The Idea of Justice in the Cultural Context of Renaissance Philosophy

Abstract

The article provides a philosophical and cultural analysis of the phenomenon of justice on the example of the views of some representatives of the philosophical thought of the Renaissance. The choice of this period is not accidental: the Middle Ages, faced with an existential crisis as a result of the destruction brought by the barbarians, developed a concept of justice that turned a person to the search for an internal support that allowed him to cope with the challenge and the full power of which he was able to realize in the renewed idea of justice during the Renaissance. The purpose of the work is to determine, based on the results of the analysis: 1) whether the practices of justice proposed by the Renaissance are possible today; 2) if so, in what form? To answer the questions posed, the author uses the method of comparative cultural analysis. With regard to the concepts of justice proposed by the philosophers of the Renaissance, the following conclusions were drawn: 1) despite the historical completeness of the conditions that gave rise to the considered concepts of justice, the latter continue to exist today; 2) the form of justice proposed by the Renaissance became the forerunner of the concepts of fundamental human freedom and its value. The results of the work can help clarify positions regarding the idea of justice as understood by representatives of different social groups, and therefore can be used to build a dialogue between them.