The Idea of Justice

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The United States Constitution declares as one of its purposes, “To establish Justice.” The Constitution of Poland is based on “freedom and justice.” The Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union seeks to establish an area of “freedom, security, and justice.” But the Universal Declaration of Human Rights does not mention justice. According to the ancients, justice is one of the four cardinal virtues.

What is common in the understanding of justice? Does it derive from natural law? Positive Law? Divine Law? Does it actually exist? How has the term "justice" been defined, contested, and implemented in history? What can poets, philosophers, playwrights, and great figures in history tell us about justice as a theory and as a practical guide to human action?

In this course, we shall study philosophers, thinkers, and writers who have investigated the idea and the reality of justice. We shall also apply notions of justice to our own understanding of real problems of human law and action. For example: Are some kinds of inequality unjust while other kinds are just? How can our understanding of justice be applied to the treatment of animals, abortion, capital punishment, suicide, and war? What is justice in relation to God and the family? What are the cures for injustice?

The professor shall prepare a set of short readings for each class. Instead of a final examination, each student shall write a paper of 6-7 pages on a topic of his choice concerning justice after discussion with Professor Forte.

Session 1

Lecture: The many faces of justice

Seminar:

Like Aristotle, we shall begin our inquiry about justice by reviewing human experience. Think of a time when you observed or were part of an action that you would call “just” or “unjust.” Let’s compare observations.

Session 2

Reading: Sophocles, Antigone

Lecture: The Greeks: politics, fate, and justice.

Seminar: Antigone

Session 3

Reading: Plato, The Republic (selections)

Lecture: Justice in the soul

Seminar: Plato’s Republic

Session 4

Reading: Plato, The Republic (selections)

Lecture: The real and the unreal

Seminar: Plato, politics and virtue

Sessions 5

Reading: Aristotle, Ethics (selections)

Lecture: Aristotle and the world of becoming

Seminar: Transactional and Distributive Justice in Aristotle

Session 6

Reading: Aristotle, Ethics (selections), Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War (selection)

Lecture: Politics and virtue: Aristotle, Thucydides, and Cicero

Seminar: Compare, Aristotle Thucydides, and Cicero

Session 7

Reading: Scriptural Selections

Lecture: Justice in the Book of Job

Seminar: Human and divine justice

Session 8

Reading: St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica (selections)

Lecture: Law, natural justice, and political justice

Seminar: Political legitimacy and Justice in Aquinas

Session 9

Reading: St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica (selections)

Lecture: The just judge

Seminar: Just and unjust violence

Session 10

Reading: St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica (selections)

Lecture: Knowing and willing

Seminar: Just and unjust violence

Session 11

Reading: Calvin, Institutes (selections)

Hobbes, Leviathan (selections)

Lecture: Justice as will

Seminar: Hobbes’s revolution

Session 12

Reading: The Utilitarians (selections from Hume, Bentham, and Austin)

Compare: Radbruch, Five Minutes of Legal Philosophy

Lecture: Utilitarian Justice

Seminar: The benefits and problems of utilitarian justice

Session 11

Reading: Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments

Lecture: Justice as passion

Seminar: Sympathy as a basis for justice

Session 12

Reading: Mill, Utilitarianism (selections)

Spencer, Formula of Justice and Limits of State Action (selection)

Lecture: Science and justice

Seminar: Justice and progress in Mill and Spencer

Session 13

Reading: Finnis, Natural Law and Natural Rights (selections)

Lecture: The new natural law and justice

Seminar: Natural law and positive law

Session 14

Readings: Rawls, A Theory of Justice

Hayek, Equality, Value and Merit

Lecture: Liberal and Libertarian

Seminar: Modern political justice

Session 15

Lecture and seminar: roundtable discussion of paper topics.