Justice and Reason

Abstract

The legislators and judges who employ sanctions and constraints to assure respect for law and the execution of sentences, owe it to themselves to exercise their functions in the spirit in which those functions have been conferred on them. The legislators should elaborate laws that will be just because they are in harmony with the aspirations of the community they represent; the judges should apply the laws in a spirit of equity, in accordance with the traditions of the community whose magistrates they are. But the philosopher’s role, unlike the judge’s, does not consist of cultivating respect for the established order; nor does the philosopher, like the politician, have to conform to the wishes of an electorate in order to win their votes. If such a thing as a philosopher’s mission exists, it is that he be the advocate of reason and the defender of universal values deemed to be valid for all men. In the words of Husserl, ‘we philosophers are the civil servants of humanity.’¹