The Background of Application

Abstract

What is the practical relevance of the discussion of social justice? Presumably, if what philosophers discuss is of any use, it must connect or inform the political practice of democratic societies. The intention to normatively guide the intervention on social institutions is what drives any reflection on justice. The application of justice makes it necessary for normatively justified criteria to be adjusted according to the requirements imposed by the social conditions to which they will be applied. For this reason I have affirmed that a critical hermeneutics or reflective equilibrium can be a suitable path to process the necessary assessments to determine how to translate normative criteria into social reality. The scope and specification of these criteria will always be subject to an interpretation in which citizens and practitioners share a background of application, one constituted by values and normative concepts that specify and adjust to local circumstances the application of the justified normative criteria1 in order to ensure reciprocal recognition autonomy. However, this interpretation and subsequent application may reveal a significant difficulty for justice: the reification of principles, models and normative criteria of justice. This reification means that the process would lose sensitivity to diversity, to the variability of the circumstances of application or to historical variations.