights, Understanding Harm broadens our understanding of what we mean when we talk about human welfare, ultimately urging the interdependence of subjective, objective, and ideal accounts both of our welfare and our injuries...Kelman's discussions provoke a deeper understanding of what it means to claim that we have been injured, and, most strikingly, what it means for all of us when we either accept or reject those claims." - Robin West, author of Civil Rights: Rethinking Their Natural Foundation
"Mark Kelman scrutinizes the left assumption that harm to subordinated groups should be at the center of our social-justice analysis on their behalf. This highly readable internal critique of these claims across the range from disability, to poverty, to group-based discrimination, to sexual harassment is both brilliant and indispensable." - Janet Halley, Harvard Law School
