The Ethics of Justice Without Illusions by Louis E. Wolcher - 9781138855649

Taylor & Francis

The founding premise of this book is that the nimbus of prestige, which once surrounded the idea of justice, has now been dimmed to such a degree that it is no longer sufficient to secure the possibility of a good conscience for those who undertake, in good faith, to make the world a better place in the spheres of politics and law. The many decent human beings who have noticed and experienced this diminishment of justice\u2019s prestige find themselves in a thoroughly disenchanted existential situation. For them, the attempt to do justice without the illusion of being grounded in something beyond the sheer facticity of their own performances is a distinctly ethical theme, which cries out to be investigated in its own right. Heeding the cry, this book asks and attempts to answer the following fundamental ethical question: is a life in the law \u2013 even one spent in the pursuit of justice \u2013 worth living, and if so, how can a disenchanted person come to bear the living of it with.