Introduction

Summary

The proposal I make in this book is that the perennial quest for justice is about making sure each individual has an appropriate place in what our uniquely human capacities permit us to build, produce, and maintain, and that each individual is respected appropriately for their capacities to hold such a place to begin with. Following a distinction that goes back to Aristotle, under this umbrella we later distinguish commutative from distributive justice. The former maintains and restores an earlier status quo that set the stage for the interaction or otherwise responds to violations. The latter is concerned with sharing out whatever a community holds in common.