New Faculty Publication: Lou Wolcher on the Meaning of Justice

Louis E. Wolcher, The Meaning of Justice in the World Today, 66 Nat'l Law. Guild Rev. 228-45 (2009).

Based on a lecture he presented in Oct. 2010 at Orcas Island, Prof. Wolcher's article discusses two types of justice -- corrective and distributive -- and the relationship between justice and the law.

Citations to Heidegger, Victor Hugo, Machiavelli, Martin Luther King, Jr., St. Augustine, and T.S. Eliot mingle with stories of justice and injustice:

• the stoning to death of an Afghani couple who eloped, contrary to their families' wishes
• Northern abolitionist judges enforcing the return of fugitive slaves to their masters
• the death of civilian Albanian refugees by bombs dropped by NATO warplanes
• two men who, in different times and places, committed robbery with the intention of being arrested so that they would have food and shelter

The article concludes:

Philosphy and politics know too little about justice, but they nonetheless insist on telling you about it. The real world, on the other hand, knows too much about injustice, and yet it remains sadly tongue-tied and mute. Let injustice be resisted, and the let there always be hope that justice is possible. But may we never believe that justice has finally arrived.

This journal is found in the Compact Stacks, where journals are organized in alphabetical order by title.