Abstract

Since classical Greece the term -justice- has been used to denote those characteristics of institutions that warrant the loyalty and support of peoples affected by them. Thus, if a government is found to be just, its citizens are said to be under obligation to obey its lawful commands. That traditional usage is viable only for homogeneous cultures that support a univocal notion of justice. Where that condition fails, as it does in the diversity which typifies most democracies at the end of the third millennium of the common era, the roles of justice become problematic. The essays in this volume explore many of the different aspects of the changing role of -justice- in today's multicultural context."