Justice as Fairness: A Restatement

Defining justice is one of the oldest and thorniest problems in the history of political philosophy. One source of the difficulty is that acting justly depends entirely on circumstances. A brave person always shows courage, and a wise person is always knowledgeable, but a just person always has to strike a balance between competing goods, and so justice manifests itself on a case-by-case basis. King Solomon, the biblical figure most closely associated with justice, famously responds to two women claiming ownership over a baby by ordering the baby to be cut in half, but only because he knows which reaction to anticipate from the real mother. It is hardly a template for just behavior in other situations. Another challenge is that justice is distinct in its applications to an individual as opposed to a community. Unlike virtues such as courage or wisdom, which a community may boast so long as enough individuals exhibit its qualities, the community as a whole must exercise judgment on matters that, at least under a centralized legal system, it does not extend to the individual. A person may be fair or prudent in their treatment of their fellow human beings, but it is normally not their purview to punish crimes or resolve legal disputes.