Justice Quotes

"Distributive justice cannot require continuous interference with people's lives and choices."

"Historical entitlement determines what distribution of holdings is just."

"The rights of individuals cannot be overridden for the greater social good."

"Legitimate holdings arise through just acquisition, just transfer, and rectification of injustice."

"Redistributive schemes treat people as means to social ends rather than ends in themselves."

"The entitlement theory of justice focuses on how holdings come to be rather than their pattern."

"Justice in acquisition depends on whether resources were previously unowned."

"The existence of self-ownership makes redistribution morally problematic."

"Rectifying past injustices is necessary for a just distribution."

"Just holdings depend on how they are acquired and transferred, not their final pattern."

"Violations of rights cannot be justified by appeals to social welfare."

"The entitlement theory rejects end-patterned and historical principles of distribution."

"The question of legitimate distribution is fundamentally a question about rights."

"Justice emerges from respecting the inviolable rights of all individuals equally."

"We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant."

"Justice is not about equality of outcome; it is about equality of opportunity and fair process."

"Justice requires seeing the other in their otherness."

"The basic structure of society shapes the life prospects of individuals from the start."

"The difference principle permits inequalities only when they benefit the least advantaged members of society."

"A just society protects the fundamental interests that reasonable citizens have in maintaining their status as free and equal persons."

"The right is prior to the good; justice cannot be sacrificed for efficiency or aggregate welfare."

"Justice requires that institutions be arranged to benefit the least advantaged, not merely the average citizen."

"Justice cannot be understood merely as efficiency or utility maximization; it requires fairness in the distribution of benefits and burdens."

"In a just society, the distribution of natural talents and abilities is neither just nor unjust; what matters is how institutions respond to it."

"The basic structure operates as a background justice that sets the framework for all other institutions."

"Justice requires that inequalities in wealth serve to improve the situation of those who are least well off."

"Justice requires that the basic structure be designed to serve the interests of all citizens, not merely the privileged few."

"A just society protects not only individual rights but also the conditions necessary for the development of human capacities."

"The basic structure shapes citizens' life prospects so fundamentally that it must be designed with special care."

"The principles of justice apply first and foremost to the basic structure of society, not to individual transactions."