Editing Justice (section)

===Distributive justice===
{{Main|Distributive justice}}
[[File:VD-04-3.jpg|thumb|{{Lang|la|Lex, justitia, pax}} ([[Latin]] for "Law, justice, peace") on the pediment of the [[Federal Supreme Court of Switzerland|Supreme Court of Switzerland]]]]
Theories of distributive justice need to answer three questions:{{cn|date=February 2025}}
# ''What goods'' are to be distributed? Is it to be wealth, [[Political power|power]], [[respect]], opportunities or some combination of these things?
# ''Between what entities'' are they to be distributed? Humans (dead, living, future), [[Sentience|sentient]] beings, the members of a single society, nations?
# What is the ''proper'' distribution? Equal, [[Meritocracy|meritocratic]], according to [[social status]], according to [[need]], based on property rights and non-aggression?

Distributive justice theorists generally do not answer questions of ''who has the right'' to enforce a particular favored distribution, while property rights theorists say that there is no "favored distribution". Rather, distribution should be based simply on whatever distribution results from lawful interactions or transactions (that is, transactions which are not illicit).{{cn|date=February 2025}}

====Fairness====
{{More citations needed|date=February 2018}}
[[File:Justice statue.jpg|thumb|J. L. Urban, statue of [[Lady Justice]] at court building in [[Olomouc]], Czech Republic]]
{{Main|Right to a fair trial|}}

In his ''[[A Theory of Justice]]'', [[John Rawls]] used a [[social contract]] argument to show that justice, and especially distributive justice, is a form of fairness: an impartial distribution of goods.{{cn|date=February 2025}} Rawls asks us to imagine ourselves behind a [[veil of ignorance]] that denies us all knowledge of our personalities, social statuses, moral characters, wealth, talents and life plans, and then asks what theory of justice we would choose to govern our society when the veil is lifted, if we wanted to do the best that we could for ourselves.{{cn|date=February 2025}} We do not know who in particular we are, and therefore can not bias the decision in our own favor. So, the decision-in-ignorance models fairness, because it excludes selfish [[bias]].{{cn|date=February 2025}} Rawls said that each of us would reject the [[utilitarianism|utilitarian]] theory of justice that we should maximize welfare (see above) because of the risk that we might turn out to be someone whose own good is sacrificed for greater benefits for others. Instead, we would endorse Rawls's ''two principles of justice'':
* Each person is to have an equal right to the most extensive total system of equal basic liberties compatible with a similar system of liberty for all.
* Social and economic inequalities are to be arranged so that they are both
** to the greatest benefit of the least advantaged, consistent with the just savings principle, and
** attached to offices and positions open to all under conditions of fair equality of opportunity.{{sfn|Rawls|1999|p=266}}

This imagined choice justifies these principles as the principles of justice for us, because we would agree to them in a fair decision procedure. Rawls's theory distinguishes two kinds of goods – [[Freedom (political)|the good of liberty rights]] and social and economic goods, i.e. wealth, income, and power – and applies different distributions to them – equality between citizens for liberty rights and equality unless inequality improves the position of the worst off for social and economic goods.{{cn|date=February 2025}}

In one sense, theories of distributive justice may assert that everyone should get what they deserve. Theories vary on the meaning of what is "deserved". The main distinction is between theories that say the basis of just deserts ought to be held equally by everyone, and therefore derive egalitarian accounts of distributive justice – and theories that say the basis of just deserts is unequally distributed on the basis of, for instance, hard work, and therefore derive accounts of distributive justice by which some should have more than others.{{cn|date=February 2025}}

Studies at [[University of California, Los Angeles|UCLA]] in 2008 have indicated that reactions to fairness are "wired" into the brain and that, "Fairness is activating the same part of the brain that responds to food in rats... This is consistent with the notion that being treated fairly satisfies a basic need".<ref>{{cite news |url=http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/brain-reacts-to-fairness-as-it-49042.aspx?link_page_rss=49042 |title=Brain reacts to fairness as it does to money and chocolate, study shows |work=UCLA Newsroom |publisher=[[UCLA]] |date=21 April 2008 |access-date=15 January 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100226000010/http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/brain-reacts-to-fairness-as-it-49042.aspx?link_page_rss=49042 |archive-date=26 February 2010 |url-status=dead}}</ref> Research conducted in 2003 at [[Emory University]] involving capuchin monkeys demonstrated that other cooperative animals also possess such a sense and that "[[inequity aversion]] may [[inequity aversion in animals|not be]] uniquely human".<ref>Nature 425, 297–299 (18 September 2003)</ref>{{full citation needed|date=February 2025}}

====Property rights====
{{further|Libertarianism|Entitlement theory|Constitutional economics}}
{{Unreferenced section|date=February 2018}}

In ''[[Anarchy, State, and Utopia]]'', [[Robert Nozick]] said that distributive justice is not a matter of the whole distribution matching an ideal ''pattern'', but of each [[Entitlement theory|individual entitlement]] having the right kind of ''history''.{{cn|date=February 2025}} It is just that a person has some good (especially, some [[Property rights|property right]]) if and only if they came to have it by a history made up entirely of events of two kinds:{{cn|date=February 2025}}
* Just ''acquisition'', especially by working on unowned things; and
* Just ''transfer'', that is free gift, sale or other agreement, but not theft (i.e. by force or fraud).

If the chain of events leading up to the person having something meets this criterion, they are entitled to it: that they possess it is just, and what anyone else does or does not have or need is irrelevant.{{cn|date=February 2025}}

On the basis of this theory of distributive justice, Nozick said that all attempts to redistribute goods according to an ideal pattern, without the consent of their owners, are theft. In particular, [[redistribution (economics)|redistributive taxation]] is theft.{{cn|date=February 2025}}

Some property rights theorists (such as Nozick) also take a consequentialist view of distributive justice and say that property rights based justice also has the effect of maximizing the overall wealth of an economic system. They explain that voluntary (non-coerced) transactions always have a property called [[Pareto efficiency]]. The result is that the world is better off in an absolute sense and no one is worse off.{{cn|date=February 2025}} They say that respecting property rights maximizes the number of Pareto efficient transactions in the world and minimized the number of non-Pareto efficient transactions in the world (i.e. transactions where someone is made worse off). The result is that the world will have generated the greatest total benefit from the limited, scarce resources available in the world. Further, this will have been accomplished without taking anything away from anyone unlawfully.{{cn|date=February 2025}}

====Meritocracy====
According to ''[[Meritocracy|meritocratic]]'' theories, goods, especially wealth and [[social status]], should be distributed to match individual ''merit'', which is usually understood as some combination of talent and hard work. According to ''[[need]]s''-based theories, goods, especially such basic goods as food, shelter, and medical care, should be distributed to meet individuals' [[basic needs]] for them.{{cn|date=February 2025}} According to ''contribution''-based theories, goods should be distributed to match an individual's contribution to the overall social good.{{cn|date=February 2025}}