Justice Unbound: Planetary Ethics in an Interconnected World

This book sets out to develop a unified theory of justice; one that brings coherence and consistency to obligations across all domains, including justice obligations to compatriots, to people in other countries, to animals and plants, and to future and past generations. While contemporary theories of justice tend to focus on specific contexts—such as domestic institutions, animal rights, international relations, or environmental justice—this work argues that our moral reasoning requires an integrated framework. Without such a unified framework, justice obligations in one domain may conflict with or undermine obligations in other domains. Establishing the overarching consistency and coherence of all our justice obligations is very important, since we want to know how justice obligations in one domain of justice may delimit, reinforce, or otherwise qualify obligations in other domains. This work addresses the problem of fragmentary and limited theories of justice by providing theoretical tools to identify and justify in a theoretically coherent manner our justice obligations in the four domains of justice. The need for a unified framework could not be more pressing. In a world where fragmented theories of justice can lead to conflicting or contradictory imperatives, this book offers a powerful alternative: a rigorous, morally expansive approach that seeks overarching coherence. It provides the philosophical foundations to justify justice obligations in a consistent and inclusive manner. In an era defined by global crises and unprecedented intergenerational challenges, understanding justice in this unified, holistic way is not only intellectually compelling—it is an ethical imperative.