On Justice in Society [antikvár]

Introduction'Injustice arises when equals are treated unequally, and also when unequals are treated equally.'' What is the connexion between justice and equality and what sort of differences justify differential treatment? These are the principal problems which I set out to explore in this book.I find it necessary to distinguish between formal and substantive justice. Formally, justice consists in the ordering of human relations in accordance with general principles impartially applied. But, as critics of Kantian ethics have taught us, we cannot deduce from the formal character of a rule or norm what the rule should be. The statement that equals should be treated equally and unequals unequally throws no light on what is to be done by, to, or for equals and unequals. To answer these questions we have to talce into consideration the ends or purposes of action and the claims and obligations connected with them. In other words, in order to discover the content or substance of justice it is necessary to establish a body of rights and duties and to examine them in the light of the formal principle of equality, the aim being to exclude every form of discrimination not justified by relevant differences.In developing my argument I have adopted the following procedure. In the first chapter I set out briefly the ethical theory which is to form the basis of my discussion. In this I have been guided by the rationalist tradition in ethics. In other words, I take moral judgements to be neither expletives, nor commands, nor irrational commitments, but genuine judgements in the sense that they are capable of being true or false and that, like other judgements, they are subject to rational tests, such as consistency and coherence.1. Aristotle, following Plato, Laws, bk v i, p. 757.