Books like Justice by Michael J. Sandel

Friedrich Nietzsche’s *Zur Genealogie der Moral* interrogates the origins of ethical values, arguing that concepts like compassion, equality, and justice derive from a historical process of domination rather than divine or scientific certainty.

John Rawls’s classic argues that principles of justice, chosen behind a veil of ignorance, would guide free, rational peoples toward equality and fairness in society.

This collection of essays by philosophers, political theorists, and social critics ranges over two millennia--from the ideas of Plato and Aristotle to those of contemporary thinkers such as John Rawls and Robert Nozick. It examines the nature of justice, its importance in human life, and its place among the other virtues. The scope of the collection gives a clear picture of the differences and continuities that have marked the debate: Plato's emphasis on the ideal of "sticking to one's task" contrasts with the modern emphasis on individual rights, while the account of justice as part of the law of nature offered by Aristotle and Cicero contrasts with Hume's analysis of justice as an artificial virtue. Alan Ryan's introductory essay emphasizes the stringency of justice--showing how its demands can conflict with considerations of the general welfare. The book concludes with a discussion of Marx's view that justice is perhaps merely a concession to a world of scarcity and selfishness created by capitalist necessities. An excellent guide to interpretations of one of the central values of political life and thought, this book will interest students and scholars of political theory and philosophy.

Presents an analysis of what justice is, the transcendental theory of justice and its drawbacks, and a persuasive argument for a comparative perspective on justice that can guide us in the choice between alternatives.

Is there any cause or war worth risking one's life for? How can we determine which actions are vices and which virtues? MacIntyre, professor of philosophy at Vanderbilt University, unravels these and other such questions by linking the concept of justice to what he calls practical rationality. He rejects the grab-what-you-can, utilitarian yardstick adopted by moral relativists. Instead, he argues that four wholly different, incompatible ideas of justice put forth by Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas and Hume have helped shape our modern individualistic world. In his unorthodox view, each person seeks the good through an ongoing dialogue with one of these traditions or within Jewish, non-Western or other historical traditions. This weighty sequel to After Virtue (1981) is certain to stir debate.

This book originated as lectures for a course on political philosophy that Rawls taught regularly at Harvard in the 1980s. In time the lectures became a restatement of his theory of justice as fairness, revised in light of his more recent papers and his treatise Political Liberalism (1993). Rawls offers a broad overview of his main lines of thought and also explores specific issues never before addressed in any of his writings. He is well aware that since the publication of A Theory of Justice in 1971, American society has moved farther away from the idea of justice as fairness. Yet his ideas retain their power and relevance to debates in a pluralistic society about the meaning and theoretical viability of liberalism. This book demonstrates that moral clarity can be achieved even when a collective commitment to justice is uncertain