ABSTRACT
Should people who are intelligent, or good looking or naturally charming be allowed to keep whatever they gain from their exploitation of those natural attributes? Should people be free to pass on their material gains to whoever they choose? If it is a good thing for parents to care about their children, then why should they not be allowed to benefit them? These questions go to the heart of debates about distributive – or ‘social’ – justice. Distributive justice is concerned with the fair – or ‘just’ – distribution of resources. In the early modern period, the focus was on property rights as the moral basis for the distribution of resources, and justifications for the state – that is, individuals’ obligations to obey the state – were often grounded in the role the state played in protecting those rights. In this chapter we concentrate on contemporary theories of justice, in which private property rights are often regarded as problematic – although one of the three theories discussed is a contemporary restatement and defence of strong private property rights.
