Otfried Hoffe is one of the foremost political philosophers in Europe today. In this major work, already a classic in continental Europe, he re-examines philosophical discourse on justice - from Classical Greece to the present day.

Hoffe confronts what he sees as the two major challenges to any theory of justice: the legal, positivist claim that there are no standards of justice external to legal systems; and the anarchist claim that justice demands the rejection and abolition of all legal and state systems.

Hoffe sets out to continue the 'philosophical project of...