Why justice matters

Discusses the requirements of a robust theory of social justice, using john Rawls concept of ‘reasonable overlapping consensus’ and the ‘objective and subjective circumstances of justice’. But I deviate from Rawls’ implicit dependence of a pluralistic theory of power in real-existing capitalism., focusing on the objective circumstances of systemic inequalities of opportunities, outcomes and power in real-exiting liberal democracies. The chapter then develops ‘the ontology of time’ and the chronic lack of knowledge about the future. The distinction between risk and uncertainty, drawn by both Maynard Keynes and Chicago economist Frank Knight early in the twentieth century, is central to the arguments developed throughout the book. The concept of ‘economic (distributional) justice’ and its waxing, waning and waxing again is discussed, following work by the Canadian political philosopher C. B. Macpherson. The chapter concludes by listing the requirements of a ‘robust’ theory of justice in the context of the circumstances of justice previously articulated.