Justice
fairness
Giving each what is due — the Roman formula, suum cuique tribuere. Every substantive dispute is about what determines the due: merit, need, agreement, entitlement by history, or the outcome parties would accept without knowing their own position.
In practice
Two partners split a firm they built unequally. One argues from hours worked, one from capital risked, one could argue from need. All three are principles of justice and they give different answers, which is why the dispute is not resolvable by being fairer.
The common mistake
Treating justice as a single standard about which people disagree, rather than several incompatible standards each of which is coherent. Nozick's point against Rawls is not that Rawls is unfair; it is that any patterned principle requires continuous interference to maintain.
Everyone agrees justice means each getting what is due. The agreement is empty, because the whole question is what fixes the due — and the available answers are mutually exclusive rather than differently emphasised.
The classical accounts
Plato's Republic opens with Thrasymachus asserting that justice is simply the advantage of the stronger, and the rest of the dialogue is the answer. Socrates' account is structural: justice is each part performing its own function and not another's, in the city and in the soul alike (IV, 433a–b). Aristotle divided it more usefully. Distributive justice allocates goods in geometric proportion to merit; corrective justice restores an arithmetic equality disturbed by a wrongAristotle, Nicomachean Ethics V.3–4. The distinction matters because the two use different mathematics: distribution is proportional and so depends on a contested criterion of desert, whereas rectification simply restores the prior balance and is indifferent to the parties' merits. — and the second, unlike the first, does not require agreement about desert. Ulpian's formula, preserved in Justinian's Institutes (533), gave the tradition its definition, and Aquinas made justice the habit of rendering to each his right (Summa Theologiae II-II q. 58).
Hume (1740) introduced a different kind of account. Justice is an artificial virtue: it arises from convention under conditions of moderate scarcity and limited generosity, and would be pointless under either abundance or universal benevolence. Its authority is conventional, which does not make it weak — it makes it contingent on circumstances that can change.
Rawls and Nozick
John Rawls (1971) reframed the modern debate. Principles of justice are those that would be chosen behind a veil of ignoranceRawls, J. (1971). A Theory of Justice. Harvard University Press. Parties in the original position know general facts but not their own class, talents, conception of the good or generation. Rawls argues they would choose equal basic liberties, and permit inequalities only where attached to positions open to all and working to the benefit of the least advantaged — the difference principle., where no one knows their own class, talents or conception of the good. He argues this yields equal basic liberties plus the difference principle: inequalities are permissible only insofar as they improve the position of the worst off.
Robert Nozick (1974) rejected the whole approach. Justice is historical rather than patterned: a distribution is just if it arose from just acquisition and just transfer, whatever shape it has. His Wilt Chamberlain argument is the decisive move — start from any distribution you consider just, let a million people each freely pay a small premium to watch one man play, and the pattern is destroyed by nothing but voluntary exchange. Any principle that specifies an end-state therefore requires continuous interference with people's liberty to maintain it.
The objections to the frame itself
Amartya Sen (2009) attacks both sides for what he calls transcendental institutionalism — the project of specifying perfectly just institutions. We rarely need to know what perfect justice looks like, and we routinely need to know whether one arrangement is less unjust than another; the comparative question is answerable and the transcendental one may not be. Michael Walzer (1983) argues there is no single currency: different goods belong to different spheres with their own distributive logics, and injustice is the conversion of advantage in one sphere into advantage in another. Alasdair MacIntyre (1988) makes the historicist objection — competing conceptions of justice belong to rival traditions with their own standards of rationality, so the dispute cannot be settled from a neutral position.
The Hebrew scriptures contribute a pairing the Greek accounts do not have. Mishpat, judgement according to right, appears constantly alongside tsedaqah, righteousness — a relational rather than proportional notion, obliging action toward the widow, orphan and stranger without reference to desert. That combination is the origin of most Western arguments that justice includes provision rather than only non-interference.
What it rules out
It rules out 'be fair' as a decision procedure, since the competing principles are each coherent and give different answers. It rules out reading an unequal outcome as unjust without an account of how it arose — that is Nozick's point. And it rules out reading a just procedure as sufficient without regard to what it produces, which is Rawls's.
It does not rule out judgement. Sen's argument is that comparative judgements are both available and usually the ones actually required, so the absence of a complete theory is not a reason for paralysis.
Sources
Aquinas, T. (c. 1270). Summa Theologiae II-II, q. 58. · Aristotle. Nicomachean Ethics V. · Hume, D. (1740). A Treatise of Human Nature III.2. · Justinian (533). Institutes I.1. · MacIntyre, A. (1988). Whose Justice? Which Rationality? Notre Dame. · Nozick, R. (1974). Anarchy, State, and Utopia. Basic Books. · Plato. Republic I and IV. · Rawls, J. (1971). A Theory of Justice. Harvard University Press. · Sen, A. (2009). The Idea of Justice. Allen Lane. · Walzer, M. (1983). Spheres of Justice. Basic Books.
Concept web
Open the full webQuestions
What is justice?
Giving each what is due — the Roman formula suum cuique tribuere. The substantive question is what fixes the due: merit, need, agreement, historical entitlement, or what parties would accept without knowing their own position.
What is the difference between distributive and corrective justice?
Aristotle's distinction in Nicomachean Ethics V. Distributive justice allocates goods in proportion to merit and so depends on a contested criterion; corrective justice restores an equality disturbed by a wrong and is indifferent to the parties' merits.
What is Rawls's veil of ignorance?
A device for choosing principles of justice without knowing your own class, talents or conception of the good. Rawls (1971) argued it yields equal basic liberties plus the difference principle — inequalities permitted only where they improve the position of the worst off.
What is Nozick's objection to Rawls?
That justice is historical, not patterned. In the Wilt Chamberlain argument, a distribution you consider just is destroyed by nothing but voluntary exchange — so any end-state principle requires continuous interference with liberty to maintain.
Do we need a complete theory of justice to act?
Sen (2009) argues no. The comparative question — is this arrangement less unjust than that one — is usually the one actually faced, and it is answerable even where the question of perfect justice is not.