The Elements of JusticeWhat is justice? Questions of justice are questions about what people are due. However, what that means in practice depends on the context in which the question is raised. Depending on context, the formal question of what people are due is answered by principles of desert, reciprocity, equality, or need. Justice, therefore, is a constellation of elements that exhibit a degree of integration and unity. Nonetheless, the integrity of justice is limited, in a way that is akin to the integrity of a neighborhood rather than that of a building. A theory of justice offers individuals a map of that neighborhood, within which they can explore just what elements amount to justice. |
What people are saying - Write a review
Review: Elements of Justice
User Review - GoodreadsThe Elements of Justice by David Schmidtz (2006) Read full review
Contents
| 3 | |
| 7 | |
| 13 | |
| 17 | |
| 21 | |
| 31 | |
| 34 | |
| 40 | |
Does Equal Treatment Imply Equal Shares? | 109 |
20 | 114 |
21 | 120 |
22 | 126 |
23 | 140 |
24 | 150 |
Need | 161 |
Hierarchies of Need | 163 |
| 50 | |
| 55 | |
| 62 | |
| 66 | |
| 73 | |
| 75 | |
| 82 | |
| 90 | |
| 94 | |
| 107 | |
27 | 166 |
28 | 170 |
What Do We Need? | 177 |
Intellectual Debts | 183 |
Rawls | 185 |
32 | 198 |
33 | 208 |
34 | 216 |
35 | 220 |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
Ackerman answer arbitrary argument bargainers basic structure Becker better bottom quintile Cohen conception ofjustice context David Miller debt desert claims deserves a chance difference principle distribute according dojustice earned egalitarian element entitlement equal shares example fact fair favor G. A. Cohen give Gottschalk and Danziger household income idea ifJane ifwe inequality inputs institutional intuition Jane John Rawls justice least advantaged less liberal liberty live look luck marginal utility matter meritocracy Michelangelo moral Nozick numbers ofwhat opportunity original position pattern people’s person pluralistic theory principles of desert principles ofjustice problem question Rachels Rawls says Rawls’s reason redistribution respect reward rich Robert Nozick rules Ryan self-ownership sense settle society someone Suppose talents theory ofjustice Thesis thing Thomas Edison thought experiment top quintile transitive reciprocity treat U.S. Census Bureau unequal utilitarian virtue Wilt Wilt Chamberlain Wilt’s wrong
Popular passages
Page 5 - Consider for example the proceedings that we call "games." I mean boardgames, card-games, ball-games, Olympic games, and so on. What is common to them all? — Don't say: 'There must be something common, or they would not be called 'games'" — but look and see whether there is anything common to all. — For if you look at them you will not see something that is common to all, but similarities, relationships, and a whole series of them at that.
Page 132 - Suppose some of the people in your neighborhood (there are 364 other adults) have found a public address system and decide to institute a system of public entertainment. They post a list of names, one for each day, yours among them. On his assigned day (one can easily switch days) a person is to run the public address system, play records over it, give news bulletins, tell amusing stories he has heard, and so on.
Page 10 - We cannot, in general, assess a conception of justice by its distributive role alone, however useful this role may be in identifying the concept of justice. We must take into account its wider connections; for even though justice has a certain priority, being the most important virtue of institutions, it is still true that, other things equal, one conception of justice is preferable to another when its broader consequences are more desirable.
Page 52 - When a number of flute-players are equal in their art, there is no reason why those of them who are better born should have better flutes given to them; for they will not play any better on the flute, and the superior instrument should be reserved for him who is the superior artist.
Page 8 - Those who hold different conceptions of justice can, then, still agree that institutions are just when no arbitrary distinctions are made between persons in the assigning of basic rights and duties and when the rules determine a proper balance between competing claims to the advantages of social life.
Bibliographic information
| Title | The Elements of Justice |
| Author | David Schmidtz |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press, 2006 |
| ISBN | 1139452037, 9781139452038 |
| Subjects | › History / Social History Law / Jurisprudence Philosophy / Political Political Science / History & Theory |
| Export Citation | BiBTeX EndNote RefMan |