The Nature of Political Theory

136 The Nature of Political Theory

Notes

1. Interestingly it may well be that the concept of deliberative democracy is now becoming
   the modish concept taking over the baton from justice.


2. As Aristotle noted ‘Justice is perfect virtue because it practices perfect virtue’, Aristotle
   (1966: 141).


3. This can be seen within his definition of justice: ‘everyone ought to perform the one
   function in the community for which his nature suited him’, Plato (1948: 127).


4. Barry, in putting forward this idea, claims to ‘draw upon ordinary beliefs critically and
   selectively, employing a general theory of justice as a touchstone’ (Barry 1995: 10).


5. For Aristotle, distributive justice concerns the sharing or apportioning of honours and
   goods. It aims to give to each member of a community a share proportionate to their
   merit. If a person is not equal (with regard to ‘merit’) they should not receive equal shares.
   One cannot distribute equally to the unequal (treat like cases alike)—flutes can only be
   given to those who can play the flute. Aristotle calls this ‘geometric proportion’. The other
   species is corrective justice. This applies to regulating loss or gain; subdivided between
   commutative and judicial justice. Commutative determines the relations of economic or
   contractual exchanges according to some standard. Judicial seeks to make a standard prevail
   in legal disputes proportioning punishments to crimes.


6. Another way in which distributive and proceduralist theories of justice might be typolo-
   gized is in terms of ‘conditions’ and ‘outcomes’ orientations. Although the fit is not perfect;
   many distributive theories have traditionally argued that justice is concerned with fairness
   of outcomes. Proceduralists, on the other hand, have been concerned with fair conditions
   (like the general application of the rule of law or equality of opportunity) for individuals.
   Characteristically, though, proceduralists have not regarded unequal outcomes of human
   exchange and interaction as evidence for injustice.


7. Rationality can be understood as the most efficient manner of achieving satisfaction of
   interests or preferences, weighing up costs and benefits; alternatively, it could imply
   the capacity to universalize one’s judgements (universalizability), thus to be neutral and
   impartial; or, it could imply that one acts for the highest good of all human beings.


8. For David Hume, for example, individuals realize that rules of justice which secure
   stability and property are ultimately in their own self-interest. He remarked ‘To the
   imposition...and observance of these rules, both in general, and in particular, they
   [human beings] are first induced only by a regard to interest...Thus self-interest is the
   original motive to the establishment of justice’, see David Hume (1981: 499).


9. Robert Nozick describes his own theory as distributive, but it is an ‘unpatterned’
   distribution with no direct or intentional human intervention.


10. As David Miller puts it: ‘A just state of affairs is that in which each individual has exactly
    those benefits and burdens which are due to him’, see Miller (1979: 20).


11. As John Rawls notes ‘A social ideal...is connected with a conception of society, a vision of
    the way in which the aims and purposes of social cooperation are to be understood. The
    various conceptions of justice are the outgrowth of different notions of society, against
    the background of opposing views of natural necessities and opportunities of human life’,
    Rawls (1971: 9).


12. I am not suggesting that needisdefinitely an empirical claim, but rather that part of its
    initial appeal and force in argument has been its empirical ‘tag’, see Chapter Five, ‘The
    Claim of Need and Politics’ in Raymond Plant (1991).