“She took my toy!” wails the toddler. A concern for justice seems deeply rooted within us. And yet struggles over the meaning of justice persist, often with very high stakes. We constantly disagree about what is just or find ourselves in situations where the forces of injustice seem insurmountable. This seminar will explore key moments in the ongoing human debate about what justice is and what it demands from us: justice in the biblical narrative of Abraham, Socrates’s attempt to clarify the definition of justice in Plato’s Republic, and Abraham Lincoln’s reconceptualization of the Declaration of Independence as part of his campaign against the injustice of American slavery. By studying these four moments, students will reflect on the larger issues involved in understanding justice as well as the challenges that we face in seeking to build a just society.
Dr. Aaron Tugendhaft
Aaron Tugendhaft studied history and philosophy at the University of Chicago, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and the Sorbonne. Since receiving his doctorate in ancient Near Eastern Studies from New York University in 2012, he has taught broadly within the humanities on four continents and has become a staunch advocate of traditional liberal education as a corrective to premature professionalization, academic hyperspecialization, and political polarization. His most recent book, The Idols of ISIS: From Assyria to the Internet (University of Chicago Press, 2020), is a philosophical meditation on an Islamic State video of iconoclasm that explores the political power of images and the significance of their destruction. In fall 2021, he joined the history department and became a director of interdisciplinary programs at the Ramaz School in New York City.
