If justice is relative, how has it inspired so many reform movements? Thucydides said that history is philosophy teaching by example. In the case of opponents in a conflict, each claiming “justice” for his side, the lesson of history is twofold. One possibility is that one of them is wrong,...

Can

Can the past entitle us to apologies, reparations or recognition today? It is easy to suppose that history gives us our entitlements just as it tells us who we are. The land our forefathers occupied, the apologies due to us now for the harm done to them then, the works...

Does being happy make us good, or being good make us happy? Bertrand Russell was emphatically of the opinion that being happy makes us good, and equally emphatic that certain conceptions of what it is to be good make people miserable. It is tempting to agree with both views, though...

Are there greater social evils in today’s society than in the past? A century ago the philanthropist Joseph Rowntree said that the greatest threats to society’s moral fabric were poverty, drunkenness, the opium trade, “impurity” (meaning prostitution and sexual license), gambling, war and slavery. He set up the Joseph Rowntree...

Are human rights political? Aristotle ended his lectures on ethics by turning attention to the state and its laws—thus preparing the way for the following lectures we know as the Politics—on the ground that questions about the good for individuals are inseparable from the constitution and laws of the community...