Justice: Rights and Wrongs »

Nicholas Wolterstorff is the Noah Porter Professor Emeritus of Philosophical Theology at Yale University and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. His many books include "Until Justice" and "Peace Embrace".

"Wolterstorff's Justice is the most impressive book on justice since Rawls' A Theory of Justice. In a fresh and vigorous manner, Wolterstorff defends a conception of justice as inherent rights and argues for its superiority to a conception of justice as right order. The sweep of the book is breathtaking, ranging from a detailed discussion of justice in the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament to medieval, early modern, and contemporary theories of justice. Wolterstorff's most provocative thesis is that all existing secular as well as most religious attempts to ground a theory of justice fail. Even those who are skeptical about his theistic grounding of justice will be challenged by the clarity, rigor, and thoroughness of his arguments."—Richard J. Bernstein, New School for Social Research

"The work of a first-rate philosopher at the top of his game, this book sets forth a distinctive and challenging theory of justice formulated in explicitly scriptural and Christian terms, yet in conversation with the leading alternatives in the Anglophone world. Not only does this book reflect the clarity and acuity of thought that characterize Wolterstorff's work, it also reflects the humane sensibilities of someone who has thought and felt deeply about these matters for a long time."—Jean Porter, University of Notre Dame

Miroslav Volf - Books & Culture

Nicholas Wolterstorff's Justice: Rights and Wrongs is a magisterial book. In it . . . Wolterstorff has gotten justice right. This, in case the thrust of my terse comment wasn't plain enough, is a very high praise.

Preface vii

Introduction 1

Part I The Archeology of Rights 19

Chapter 1 Two Conceptions of Justice 21

Chapter 2 A Contest of Narratives 44

Chapter 3 Justice in the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible 65

Chapter 4 On De-justicizing the New Testament 96

Chapter 5 Justice in the New Testament Gospels 109

Part II Fusion of Narrative with Theory: The Goods to Which We Have Rights 133

Chapter 6 Locating That to Which We Have Rights 135

Chapter 7 Why Eudaimonism Cannot Serve as Framework for a Theory of Rights 149

Chapter 8 Augustine's Break with Eudaimonism 180

Chapter 9 The Incursion of the Moral Vision of Scripture into Late Antiquity 207

Chapter 10 Characterizing Life-and History-Goods 227

Part III Theory: Having a Right to a Good 239

Chapter 11 Accounting for Rights 241

Chapter 12 Rights Not Grounded in Duties 264

Chapter 13 Rights Grounded in Respect for Worth 285

Chapter 14 The Nature and Grounding of Natural Human Rights 311

Chapter 15 Is a Secular Grounding of Human Rights Possible? 323

Chapter 16 A Theistic Grounding of Human Rights 342

Chapter 17 Applications and Implications 362

Epilogue Concluding Reflections 385

General Index 395

Index of Scriptural References 399