The purpose of this book is to explore the major conceptual differences between classical and modern political philosophy and to understand how these differences have yielded competing conceptions of justice. If ancient and modern thinkers used a different set of constructs, definitions, and methods to explain justice, then it is our duty to understand them. It is also our duty to understand why they have such differences.
Modern thinkers, beginning with Thomas Hobbes, developed a thought experiment-the state of nature-that allowed them to redefine well-established political terms (nature, happiness, virtue, equality, freedom) to determine what people were like in the absence of any external authority, that is, a state. The argument was so compelling that their adherents applied this logic to determine what they deemed legitimate forms of government. In doing so, they made classical articulations of justice appear irrelevant.
This shift-a seismic move away from more than 1,500 years of political philosophy, validated the new approach and called into question the approach of classical theorists. As a result, we now inhabit a world that sees little political significance in the work of the ancients. The classical theory of Plato and Aristotle appears too subjective. It seems too ideological and at times mystical. Such a momentous shift in thinking has resulted in a change in the way citizens see themselves in relation to the state and more importantly, toward each other.