ABSTRACT
Speaking of justice surely invokes the idea of equality; but the kind of equality implied in justice is less clear. The attitude appropriate to justice entails regard for others; and the institutions of justice embody the ideal also embodied in that attitude. Justice institutes the idea of a bounded self. The bounded self depends on the achievement of what has been termed unit status. Achieving justice means organizing institutions to achieve a normative end. The problem of justice is sometimes formulated as the problem of dealing with conflict of interests. The history of political economy is in many ways a history of an idea about self-interest. This is the idea that the social order is, or could be, a system of private persons each pursuing his or her unique particular interests. Talk of the public interest invokes a public subject: the whole, or the community, as subject.
