Abstract

This essay explores the idea of the just which allowed Ricoeur to move beyond and expand the “little ethics” presented in Oneself as Another . One key development is that he moves beyond the idea of solicitude as a kind of benevolent spontaneity on the basis of the insight that not all intersubjective relations are face-to-face. This recognition that who the other is can be important allows him to show why the just is a notion that explicitly arises at the level of the distant and often anonymous other, which is that of social and political institutions where the question of justice rather than friendship is central. Another related development is that the idea of reciprocity is shown still to fall short of truly mutual recognition. Pursuing a just solution to social problems leads to the question of a limited but bounded pluralism and a concomitant role for tolerance at the level of society and politics.