Distributive Justice

Abstract

Abstract This chapter examines the connection between corrective justice and distributive justice. These are categorically different structural ideas that cannot directly be integrated into a single overarching structure. Nonetheless, they participate in a distinctive kind of unity that consists in a conceptual sequence in which each stage presupposes and complements the preceding one. Thematic is the reciprocal independence of all persons, which is grounded in Kant’s notion of innate right. Innate right persists throughout the sequence, underlying the relationships of both private law and public law, and surfacing in contemporary jurisprudence as human dignity. By making the exclusivity of ownership legally effective, the state creates the possibility of threats to the independence of those whose action is confined to what is unowned by others. Subjection to another’s will is then not identical with injustice under corrective justice, and being able to make one’s way as an independent person cannot be assured by private law alone. Through arrangements of distributive justice (such as workers’ compensation, social insurance, provision of a social minimum, and automobile compensation systems), the state legislates to address this state-created consequence of the system of rights.