A Brief History of Justice
Brief Histories of Philosophy
1. Edition June 2011
276 Pages, Softcover
Wiley & Sons Ltd
Short Description
A Brief History of Justice traces the development of this fundamental concept from antiquity through to the present day. Structured around the historical and conceptual relationship between distributive and corrective justice, the book delves deeply into the evolving traditions of justice, stemming from roots in Babylonian and Hebrew law and Greek political thought to the most prominent contemporary renderings in the work of Rawls and later thinkers. David Johnston weaves a sophisticated, yet accessible, narrative, integrating philosophical discussion with pressing contemporary questions about justice.
A Brief History of Justice traces the development of the idea of justice from the ancient world until the present day, with special attention to the emergence of the modern idea of social justice.
* An accessible introduction to the history of ideas about justice
* Shows how complex ideas are anchored in ordinary intuitions about justice
* Traces the emergence of the idea of social justice
* Identifies connections as well as differences between distributive and corrective justice
* Offers accessible, concise introductions to the thought of several leading figures and schools of thought in the history of philosophy
Introduction
Prologue: From the Standard Model to a Sense of Justice
1. The Terrain of Justice
2. Teleology and Tutelage in Plato's Republic
3. Aristotle's Theory of Justice
4. From Nature to Artifice: Aristotle to Hobbes
5. The Emergence of Utility
6. Kant's Theory of Justice
7. The Idea of Social Justice
8. The Theory of Justice as Fairness
Epilogue: From Social Justice to Global Justice?
Glossary of Names
Source Notes
Index
