This book is, in its peculiar way, a theory of justice, or more properly an antitheory of justice. It is an antitheory because it is not abstract. It is about eyes, teeth, hands, and lives. It is an extended gloss on the law of the talion: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, measure for measure. In its biblical formulation, the talion puts the body – lives, eyes, hands, teeth – front and center as the measure of value. True, the body has always provided us – until the metric system relieved it of the task – with feet to measure length, fathoms (the measure of the arms spread out from tip to tip) to measure depth, hands to measure the height of horses, ells (from elbow) to measure cloth, even pinches to measure salt.

But the talion cuts deeper than this. For what it means to do is measure and value us. Thus, it prices John's life as equal to Harry's. Or if Harry is a loser and his life is not quite a life, it might measure John's worth as the sum of Harry's and Pete's. The talion states the value of my eye in terms of your eye, the value of your teeth in terms of my teeth. Eyes and teeth become units of valuation. But the talion doesn't stop there. Horrifically enough, it seems to demand that eyes, teeth, and lives are also to provide the means of payment. Fork over that eye, please.