Residues of Justice: Literature, Law, Philosophy

In Residues of Justice, Wai Chee Dimock probes the conceit of justice as a matter of measurable equivalence—those iconic scales that promise perfect balance—and finds what she calls the “residues” left behind by any attempt to translate lived conflicts into commensurate terms. Opening with Aristophanes’ The Frogs and moving through Aristotle’s proportional ethics, Kant, Rawls, and Mill, Dimock shows how justice has long been imagined as a language of ratios, universals, and adequation. Agai...