An Enquiry into the Spirit of Justice

This dissertation unfolds a comprehensive enquiry into human moral thought and moral experience, particularly in its relation with anger. Accordingly, this work conceives of justice as a universal human faculty, capable of generating the infinitely varied and conflicting justices observed throughout history. The results present a theory of justice as an independent faculty; justice arises for consciousness only in the breach—as anger in response to the violation of our expectations about what Persons deserve to give, receive, do, and suffer, based on the descriptors under which we regard them. The framework is built upon a foundational perceptual distinction between Persons, defined as willful and face-bearing objects that have deserts, and Things. This faculty operates through an individual's register of Person-types and their corresponding justice-predicates. By providing a grammar for analyzing and comparing any system of law or morality, the theory offers new tools for political science and a more robust foundation for understanding the principles of a humane polity. Moreover, the conceptual framework proves robust enough to derive the rudiments of a total social analysis that preserves, synthesizes, and integrates the insights of many world traditions.