Showing posts with label philosophy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label philosophy. Show all posts

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

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.

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Michael Sandel Wants to Talk to You About Justice


Michael Sandel Wants to Talk to You About Justice says the Chronicle of Higher Education in a headline yesterday (Sept. 28, 2009). The article discusses "Justice" Prof. Sandel's wildly popular undergraduate course at Harvard ("Moral Reasoning 22" in the course catalog), and the PBS series based on the course.

Coincidentally, Prof. Sandel is speaking here at the University of Washington School of Law this Friday, Oct. 2, at 2:30 (rm 133).

Justice: What's the Right Thing to Do? is the book that complements the series. It's available here: JC578 .S25 2009 at Good Reads. (Well, as of this writing, it's checked out, but it will be back one day. You can request it in the catalog to be in line for it.)

The night before he speaks here Prof. Sandel is speaking and signing books at Town Hall. (See the University Book Store calendar.)

The television series has a website with supporting materials. You can even watch entire episodes.

The Law Library also has several of Prof. Sandel's earlier books:
  • The Case Against Perfection: Ethics in the Age of Genetic Engineering (QH438.7 .S2634 2007 at Classified Stacks)
  • Justice: A Reader (JC578 .J868 2007 at Classified Stacks)
  • Liberalism and the Limits of Justice (1982) (JC578 .S26 at Classified Stacks)