Democracy, Justice, and Equality in Ancient Greece

The original essays in this volume discuss ideas relating to democracy, political justice, equality and inequalities in the distribution of resources and public goods. These issues were as vigorously debated at the height of ancient Greek democracy as they are in many democratic societies today. Contributing authors address these issues and debates about them from both philosophical and historical perspectives.

Readers will discover research on the role of Athenian democracy in moderating economic inequality and reducing poverty, on ancient debates about how to respond to inborn and social inequalities, and on Plato’s and Aristotle’s critiques of Greek participatory democracies. Early chapters examine Plato’s views on equality, justice, and the distribution of political and non-political goods, including his defense of the abolition of private property for the ruling classes and of the equality of women in his ideal constitution and polis. Other papers discuss views of Socrates or Aristotle that are particularly relevant to contemporary political and economic disputes about punishment, freedom, slavery, the status of women, and public education, to name a few. This thorough consideration of the ancient Greeks' work on democracy, justice, and equality will appeal to scholars and researchers of the history of philosophy, Greek history, classics, as well as those with an interest in political philosophy.

• Aristotle and Equality
• Economic Growth and Equality in Athens
• Equality, Inequality, and Faction
• Greek Democracy and Political Equality
• Greek Democracy and Wealth Inequalities
• Greek Democracy and Freedom
• Justice and Equality
• Justice and Economic Inequalities
• Plato on Inequalities
• Plato and Aristotle on Ideal Constitutions
• Poverty and Democracy in Ancient Athens
• Priorities among Goods Distributed
• Socrates on Democracy and Equality

• Department of Philosophy, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, USA

  Georgios Anagnostopoulos

• Department of Philosophy, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, USA

  Gerasimos Santas

Georgios Anagnostopoulos is a Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, San Diego.  He works primarily on ancient Greek philosophy, and is the author of Aristotle on the Goals and Exactness of Ethics and editor of The Blackwell Companion to Aristotle and of two collections of essays on ancient Greek philosophy in Springer’s Philosophical Studies Series.

Gerasimos Santas is Professor of Philosophy Emeritus, University of California, Irvine. His books include Socrates, Plato and Freud, Goodness and Justice, Understanding Plato’ Republic, The Blackwell Guide to Plato’ Republic (ed.). His current interests include economic inequalities and democratic justice in ancient and modern times.

Policies and ethics