Sublime

is Husak

To ask whether a society is just is to ask how it distributes the things we prize—income and wealth, duties and rights, powers and opportunities, offices and honors. A just society distributes these goods in the right way; it gives each person his or her due. The hard questions begin when we ask what people are due, and why.

Rawls accepted the possibility of thickly constituted, morally encumbered selves. But he insisted that such loyalties and attachments should have no bearing on our identity as citizens. In debating justice and rights, we should set aside our personal moral and religious convictions and argue from the standpoint of a “political conception of the per

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The public-interest standard is more than a legal principle. It’s an ethical principle. It ensures the people’s right to have a say in the workings of the institutions and systems that shape their lives, a right fundamental to a true democracy and a just society. The vagueness of the standard is necessary for a simple reason: in a pluralistic socie

Aristotle says that good lawgivers have shown more concern for friendship than for justice.

On pourrait même soutenir que l’inculcation de la responsabilité est l’objectif principal de la société. Mais quelque chose a mal tourné. Nous avons commis une erreur. Voire une série d’erreurs. Nous avons passé trop de temps, par exemple (une grande partie de ces cinquante dernières années), à réclamer des droits, sans, en retour, demander suffisa