ABSTRACT
This chapter shows why there is a problem in talking about distributive justice in most contemporary societies, cultures, and religious traditions. It demonstrates how the beliefs and practices encouraged by many religious traditions point out the need, the demand, and the opportunities for just allocations of the benefits and burdens of lives knit together by resources and services known as social goods. The chapter suggests how, through scholarship, interreligious conversations, and practical programs, peoples of the world might make their own context-dependent expressions of distributive justice more widely intelligible and effective. Distributive justice as defined above has long been at least an implicit concern of the world's major religions. The chapter highlights two suggestions that might help people find ways to justly apportion the benefits and burdens of social goods in their communities. It offers some reasons why distributive justice should be a more preeminent consideration in comparative religious ethics and interreligious dialogues.
