Justice

In this landmark study of Aristotle's Politics Fred Miller argues that nature, justice, and rights are central to Aristotle's political thought. Miller challenges the widely held view that the concept of rights is alien to Aristotle's thought, and marshalls evidence for talk of rights in Aristotle's writings, arguing further that Aristotle's theory of justice supports claims of individual rights, which are political and based in nature. He also considers the relation of Aristotles politics to other parts of philosophy, in particular to the teleological view of nature in the Physics and the theory of justice in the Nicomachean Ethics. Professor Miller examines in detail the constitutional applications of Aristotle's theory, including the correct constitutions of kingship, aristocracy, and polity (based in the common advantage), and the deviant constitutions of democracy, oligarchy, and tyranny (based in the advantage of the rulers). Arisototle's treatments of revolution and property rights are also covered, and the major presuppositions of his political theory are critically examined and related to current issues including the liberalism-communitarianism debate. This stimulating treatment of the Politics sheds new light on Aristotle's relation to modern political philosophy, in particular to natural rights theorists such as Hobbes and Locke. It will be of value to philosophers, political scientists, classical scholars, and anyone interested in the theoretical foundations of human rights.

The essays in this book by a group of leading political theorists assess and develop the central ideas of Michael Walzer's path-breaking Spheres of Justice. Is social justice a radically plural notion, with its principles determined by the different social goods that men and women allocate to one another? Is it possible to prevent the unequal distribution of money and power from distorting the allocation of other goods? If different goods are distributed by different mechanisms, what (if any) kind of social equality is possible? Are there universal principles of jusstice which apply regardless of context? These and other related questions are pursued in depth by the contributors. The book concludes with an important new essay by Walzer in which he reflects on the positions taken in his original book in the light of the critical appraisals presented here.

This book is about a simple but elusive goal: a vigorous public debate about how a pluralistic society should be organized. Can we address, and possibly settle, our disagreements about abortion, gender equality, public welfare programs, and taxation?

Rules of justice would benefit the members of a community little if individuals lacked an effective desire to comply with these rules. But from the individual point of view, the sense of justice appears to do no more than to limit what individuals can do in pursuit of their ends & open them to exploitation. Realizing this, we might each wonder whether the sense of justice is anything more than an instrument of social control, something we would each be better off without. And it is a short step from such worries to unjust action & all of its attendant costs. Hence, we require a successful justification of the sense of justice to answer pernicious doubts about this disposition arising from the individual point of view. In Preferring Justice, Eric Cave argues that, as flawed agents of differing abilities choosing under partial information, most of us require the sense of justice to advance maximally whatever ends we have apart from the end of acting justly.

The Practice of Punishment examines punishment within the framework of policing and adjudication, analyses the relation between punishment and sentencing and provides a basis for evaluating correctional practices and such developments as electronic monitoring. Professor Cragg combines the findings of contemporary studies, reports and papers focusing on crime, punishment and penal practice with philosophical argument and thereby constructs a radical theory of restorative justice.

Theories of justice are generally the realm of political philosophers. This new book brings an economic outlook to distributional justice in an interesting, well thought out book that enters new territories with an academic rigor that is to be applauded.

Women's unpaid work at home has not concerned theorists of social justice, despite the fact that it renders women vulnerable to exploitation and, therefore, injustice. Through a discussion of various conceptions of work and women's work in the materialist tradition of thought, the author develops a theory of women's work as care. By focusing on the material, psychological and gendered aspects of care, the theory elucidates how and why care is exploitative as long as it remains women's work, and what problems it poses for conceptions of social justice.

John Rawls is the most significant and influential moral philosopher of the twentieth century. His work has profoundly affected contemporary discussions of social, political and economic justice in philosophy, law, political science, economics and other social disciplines. In this collection of new essays, many of the world's leading political and moral theorists discuss the full range of Rawls's contribution to the concepts of political and economic justice, democracy, liberalism, constitutionalism and international justice.

This compelling book advances utilitarianism as the basis for a viable public philosophy, effectively rebutting the common charge that, as moral doctrine, utilitarian thought permits cruel acts, justifies unfair distribution of wealth, and demands too much of moral agents. James Wood Bailey defends utilitarianism through novel use of game theory insights regarding feasible equilibria and evolutionary stability, elaborating a sophisticated account of institutions that real-world utilitarians would want to foster. If utilitarianism seems in principle to dictate that we make each and every choice such that it leads to the best consequences overall, game theory emphasizes that no choice has consequences in isolation, but only in conjunction with many other choices of other agents. Viewing institutions as equilibria in complex games, Bailey negotiates the paradox of individual responsibilities, arguing that if individuals within institutions have specific responsibilities they cannot get from the principle of utility alone, the utility principle nevertheless holds great value in that it allows us to identify morally desirable institutions. Far from recommending cruel acts, utilitarianism, understood this way, actually runs congruent to our basic moral intuitions. A provocative attempt to support the practical use of utilitarian ethics in a world of conflicting interests and competing moral agents, Bailey's book employs the work of social scientists to tackle problems traditionally given abstract philosophical attention. Vividly illustrating its theory with concrete moral dilemmas and taking seriously our moral common sense, Utilitarianism, Institutions, and Justice is an accessible, groundbreaking work that will richly reward students and scholars of political science, political economy, and philosophy.