Almost every country today contains adherents of different religions and different secular conceptions of the good life. Is there any alternative to a power struggle among them, leading most probably to either civil war or repression? The argument of this book is that justice as impartiality offers a solution. According to the theory of justice as impartiality, principles of justice are those principles that provide a reasonable basis for the unforced assent of those subject to them. The object of this book is to set the theory out, explain its rationale, and respond to a variety of criticism that have been made of it. As the second volume of his work-in-progress, A Treatise on Social Justice, this work lies at the heart of a thriving academic debate which the author has played a key role in shaping.

Brian Barry is Professor of Political Science at the London School of Economics. Hi is a Fellow of the British Academy and of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and was the founding editor of the highly respected British Journal of Political Science and editor of the world's leading moral philosophy journal Ethics. His previous books include: Theories of Justice; Democracy and Power: Essays in Political Theory 1 (OUP, 1991) and Liberty and Justice: Essays in Political Theory 2 (OUP, 1991)