On Justice: An Essay in Jewish Philosophy (Littman Library of Jewish Civilization)

What is fair? How do rights join hands with generosity? How can punishment be justified? Is there recompense for human suffering? What sense can we make of immortality, or of the idea of a messianic age? In On Justice — now in paperback — Lenn Goodman offers the first general theory of justice for more than a century to tap the riches of the Jewish tradition — biblical, rabbinic, and philosophical — and bring its texts into dialogue with the classic works of Western ethics and political philosophy. Against the backdrop of conversation he opens up — with Saadiah, Halevi, Maimonides, and Spinoza, with Plato, Aristotle, Kant, and Rawls — Goodman develops a fresh, ontological approach to the core issues of ethics, politics, and the human condition. The original ideas of On Justice will engage both Jewish and non-Jewish philosophers and students of society and ethics.