Justice as a spiritual quest

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

1-1-2021

Abstract

This essay is based on the assumption that retributive justice fails to capture the immense riches of the human condition. Exploring the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), it argues that restorative justice must be seen as complementary to the retributive and other conceptions of justice. Restorative justice is presented here as a spiritual journey, one that is best grasped through the prism of Benjamin’s spiritual elements of class struggles. Nelson Mandela understood, like Georg Friedrich Hegel, that even the Absolute Spirit, powerful as it is, achieves its goal through cunning. Spiritual quest is, however, much more than the cunning of the spirit; it is also love and human flourishing understood as inclusive projects.

DOI

10.1080/10282580.2021.1965073

Publication Title

Contemporary Justice Review: Issues in Criminal, Social, and Restorative Justice

Volume Number

24

Issue Number

3

First Page

280

Last Page

289

ISSN

10282580

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