The suggestion here is that casting the project of feminist ethics in confrontational language, rooted in a rebellion picture of moral epistemology, impedes the further development of that very project. Four commonplace examples are offered to make this suggestion plausible. I urge instead a pluralistic approach to styles of moral thinking and propose that the project of feminist ethics would be better served by casting it in the language of reconciliation.

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.". (shrink)

Does the law act for or against «the people»? Who are «the people»? This collection of essays by philosophers, historians, legal scholars, and others examines these questions in historical perspective; in law and literature; in contemporary, advanced, and developing societies; and with respect to gender and economics. What «the law» does and ought to represent is viewed semiotically as a problem admitting of no definitive answer.