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This book examines the definitional differences between classical and modern political theory as they relate to the constituent parts of justice. Since the earliest days of political philosophy, justice has been understood as the goal of the state. And most thinkers have spent a considerable time addressing the components of justice—nature, happiness, freedom, equality, and virtue. This book looks at these terms using both the classical and modern conceptions and argues that modern thinkers’ redefinition of the terms has changed the way we conceive of justice and thus, transformed the ways states evaluate issues of right and wrong.
“This book deftly explores how the classical teleological state has transformed into an ontological one in modern Western political philosophy. In that journey, has the state remained an institution to guarantee justice through securing happiness, equality, and freedom to its citizenry? At a time of worldwide citizen angst against the state, the book helps us wrestle with the question: if the state is unable to bring well-being to its citizens, is it unjust?” - Rekha Datta, Freed Endowed Chair in Social Sciences & Professor of Political Science, Monmouth University, USA.
“Kevin Dooley’s The Great Transformation serves as a necessary corrective to our persistent philosophical myopia that repeatedly leads us to judge classical thought through modern lenses. He encourages his readers to take the presumptions, purposes, and categories that inform the classical perspective of Plato and Aristotle seriously and to recognize that the shift to a modern perspective with its gaze fixed on the human individual rather than the human community is a philosophical choice with consequences that we should re-evaluate critically.” - Dr. Joseph H. Lane, Jr., Provost and Senior Vice President, Professor of Political Science, North Carolina Wesleyan University, USA.
“Without directly critiquing modernist thought or imposing personal opinions upon us, Dooley meticulously traces the divergences between classical and modern political imaginaries in a fair and dispassionate manner, permitting the insufficiencies of the modern to reveal themselves naturally to the reader.” - Dr. John Ryan Feldmann, Adjunct Professor of Political Science, The New School for Social Research, USA.
Kevin Dooley is a Professor of Political Science at Monmouth University, West Long Branch, NJ, USA. He teaches courses in early and modern political thought as well as courses in ethics in international relations.
Acknowledgments; 1.Introduction; 2.Nature in the Classical and Modern Traditions; 3.Happiness and Human Flourishing; 4.Freedom and Equality; 5.Virtue; 6.Justice:The End of the State; Index;