ABSTRACT
Many interpretations of an equitable distribution have appeared in the works of the writers who have concerned themselves with the issue, and it would be impossible to do full justice to all of them here (or indeed to treat them all equitably). Instead, I concentrate on some of the principal ideas that have attracted recent attention in the economics literature and, through the use of the case implication approach discussed in the previous chapter, show why they do not capture, or at least do not capture fully, the essence of the concept of equity. I call them Economic’ conceptions not only because they are among the principal conceptions used by economists in discussing equity issues, but also because, not coincidentally, they are generally applied in the context of the distribution of economic resources, such as income or wealth.
