Justice

Catalog description

What does it mean to act justly? In Book I of Politics, Aristotle says that "justice is the bond of men in states" and that "the determination of what is just is the principle of order in political society." Aristotle's point is that justice is not merely personal, but depends on the social practices and institutions that determine how social life turns out to be. He implies by this that we are responsible for the ordering of our communities, not merely for our particular actions. The way the world is around us and the way in which the burdens and benefits of social life are allocated is not something that just happens, a matter of the natural world. These are determined by human choice and action. This realization opens up a domain of moral inquiry that concerns the justification of the institutions that allocate benefits and burdens in the social world. This course takes up six such questions of justice: war, criminal punishment, citizenship, poverty, inequality, and snobbery. In it, students will explore the idea of justice for institutions through examples of legal and political controversy, combining ancient and modern readings.