Justice Quotes

"Voluntary transactions create just outcomes regardless of final patterns."

"People deserve what they have acquired through legitimate means."

"Individual rights are trumps that defeat appeals to the general good."

"Justice requires respecting how people came to have what they have."

"Rights provide limits that constrain permissible action."

"The entitlement theory of justice focuses on process, not patterns."

"Legitimate holdings come from just acquisition and just transfer."

"Rights constrain not only what the state can do but what anyone can do."

"Aggregate welfare cannot justify violating individual rights."

"A just distribution depends on how people came to have their holdings."

"People have rights that cannot be overridden by utilitarian calculations."

"Redistribution requires justification it cannot provide."

"Justice in holdings requires just steps of acquisition and transfer."

"We must not use some citizens as means to help others."

"Entitlement to holdings comes through just processes."

"Just distribution arises from just individual transactions."

"Patterned principles of justice are unworkable and unjust."

"Holdings obtained justly through voluntary exchange are justly held."

"Justice does not require equalizing material conditions."

"The entitlement conception of justice is superior to patterned views."

"Justice requires respecting how people legitimately acquired their holdings."

"End-state theories of justice ignore morally significant processes."

"Justice is a practice, and practices are historically situated."

"The concept of justice requires a notion of the good life."

"Justice requires not just abstract principles but practical wisdom."

"Justice requires understanding both universal principles and particular circumstances."

"To write is to commit oneself; it is to take a political and moral stance on the world."

"Justice is the first virtue of social institutions, as truth is of systems of thought."

"Each person possesses an inviolability founded on justice that even the welfare of society as a whole cannot override."

"The principles of justice are chosen behind a veil of ignorance."