The question of Justice: Hans Kelsen & Leo Strauss

The aim of my presentation is to compare two authors: Hans Kelsen and Leo Strauss. Kelsen’s “What is justice?” – the farewell lecture given at Berkeley in 1952 – and Leo Strauss’ Natural Right and History – one of the main works on political philosophy published in 20th Century America – are two key texts dealing with the same subject: justice. Moreover, they were written at the same period, by two authors who both emigrated to the US but who seem to defend radically opposed points of views. The hypothesis of this comparison is that the same important idea can be found in both authors, despite and beyond their otherwise real differences. This important idea I would like to stress is the following: if one wants to think about political issues, then, one has to address the question of justice. Reading Kelsen and Strauss reminds us of the importance of this question. According to this hypothesis, this is a main lesson one should retain from a comparative reading of these two authors.