Whose justice? An examination of nine models of justice

Abstract

Summary Formal definitions of justice calling us to “render the other their due” are elastic, given shape by our grasp of the moral bonds connecting persons and the relationship between this virtue and other moral habits, affections, or the concrete experience of our lives. This paper, written for a conference on education to justice in Jesuit Universities, examines nine theories of justice (Utilitarianism, Libertarianism, Social Contract, Complex Equality, a Feminist Ethics of Care, Christian Realism, Catholic Social Thought, Liberation Theology, and a Biblical notion of justice) in light of their perspective on the rights and duties persons have to one another and the relationship of justice to compassion and the affections.