"Political Lexicon" is a series edited by Carlo Galli, in which fifteen volumes have already been published: Constitution, Representation, Freedom, State, Democracy, Interest, Revolution, Tolerance, Authority, Government. Community, Human Nature, and Utopia. The series' aim is to comprise an essential encyclopaedia that describes the historical evolution of the main concepts on which modern political discourse is based.

The volume describes the lengthy history of the idea of "justice", a concept that has inspired a vast multitude of viewpoints. Plato placed justice within a metaphysical conception of order; Aristotle attempted to establish an indissoluble relationship between justice and equality; the Stoics and Thomas d'Aquino underscored the fundamental tie between justice and natural law, thus ushering in a tradition that led to modern jusnaturalism (from Grotius to Rousseau). In the modern era, with Machiavelli, Bodin, and Hobbes, concepts of justice feature its being mere obedience to the sovereign's will. In more recent times, justice has been at the centre of reflections emphasising the separation between ethics and law (Kant and Hegel), its nature as "social justice" (from Marx to the Weimar Constitution) or its contribution to sentient beings' happiness (Rawls, Sen, and Nussbaum).

Carla De Pascale teaches History of Philosophy at the University of Bologna.