Justice as a “Leitmotif”

Abstract

Montesquieu’s conception of justice manifests itself in his works in two distinct ways. First of all, certain theoretical and technical details of his political doctrines can be related to the metaphysical and epistemological apparatus which supports it; and, secondly, the moral idealism which through it is renewed and reconciled with historical and environmental determinism, reveals itself both directly in the form of a literature of ethics, and indirectly though no less distinctively, in the criteria which inform his judgement of laws and institutions.

“Une chose n’est pas juste parce qu’elle est loi; mais elle doit être loi parce qu’elle est juste.”

Pensée 460 (Bkn. 1906).