Abstract

In the development of modern political philosophy from Hobbes to Kant it emerges an answer to the question "What is right?", which puts the concept of liberty as the basis for building the relationship between State and Law. Thus the concept of liberty replaces the question on justice which connotes a long tradition - from Plato to Aristotle, to Aquinas - dealing with the behaviour of men and their life in the community. The problem of justice re-emerges in the 19th century in the claim of social justice within and beyond the "Rechtsstaat" and in recent debates raised by Rawls.