Eight Theories of Justice: Perspectives from Philosophical and Theological Ethics

Karen Lebacqz & Matthew J. Gaudet
Cover of Eight Theories of Justice: Perspectives from Philosophical and Theological Ethics
  • ISBN: 8889834102, 9798889834106
  • Page count: 200
  • Published: 2025
  • Format: Paperback
  • Publisher: Fortress Press

There may be no more urgent cry than that for justice--and no more frequent accusation than that of injustice. But what is meant when these terms are used? Since its initial publication nearly forty years ago, Karen Lebacqz's Six Theories of Justice has been the go-to guide for answering this question. But today, the matters upon which it touches are even more acute.

Eight Theories of Justice offers a major update and expansion of the earlier text. Together with coauthor Matthew J. Gaudet, Lebacqz presents the major alternative views of justice, including John Stuart Mill's utilitarianism, the contract system of John Rawls, the entitlement views of Robert Nozick, and the communitarian ideas of Michael Sandel. These political and philosophicalaccounts of justice are supplemented with analysis of major theological approaches: Pope Francis and Catholic social teaching, Reinhold Niebuhr and Christian realism, the Black liberation theology of James Cone, and Katie Cannon's womanist ethics. Each chapter introduces the major elements of each theory, presents the best critiques of each theory, and offers an assessment of their value for living justly in the modern world.

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Categories: Academic, Theology

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About the Author

Karen Lebacqz & Matthew J. Gaudet

Karen Lebacqz is professor emerita of the Pacific School of Religion, and former core doctoral faculty of the Graduate Theological Union. Karen's lifelong commitment to issues of social justice has taken shape in three primary areas: professional ethics, bioethics, and ethical theory. Her publications include more than six books, among them Six Theories of Justice, Justice in an Unjust World, Sex in the Parish, and Ethics and Spiritual Care. Her dozens of essays in bioethics, feminist ethics, and sexual ethics have been published in scientific journals, church magazines, and international contexts. In 2019 she received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Society of Christian Ethics.

Matthew J. Gaudet is the director of ethics programs for the School of Engineering at Santa Clara University. Gaudet's research lies at the intersection of ethics with the social sciences, especially the application of ethics to the topics of war, the university, disability, and technology. He was a lead author of Encountering Artificial Intelligence: Ethical and Anthropological Investigations and a coeditor of three issues of the Journal of Moral Theology (on Artificial Intelligence, University Ethics, and Contingent Faculty).