Justice - Theories of Distributive Justice

Theories of Distributive Justice

Main article: Distributive justice

Theories of distributive justice need to answer three questions:

  1. What goods are to be distributed? Is it to be wealth, power, respect, some combination of these things?
  2. Between what entities are they to be distributed? Humans (dead, living, future), sentient beings, the members of a single society, nations?
  3. What is the proper distribution? Equal, meritocratic, according to social status, according to need, based on property rights and non-aggression?

Distributive justice theorists generally do not answer questions of who has the right to enforce a particular favored distribution. On the other hand, property rights theorists argue that there is no "favored distribution." Rather, distribution should be based simply on whatever distribution results from non-coerced interactions or transactions (that is, transactions not based upon force or fraud).

This section describes some widely held theories of distributive justice, and their attempts to answer these questions.

Read more about this topic:  Justice

Famous quotes containing the words theories of, theories and/or justice:

    “Theories of child development and guidelines for parents are not cast in stone. They are constantly changing and adapting to new information and new pressures. There is no “right” way, just as there are no magic incantations that will always painlessly resolve a child’s problems.”
    —Lawrence Kutner (20th century)

    “Generalisation is necessary to the advancement of knowledge; but particularly is indispensable to the creations of the imagination. In proportion as men know more and think more they look less at individuals and more at classes. They therefore make better theories and worse poems.”
    —Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859)

    “The doctrine of equality!... But there exists no more poisonous poison: for it seems to be preached by justice itself, while it is the end of justice.... “Equality for equals, inequality for unequals”Mthat would be the true voice of justice: and, what follows from it, “Never make equal what is unequal.””
    —Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)