The Just

The essays in this collection by the noted French philosopher Paul Ricoeur grew out of a series of invited lectures given in France on the question of the nature of justice and the law at the Institut des Hautes Etudes pour a Justice in Paris. Gathered under the title "The Just", the essays represent a sustained reflection on the relation between the concept of the juridical - as embedded in written laws, tribunals, judges and verdicts - and the philosophical concept of right, situated between moral theory and politics. In political philosophy, Ricoeur argues, the question of right is obscured by the haunting presence of historical evil. In a philosophy of right, on the other hand, the leading theme is peace. Building on the framework established in his earlier work, "Oneself as Another", Ricoeur shifts his focus from political considerations to those having to do with the juridical dimension of the problem of justice. Fleshing out this framework, Ricoeur revisits the work of Plato, Aristotle and Kant in his engagements with contemporary thinkers, particularly John Rawls, Michael Walzer, Hannah Arendt and Ronald Dworkin. His thought ranges from conceptual analysis, to the theory of law, and finally to the act of judging, exploring the ideas of sanction, rehabilitation, pardon and the status of conscience in relation to the demands of the law. A valuable work for understanding the development of Ricoeur's hermeneutic philosophy and the literary and religious dimensions of his thought, "The Just" should also be of interest to scholars interested in matters of ethics, law and justice.

About the Author :
Paul Ricoeur is the John Nuveen Professor Emeritus in the Divinity School, the Department of Philosophy, and the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago. David Pellauer is a professor of philosophy at DePaul University.

Review :
"The novelties of this book are the analyses of different phases of judicial practice: hearing, judging, sanction, rehabilitation and pardon. It is fascinating to read how Ricoeur analyses these with his hermeneutics of detours or hermeneutics of distanciation, attempting to do justice to both interpretation and argumentation, both punishment and pardon, and so on."--Arto Laitinen "Radical Philosophy" "In essays on Rawls, Michael Walzer, and Ronald Dworkin, among American philosophers and Hannah Arendt and Luc Botanski among European theorists, Ricoeur sketches a distinctive position on questions of justice that straddles the liberal/communitarian divide common in the Anglo-American world. . . . [Ricoeur provides] a fresh perspective on current debates within his own interesting account of the structure of moral action."--Georgia Warnke, Ethics--Georgia Warnke "Ethics" "In these essays, Ricoeur applies his hermeneutical theory of the capable person, articulated in the magisterial Oneself as Another, to the philosophy of law and justice, demonstrating once again the remarkable breadth of his research project."--Michael Johnson "Journal of Religion" "The essays assembled in The Just are at once essential readings for anyone concerned with the link between ethics, law, and politics and perfect complements to the seventh, eighth, and ninth studies contained in Oneself as Another. However, knowledge of Ricoeur's earlier writings is not a prerequisite for understanding the content of these essays since he retains the style of a moderator by engaging the most powerful authors on justice available: Aristotle, Kant, Arendt, Rawls, Walzer, to name a few."--Paul Gyllenhammer "Review of Metaphysics"