The Soul of Justice

Cynthia Willett brings together diverse insights from social psychology, classical and contemporary literature, and legal and justice theory to redefine the basis of the moral and legal person. Feminists, communitarians, and postmodern thinkers have...

Cynthia Willett is Associate Professor of Philosophy and Winship Distinguished Research Scholar at Emory University. She is the author of Maternal Ethics and Other Slave Moralities and the editor of Theorizing Multiculturalism.

This largely convincing account raises important questions for democracy.... Willett's book sends us in new directions to answer questions with ancient origins.

Shannon Sullivan, Pennsylvania State University:

'Freedom's most sublime meaning is eros.' This is the central claim of Cynthia Willett's powerful new book, The Soul of Justice.... Therein Willett brings together critical theory, care ethics, and other forms of feminist theory, and the 'visionary pragmatism' of African American thought to challenge liberal conceptions of individuality and freedom. Perhaps because love often has been sentimentalized, philosophers have tended to turn to other phenomena, such as alienation, separation, and fear, in which to ground freedom. Understanding eros as something other than sentimentality, however, we can tap into its potential power and increase the chances for racial justice.

Kelly Oliver, State University of New York, Stony Brook:

In her brilliant new book, Cynthia Willett forcefully argues that a theory of radical democrary needs both a notion of hubris and a notion of social eros. Her criticisms of liberal notions of the individual cut to the quick and open onto more fluid conceptions of sociality. Willett takes us to the heart of tensions between need and independence, autonomy and ultruism, self and others, rights and duties, equality and difference. This book will change the way that we think about justice and democracy in an era of globalization.