Review Justice as friendship: A theory of law Seow Hon Tan Ashgate, Farnham, 2015, xvii+188pp., ISBN: 978-1472429971 Contemporary Political Theory (2016) 15, e32–e35. doi:10.1057/s41296-016-0017-7; published online 8 August 2016 Aristotle famously made a connection between friendship and justice by claiming that ‘they have the same area of concern and are found in the same people’ (Aristotle 1159b25). Justice as Friendship (henceforth JAF) is a sustained and detailed re-examination of this relationship under the contemporary conditions of pluralism and the need for a justification for law. JAF’s thesis is that friendship provides the model for understanding just relations in law. Importantly, three claims are advanced: first, that law needs to be justified by morality; second, that both friendship and justice are concerned with how people ought to treat each other; and third, that friendship shows how we can have obligations to others simply as a result of being in relation to them. Thus, whilst JAF is intended to contribute to the theory of law, it will also be of interest to political theorists and those researching friendship. The extent to which law can be founded on, and must take cognisance of, a particular conception of morality has significant overlap with discussions which have taken place in Anglo-American political theory. The root problem is one which theorists have grappled with since Rawls’ A Theory of Justice. Indeed, the title of JAF recalls Rawls’ seminal contribution to political theory: justice as fairness. This problem takes the following form: given the fact of moral pluralism, what (if anything) can underpin politics (generally), and a theory of justice (specifically)? JAF discusses this problem in relation to the underpinnings of law in general, rejecting three possible approaches to this question. First, a purely descriptive approach to law such as Hart’s is rejected. Such accounts not only describe the mechanisms of making law, but in so doing they determine those who have legitimacy to do so. Their description slips into normativity. Second, the ‘the priority of the right over the good’ as proposed by Rawls is examined. This relies on a demarcation between the good and the right. Rawls’ approach is rejected as what is admitted as ‘reasonable’ in the thin overlapping consensus is regulated by a comprehensive liberal doctrine, a doctrine which itself is in need of justification. Thus, the right and the good are not demarcated, and Rawls’ project is found to be political. Finally, the approach of Critical Legal Studies is rejected. This approach Ó 2016 Macmillan Publishers Ltd. 1470-8914 Contemporary Political Theory Vol. 15, 4, e32–e35 www.palgrave.com/journals