Corrective Justice and the Possibility of Rectification

In this paper, I ask how – and whether – the rectification of injury at which corrective justice aims is possible, and by whom it must be performed. I split the injury up into components of harm and wrong, and consider their rectification separately. First, I show that pecuniary compensation for the harm is practically plausible, because money acts as a mediator between the damaged interest and other interests. I then argue that this is also a morally plausible approach, because it does not claim too much for compensation: neither can all harms be compensated, nor can it be said when compensation is paid that the status quo ante has been restored. I argue that there is no conceptual reason for any particular agent paying this compensation. I then turn to the wrong, and reject three proposed methods of rectification. The first aims to rectify the wrong by rectifying the harm; the second deploys punitive damages; the third, punishment. After undermining each proposal, I argue that the wrong can only be rectified by a full apology, which I disaggregate into the admission of causal and moral responsibility, repudiation of the act, reform, and, in some cases, disgorgement and reparations, which I define as a good faith effort to share the burden of the victim’s harm. I argue, further, that only the injurer herself can make a full apology, and it is not something that can be coerced by other members of society. As such, whether rectification of the wrong can be a matter of corrective justice is left an open question.

The Motive of Society: Aristotle on Civic Friendship, Justice, and Concord

My aim in this paper is to demonstrate the relevance of the Aristotelian notion of civic friendship to contemporary political discussion by arguing that it can function as a social good. Contrary to some dominant interpretations of the ancient conception of friendship according to which it can only be understood as an obligatory reciprocity, I argue that friendship between fellow citizens is important because it contributes to the unity of both state and community by transmitting feelings of intimacy and solidarity. In that sense, it can be understood as an important relationship predicated on affection and generosity, virtues lacking from both contemporary politics and society that seem to be merely dominated by Post-Enlightenment ideals. For Aristotle, friendship is important for society because it generates concord, articulating thus a basis for social unity and political agreement.     

Restitution Post Bellum: Property,Inheritance, and Corrective Justice

When should property which was unjustly taken in wartime be returned to the victims of misappropriation, or their heirs? This article argues that Cécile Fabre's Cosmopolitan Peace understates the force of arguments favouring restitution. Rather than seeing claims for restitution made by the descendants of victims as concerned with the redress of harm, they can be understood as resting on enduring entitlements to property. This allows for an account of corrective justice which is robust across generations, and which can be justified aside from, and even sometimes in opposition to, concerns of distributive justice.     

Friendship, Justice, and Aristotle: Some Reasons to Be Sceptical

It is sometimes held that modern institutionally-focussed conceptions of social justice are lacking in one essential respect: they ignore the importance of civic friendship or solidarity. It is also, typically simultaneously, held that Aristotle’s thought provides a fertile ground for elucidating an account of civic friendship. I argue, first, that Aristotle is no help on this score: he has no conception of distinctively civic friendship. I then go on to argue that the Kantian distinction between perfect and imperfect duties is more useful than talk of civic friendship in capturing the non-institutional demands of social justice.     

Aristotle on Predication

A predicate logic typically has a heterogeneous semantic theory. Subjects and predicates have distinct semantic roles: subjects refer; predicates characterize. A sentence expresses a truth if the object to which the subject refers is correctly characterized by the predicate. Traditional term logic, by contrast, has a homogeneous theory: both subjects and predicates refer; and a sentence is true if the subject and predicate name one and the same thing. In this paper, I will examine evidence for ascribing to Aristotle the view that subjects and predicates refer. If this is correct, then it seems that Aristotle, like the traditional term logician, problematically conflates predication and identity claims. I will argue that we can ascribe to Aristotle the view that both subjects and predicates refer, while holding that he would deny that a sentence is true just in case the subject and predicate name one and the same thing. In particular, I will argue that Aristotle's core semantic notion is not identity but the weaker relation of constitution. For example, the predication ‘All men are mortal’ expresses a true thought, in Aristotle's view, just in case the mereological sum of humans is a part of the mereological sum of mortals.     

Aristotle on Philosophia

Aristotle uses philosophia (and philosophos, philosophein, philosophôs, sumphilosophein, philosophêteon) in at least ten senses across his oeuvre, as this first study of every instance in his writings reveals. Irrespective of the specific approaches of its practitioners, philosophia may be, for example, an exercise of cleverness; or leisurely study; or the desire to know; or the pursuit of fundamental explanation; or a historically extended discipline. This variety allows us to go some way in reconstructing the complex attitude Aristotle had toward a culturally specific practice in which he located himself and soon helped develop into a specialized discipline. Another benefit is that it allows us to clarify the argumentative method in his Protrepticus, which depends on several senses of philosophia. It also puts up obstacles to determining whether, for example, Aristotle believes philosophia is an epistêmê.     

Aristotle on the Liar

Topoi - The only passage from Aristotle's works that seemsto discuss the paradox of the liar is within chapter 25 of Sophistici Elenchi (180a34–b7). This passage raises several questions:...     

Justice,instruction, and the good: The case for public education in Aristotle and Plato'sLaws

This paper develops an interpretation and analysis of the arguments for public education which open Book VIII of Aristotle'sPolitics, drawing on both the wider Aristotelian corpus and on examination of continuities with Plato'sLaws. Part III: Sections VIII-XI examine the two arguments which Aristotle adduces in support of the claim that education should be provided through a public system. The first of these arguments concerns the need to unify society through education for friendship and the sharing of a common end. Several versions of his second argument are considered, and the most promising of them is elaborated in connection with an examination of the links between instruction and legislation in theLaws. This yields what is probably the most compelling argument there is for the claim that public supervision of education is anecessary condition for a just society.     

Aristotle on virtues and emotions

Conclusion Aristotle is certainly right to suggest that a philosophical psychology of the virtues will importantly involve tracing the connections between virtues and emotions. But while he is admirably diligent about scouting some kinds of differences between virtues, (notably what virtues are about — dangers, bodily pleasures, spending and getting money, distributions of honor or money, etc.), he does not seem prepared to admit that their logical/psychological structure can differ in respect of their general relations with emotions. Instead, he wishes to see them as homogeneous in this respect. But the main two connections he discovers — the propriety of affect relation and the index relation — are not general. They are true at best only of some virtues, and then only in improved formulations. Our brief investigation of his claims has shown, I think, that the virtues do display variety that is in part a function of their relations to emotion-types. We await a psychology of the virtues in which the connections of particular virtues to emotions, and the connections between the virtues that would become visible in the light of this structural variety, are fully traced.