Justice and Equality
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Description
Since the earliest philosophical reflection on the concept of justice and its place in political and social discourse, justice has been supposed to involve or implicate the idea of equality; and, this view of the concept has, despite dramatic shifts in the substantive interpretation of what equality is or should be, remained a perennial constant of serious self-conscious discourse and debate about justice. In this essay, I try to explain the formal idea of justice which appears to unite all serious philosophical reflection on the ideas, and then to focus on two levels of disagreement about how the underlying idea of equality should be interpreted – first, the level of common-sense criteria (like need, merit, rights, or the like), and second, the level of fundamental moral principles (utilitarianism, Kantian mutual respect, and the like). Finally, I turn to the implications of these philosophical disagreements for the understanding of various substantive controversies over issues of justice, for example, distributive justice of basic goods and resources, the liberal priority of free speech and personal autonomy, and the retributive justice of punishment.
Source Publication
And Justice for All: New Introductory Essays in Ethics and Public Policy
Source Editors/Authors
Tom Regan, Donald VanDe Veer
Publication Date
1982
Recommended Citation
Richards, David A. J., "Justice and Equality" (1982). Faculty Chapters. 1926.
https://gretchen.law.nyu.edu/fac-chapt/1926
