A question

What is justice?

From the just city to the just tax code: what do we owe each other, and what happens when power ignores the answer?

7 perspectives

  1. Socrates

    Athens

    The unexamined life is not worth living

    “The unexamined life is not worth living.” — Plato, Apology 38a
  2. Plato

    Athens

    Reality has two levels: fleeting appearances and eternal Forms

  3. Aristotle

    Stagira, Athens

    Flourishing (eudaimonia) is activity of the soul in accordance with virtue

    “We are what we repeatedly do.” — Nicomachean Ethics (paraphrase of Book II; popularly attributed)
  4. Confucius

    State of Lu, China

    Do not impose on others what you do not wish for yourself

    “Do not do to others what you do not want done to yourself.” — Analects 15:24
  5. Ibn Khaldun

    Tunis → Cairo

    Group solidarity (asabiyya) is the engine that builds and breaks states

  6. Hannah Arendt

    Germany → United States

    The banality of evil: harm done by thoughtlessness, not monsters

    “The sad truth is that most evil is done by people who never make up their minds to be good or evil.” — The Life of the Mind (thinking section)
  7. Immanuel Kant

    Königsberg

    The mind actively structures experience; we know things as they appear