ABSTRACT
This chapter provides brief introductions to the problem of justice as it is characterized by liberal theorists and the solution offered by justice as impartiality. It proposes 'an alternative liberal theory' that is based explicitly on a concept of the good or of human well-being, a suitably thin concept, formed in the light of liberal principles and values and designed to secure the interests of individuals. The problem of justice is that of finding rules that can govern cooperation and determine the distribution of the benefits and burdens that result from it given agents who profoundly but reasonably disagree in their conceptions of the good. Impartialist theory is concerned that the account of justice that it offers is not meant to replace morality. Justice is part of morality but it is neither the whole of, nor a substitute for, it. The criminal law is probably the area most closely associated in ordinary language with issues of justice.
