Justice Quotes

"Great evils come from ordinary people doing ordinary things."

"The other is always calling us toward responsibility."

"Justice cannot be calculated or programmed."

"The law must continually justify itself."

"Justice is the encounter with absolute alterity."

"The exchange of equivalents masks the theft of meaning in modern society."

"Solidarity that does not acknowledge its own complicity is merely sentiment."

"Justice is not about equality but about creating new possibilities for all."

"Legitimacy and legality are not identical."

"Formal legality can conceal profound injustice."

"The question of legitimacy is prior to all other legal questions."

"The majority does not determine legitimacy."

"The question of legitimacy precedes all constitutionalism."

"Identity thinking—the identification of the non-identical—is the root of domination."

"Suffering demands that truth be thought, not merely transmitted as data."

"The exchange of equivalents conceals the non-equivalence at its foundation."

"Legitimacy in modern societies must be grounded in procedures that allow all affected parties to have their voices heard."

"Discourse ethics suggests that valid norms are those all affected could accept through rational argumentation."

"The universality of human rights cannot be grounded in any particular cultural tradition but only in rational consensus."

"A just society requires institutions that protect both individual freedom and the conditions for collective self-determination."

"Systemic inequalities cannot be overcome through individual good will alone but require institutional transformation."

"The legitimacy of legal systems depends ultimately on whether they can be justified to all citizens as fair and rational."

"Rights are meaningful only when backed by institutional structures and the political will to enforce them."

"Justice emerges from the ability of affected parties to contest decisions and demand reasons for their legitimacy."

"The more unjust a society is, the more unjust its law becomes."

"Injustice, poverty, slavery and the congenital human miseries do not come from God but from the failure to distribute resources justly."

"A man may be said to have a right to life only insofar as he does not infringe on the rights of others."

"The only way to live a good life is to act justly."

"The state may not use its coercive apparatus for the purpose of getting some citizens to aid others."

"Distributive justice concerns the holdings of individuals."