ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the nature and scope of distributive justice. It argues that an egalitarian principle of justice can be derived as an abstract distributive ideal if the principle of respect for persons is combined with a neo-Aristotelian theory of persons. In A Theory of Justice John Rawls claims that the circumstances of justice are the normal conditions under which human cooperation is both possible and necessary. The chapter outlines four contingent aspects of the world for which distributive principles are to be framed. If the principle of respect for persons is combined with the flourishing principle, then the ‘principle of equal well-being’ is generated. The easiest mode of implementation would be for the regulative ideal of equality to operate as a concrete distributive principle at all levels of distribution in society; i.e. the most obvious mode of implementation would be for all goods to be distributed according to egalitarian principles.
