Justice, the Basic Structure, and Stability

Abstract

This paper defends the claim that justice applies, and only applies, to people's legally constrained choices. To the extent that a theory of justice applies to, makes requirements to, legally unconstrained choices, the theory is unstable. Prima facie this is a rather restrictive position in the recent debate in Anglo-American political philosophy regarding the appropriate scope of justice — what is it precisely that justice applies to, that is, to what and/or whom does it make requirements? The view does not, however, in fact constitute a narrow scope of justice. If justice is of over-riding importance, and if its stability requires coercion, then it is unclear that any choices of relevance to justice (any acts that have implications for the distribution of benefits and burdens in society) should in fact be left legally unconstrained. So circumscribing justice to coercive institutions does indeed address the choices of relevance to justice, and does so in a determined (and perhaps, at least from a perspective external to justice, unsettling) way.