Should Justice Be All-Encompassing or Subject to Moral Override? A Pluralist Account

20 Pages Posted: 29 Nov 2013 Last revised: 23 Feb 2015

See all articles by Michel Rosenfeld

Michel Rosenfeld

Yeshiva University - Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law

Date Written: November 27, 2013

Abstract

Is justice all encompassing? And, if not, how does it fit within the domain of morality? Or, else is that which lies beyond the realm of justice also fall outside that of morality? These questions are pressing to pluralists who recognize that in contemporary polities there are deep divisions owing to the proliferation of conflicting conceptions of the good. Departing from this realization, this essay examines three classical types of theories of justice, respectively the Aristotelian, the Kantian, and the Humean which casts justice in terms of social utility. In Aristotle’s conception, justice is coextensive with the virtues and morality, and is conceived in connection with a vision of human beings as political beings with a common purposive design. In the Kantian conception, the realm of justice becomes detached from that of the good, whereas according to Hume what is not within the purview of justice lies beyond the realm of morals. None of these three types of theory suits the contemporary pluralist. The essay argues that to overcome the problems posed by the latter theories, pluralists should embrace a conception of justice susceptible of being overridden by a pluralist morality.

Keywords: justice, moral theory, aristotle, Kant, Hume

Suggested Citation

Rosenfeld, Michel, Should Justice Be All-Encompassing or Subject to Moral Override? A Pluralist Account (November 27, 2013). Cardozo Legal Studies Research Paper No. 414, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2360574 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2360574

Michel Rosenfeld (Contact Author)

Yeshiva University - Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law ( email )

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