Justice: What's the Right Thing to Do

by Michael J. Sandel

To ask whether a society is just is to ask how it distributes the things we prize—income and wealth, duties and rights, powers and opportunities, offices and honors. A just society distributes these goods in the right way; it gives each person his or her due. The hard questions begin when we ask what people are due, and why. We’ve already begun to wrestle with these questions. As we’ve pondered the rights and wrongs of price gouging, competing claims to the Purple Heart, and financial bailouts, we’ve identified three ways of approaching the distribution of goods: welfare, freedom, and virtue. Each of these ideals suggests a different way of thinking about justice.